58 | JULY 11 • 2024 

I

t took me two years to 
recover from the death 
of my father, of blessed 
memory. To this day, almost 
20 years later, 
I am not sure 
why. He did not 
die suddenly 
or young. He 
was well into 
his 80s. In his 
last years, he 
had to undergo 
five operations, each of 
which sapped his strength a 
little more. Besides which, 
as a rabbi, I had to officiate 
at funerals and comfort the 
bereaved. I knew what grief 
looked like.
The rabbis were critical of 
one who mourns too much 
too long. They said that God 
Himself says of such a person, 
“Are you more compassion-
ate than I am?” Maimonides 
rules, “A person should not 
become excessively broken-
hearted because of a person’s 

death, as it says, ‘Do not weep 
for the dead nor bemoan 
him’ (Jer. 22:10). This means, 
‘Do not weep excessively.’ 
For death is the way of the 
world, and one who grieves 
excessively at the way of the 
world is a fool.” With rare 
exceptions, the outer limit of 
grief in Jewish law is a year, 
not more.
Yet, knowing these things 
did not help. We are not 
always masters of our emo-
tions. Nor does comforting 
others prepare you for your 
own experience of loss. 
Jewish law regulates outward 
conduct not inward feeling, 
and when it speaks of feel-
ings, like the commands to 
love and not to hate. 
Halachah generally 
translates this into behav-
ioral terms, assuming, in 
the language of the Sefer 
HaChinnuch, that “the heart 
follows the deed.” 
I felt an existential black 

hole, an emptiness at the core 
of being. It deadened my sen-
sations, leaving me unable to 
sleep or focus, as if life was 
happening at a great distance 
and as if I were a spectator 
watching a film out of focus 
with the sound turned off. 
The mood eventually passed, 
but while it lasted, I made 
some of the worst mistakes of 
my life.
I mention these things 
because they are the connect-
ing thread of parshah Chukat. 
The most striking episode is 
the moment when the people 
complain about the lack of 
water. Moses does something 
wrong, and though God sends 
water from a rock, he also 
sentences Moses to an almost 
unbearable punishment: 
“Because you did not have 
sufficient faith in Me to sanc-
tify Me before the Israelites, 
therefore you shall not bring 
this assembly into the land I 
have given you.”

LOSING COMPOSURE
The commentators debate 
exactly what he did wrong. 
Was it that he lost his temper 
with the people (“Listen now, 
you rebels”)? That he hit the 
rock instead of speaking to it? 
That he made it seem as if it 
was not God but he and Aaron 
who were responsible for the 
water (“Shall we bring water 
out of this rock for you?”)?
What is more puzzling 
still is why he lost control at 
that moment. He had faced 
the same problem before, 
but he had never lost his 
temper before. In Exodus
15, the Israelites at Marah 
complained that the water 
was undrinkable because it 
was bitter. In Exodus 17 at 
Massa-and-Meriva, they 
complained that there was no 
water. God then told Moses to 
take his staff and hit the rock, 
and water flowed from it. So 
when in our parshah God 
tells Moses, “Take the staff … 
and speak to the rock,” it was 
surely a forgivable mistake to 
assume that God meant him 
also to hit it. That is what 
He had said last time. Moses 
was following precedent. 
And if God did not mean 
him to hit the rock, why did 
He command him to take his 
staff?
What is even harder to 
understand is the order of 
events. God had already told 
Moses exactly what to do. 
Gather the people. Speak 
to the rock, and water will 
flow. This was before Moses 
made his ill-tempered speech, 
beginning, “Listen, now you 
rebels.” It is understandable 
if you lose your composure 
when you are faced with a 
problem that seems insoluble. 
This had happened to Moses 
earlier when the people com-

Healing the 
Trauma of Loss

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH