44 | JULY 7 • 2022

university studies, I listened to
the BBC Reith Lectures, given
that year by Edmond Leach,
professor of anthropology at
Cambridge, with their opening
sentences, “Men have become
like gods. Isn’t it about time that
we understood our divinity?”
I recall that as soon as I heard
those words, I sensed that
something was going wrong in
Western civilization. We are not
gods, and bad things happened
when people thought they were.
Meanwhile, paradoxically,
the greater our powers, the
lower our estimate of the human
person. In his novel Zadig,
Voltaire described humans as
“insects devouring one another
on a little atom of mud.
” The
late Stephen Hawking stated
that “the human race is just a
chemical scum on a moder-
ate-size planet, orbiting round
a very average star in the outer
suburb of one among a billion
galaxies.
” The philosopher John
Gray declared that “human life
has no more meaning than that
of slime mold.
” In his Homo
Deus, Yuval Harari reaches the
conclusion that, “Looking back,
humanity will turn out to be
just a ripple within the cosmic
data flow.
”
These are the two options the
Torah rejects: too high or too
low an estimate of humankind.
On the one hand, no man is a
god. No one is infallible. There
is no life without error and
shortcoming. That is why it was
so important to note, in the parshah
that deals with mortality, Moses’
sin. Likewise, it was import-
ant to say at the outset of his
mission that he had no special
charismatic endowments. He
was not a natural speaker who
could sway crowds (Ex. 4:10).
Equally, the Torah emphasizes
at the end of his life that “No
one knows his burial place,
”
(Deut. 34:6) so that it could not
become a place of pilgrimage.

Moses was human, all-too-
human, yet he was the greatest
prophet who ever lived (Deut.
34:10).
On the other hand, the idea
that we are mere dust and noth-
ing more — insects, scum, slime
mold, a ripple in the cosmic
data flow — must rank among
the most foolish ever formu-
lated by intelligent minds. No
insect ever became a Voltaire.
No chemical scum became a
chemist. No ripple in the data
flow wrote international best-
sellers. Both errors — that we
are gods or we are insects — are
dangerous. Taken seriously, they
can justify almost any crime
against humanity. Without a
delicate balance between Divine
eternity and human mortality,
Divine forgiveness and human
error, we can wreak much
destruction — and our power
to do so grows by the year.
Hence the life-changing idea
of Chukat: We are dust of the
earth but there is within us the
breath of God. We fail, but we can
still achieve greatness. We die, but
the best part of us lives on.
The Hasidic master R.
Simcha Bunim of Peshischke
said we should each have two
pockets. In one should be a
note saying: “I am but dust and
ashes.
” In the other should be
a note saying: “For my sake
was the world created.
” Life
lives in the tension between
our physical smallness and our
spiritual greatness, the brevity
of life and the eternity of the
faith by which we live. Defeat,
despair and a sense of tragedy
are always premature. Life is
short, but when we lift our eyes
to heaven, we walk tall.

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

served as the chief rabbi of the

United Hebrew Congregations of the

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to

all at rabbisacks.org. This essay was

written in 2017.

continued from page 43
SPIRIT

Act Not in Anger
I

n Numbers 20:1 of our
parshah, Miriam, Moses’
sister, dies. And in verse
2 we read the people of Israel
were without water. Notice
the word for water in Hebrew,
mayim, is part of
Miriam’s name, mem,
yud, mem.
In the Talmud,
Taanit 9a, it is taught
that a Divine source
of water traveled with
the people through
the wilderness, a gift
sustained by Miriam.
When Miriam died, the
miraculous gift ceased.
The people complain:
Why have you brought
us to this wilderness
to die here? The complaint
echoes the past, but the people
are not the same. Rashi, our
great 11th-century Torah com-
mentator, notes this is the new
generation; these are not the
Israelites who experienced the
miracle of leaving Egypt; these
are the children of slaves, com-
ing to the end of the 40-year
journey.
Further in Numbers 20:28-29,
Aaron, Moses’ brother, dies,
and “the entire house of Israel
cried for Aaron for 30 days.
”
When Aaron died, the Torah
tells us that the people mourn-
ed. When Miriam died, there
is no mention in the text of the
people mourning.
After Miriam’s death, Moses
turns to God and is told to
speak to a rock and out will
come water. Moses returns to
the people; notice his words in
Numbers 20:10 as he calls the
people mo’rim, adding a vowel
to Miryam (Miriam), changing
the Hebrew name of Miriam to
the word rebels.
The people were truly with-

out water. Perhaps, without
the mourning process, Moses
could not hear their justified
concern. Acting in anger,
Moses calls the people rebels
and asks, “Shall we (Aaron and
I) bring water for you
from this rock?” Moses
hits the rock. He was
told to speak to the rock;
instead, he speaks to the
people, insulting them.
The result for Moses
and Aaron is dreadful, as
we read in Numbers 20:12;
God tells the two brothers
who have led Israel for 40
years in the wilderness,
“Because you did not
trust in Me to sanctify
Me before the people of
Israel” you shall not lead them
into the land.
Rashi explains Moses and
Aaron had committed a public
desecration of God; Moses
said, “Shall we bring water,
” as
opposed to public sanctifica-
tion of God. It was not Moses
who would bring the water; it
was a miracle from God.
The death of Miriam calls
for grieving, but we see Moses
acting in anger. Anger isn’t
intrinsically bad, but reacting
out of anger is a mistake. In
this moment in our parshah,
the people didn’t need some-
one to call them names. They
needed a leader who could
facilitate a relationship between
the people and God, who
could really listen to them,
who could then speak to their
hearts, and lead by example in
moments of fear and loss.

Rabbi Davey Rosen is a spiritual

care provider with Jewish Hospice

& Chaplaincy Network and prayer

leader at Congregation B’nai Moshe

in West Bloomfield (see page 18). He

and his family live in Ann Arbor.

TORAH PORTION

Rabbi Davey
Rosen

Parshat

Chukat:

Numbers

19:1-22:1;

Judges

11:1-33.