Chukat: Are We Almost There?
Shaina Davis is with IfNotNow Twin Cities.
On June 26th, 2004, at the age of 13 years minus four days, I was called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah to read from Parashat Chukat. I was lucky enough to grow up in a congregation that encouraged B’nei Mitzvah students to really delve deep into the events of their Torah portion, to ask big questions and wrestle with the answers, and to bring that wrestling back to their friends and family in the form of a community discussion led by the student from the Bimah. With my beloved childhood Rabbi, I dissected the many stories of our great ancestral leaders that this portion relates. In Chukat, Miriam dies; Moses and Aaron make the mistake of lashing out in anger at the community and striking a rock to produce water, even though G-d instructed them to simply speak to the rock; and Moses saves the Jewish people from a plague of deadly snakebites by making a copper snake mounted on a pole that cures anyone who looks at it. These moments were filled with emotion and drama, and teenage me loved imagining how they played out centuries ago in the desert, and how they led to where I was standing that day.
As I revisit the words of Chukat today, on my 26th birthday, I am still drawn in by the vivid storytelling, the pathos of Moses striking the rock — in anger? In arrogance?, the magic of the copper snake-on-a-stick. But now, another character intrigues me just as much: the character of the Jewish community.
In Chukat, there are two separate sections where the community indulges in a bout of collective kvetching. They are tired and dirty and thirsty (having lost their magical well of water that followed Miriam through the desert — see Ta’anit 9a for this midrash) and have had it up to here with these prophets telling them where to go and what to do. “Why did you bring us out of Egypt into this evil place?!” they demand. “This is not a place for seeds, or for fig trees, grapevines, or pomegranate trees, and there is no water to drink.” (Bamidbar 20:5) Later, when they have to travel all the way around the land of Edom instead of passing through on the king’s road, they start up again: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this desert, for there is no bread and no water, and we are disgusted with this rotten bread!” (Bamidbar 21:5)
I feel for the community in these moments. It absolutely sucks to be taken out of your comfort zone — even if that comfort zone was objectively terrible — and thrust into an unfamiliar and difficult situation. This journey through the wilderness must have felt like the ultimate out-of-the-frying-pan, into-the-fire moment for them. I see this now, in my Jewish community, as we struggle to expand our conception of Tikkun Olam from the old standbys of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked into the more radical territories of true racial justice, queer and trans inclusion, and opposition to the Occupation. We know we can’t go back to our racism, our ignorance of how to treat someone who doesn’t conform to gender norms, and our silence as Palestinian and Israeli lives hang in the balance. But being in this new space is hard and painful. It’s an uphill climb, there are rocks all over the place, our water bottles are empty, and these darn snakes keep coming out of nowhere and biting us when we stumble. Some moments in this wilderness are miraculous, but there are many more moments that make some of us wish we’d never taken that first step on this path.
At the same time, I feel for Moses, who can’t help but chastise his complaining people, and I think anyone else who has ever taken children on a road trip can feel for him too. He’s right there with the community, just as dirty and tired and snakebit as anyone else, and will they give him a moment’s peace? No they will not! So I can forgive him for losing his patience with the community every once in awhile. I read Moses’s line, “Now, you rebels, can we draw water for you from this rock?” (Bamidbar 20:10) and hear in my head, “Why didn’t you go when we stopped for gas five minutes ago?” and “Don’t make me turn this car around!” Physically leading the community through the desert must have been exhausting — just as today, spiritually and morally leading the community into a recognition of our own privilege and a greater understanding of intersectionality is sometimes exhausting. People are tempted to fall back into their comfort zones. Sitting in the gray areas between tradition and innovation is hard, solidarity is hard, and getting people who don’t see always the value in your vision of The World As It Should Be to move forward with you is hardest of all. Now, you rebels, can we draw the waters of justice for you from the rock of your reluctance?
The good news is, in the Jewish community’s journey today, we have more than just a few leaders. Hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals are pushing through their exhaustion, taking their own steps forward, and bringing their communities along with them. There are moments of kvetching and backsliding and wishing we had never started this journey in the first place. But like Moses, the leaders in our Jewish community know that there is a destination out there that’s worth reaching. Sometimes we have to walk around the kingdom of Edom instead of passing through. Sometimes our beloved prophets pass away and leave us bereft of the well of their wisdom. This journey is rough for us all, but it needs to be made. So let’s be patient with each other, please, and keep making our way forward bamidbar — in the desert.
