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.

