The portion of Chukat (literally, “the constitution of”[1]) is one of the most baffling of all Torah portions. At its center – like many a portion before and after – stands Moshe. The same Moshe who was aptly named “the slave of God.”[2] The same Moshe on which the Torah bestowed the greatest of honors: “And never again has a prophet risen in Israel
This, of course, is the story of “Mei Ha’meriva”—the water of dispute. According to the story, the People of Israel were complaining, not for the first time, about the harsh conditions in the desert. This time they demanded water. Moshe, as usual, turns to God. And God, as usual, does not let His slave down: “Take this cane and assemble the community . . . and you shall speak to the rock in front of their eyes, and it shall provide water.”[4] Moshe, as always, complies: he takes his cane; he assembles the community; he tells them that from this very rock he would produce water. But then something else happens: “And Moshe raised his arm, and hit the rock with his cane twice. And many waters came out [of the rock] and the community drank.”[5]
For this act – apparently[6] – Moshe was punished.
And the punishment was severe. God famously prevents Moshe from entering the Promised Land, the same land towards which Moshe has led the People for over 40 years.
Other than the reasons for this punishment, many of the commentators dealt extensively with its proportionality, or the relation between Moshe’s “crime” and the severity of the “punishment.” Today, however, I would like to comment on another aspect of the punishment: its content. As far as we know, this was the first immigration restriction. God, “Adon Kol Ha’Aretz” – the Lord of all the Universe – prevents Moshe from entering into a country he very much like to enter. Today, this “punishment” is extremely prevalent – indeed, the immigration policy of many countries is specifically designed to prevent people who want to enter from doing just that. Technically speaking, however, such a restriction is no longer considered a “punishment” at all (therefore, for example, the constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” does not apply to refusals of entry into the United States
But it is. For anyone who ever attempted to flee one country – either due to slavery, personal attacks, or persecution of any kind – and enter another, the inability to set foot in the new country is one of the harshest punishments imaginable. That is how many Jews felt as they were trying to flee Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, only to receive a cold shoulder from many nations in the West, including, unfortunately, this great country.
Today, too, the sign of “no entry” is shown too often to people the world over who attempt to find a new, safer home for themselves and their families. But not only people who move across countries are subject of harsh immigration restrictions; in some cases, people become refugees in their own countries. These “Internally Displaced Persons” (IDPs) are growing in an alarming rate, and their current number eclipses 27 million.[7]
Social-justice organizations, such as the AJWS, are stepping in to help. In the last year alone, the organization raised substantial funds and mobilized volunteers and resources to provided humanitarian aid to the millions – millions! – of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons who are the victims of the Darfur genocide.[8] Other organizations lend their hand to refugees and IDPs world over – from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe – in order prevent them from “dying on the mountain,” overlooking their own Promised Land – as happened to Moshe.
All this brings me to my final point: Moshe may have been punished because he disobeyed the word of God.[9] But this was not the underlying reason here. The real reason was the “meri’va” – the dispute over water in the community. In other words, whenever a community is torn – over water, over land, over whatever resource – refugees and IDPs are the inevitable outcome. That was the case at the time of the Torah; that is the case today. Our first step in helping those victims, therefore, should be in trying to avoid disputes within our communities in the first place. Only when peace – Shalom – would finally arrive, the problem of refugees and IDPs would also come to an end.
Shabbat Shalom.
[1] Numbers 19:2; see also Numbers 20:21 (“And [the Torah] shall be for them an eternal constitution.”).
[2] Deuteronomy 34:5
[3] Deuteronomy 34:10.
[4] Numbers 20:8.
[5] Numbers 20:11.
[6] There are a myriad of views among the sages relating to the precise reasons for which Moshe was punished. Suffice it to say that Eben-Ezra, the famous middle-ages scholar, noted that there “too many” views, which is a good enough reason to assume that none is particularly persuasive.
[9] Numbers 20:24; see also Numbers 27:14.
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