By Marco Del Monte
In Parashat Chukkat we witness a dramatic communicative and leadership short circuit that holds the secret of human adaptability. The people are in the desert, exhausted by thirst, and G-d commands Moshé to take the staff and speak to the rock before their eyes so that it will yield its water. Moshé, however, overcome by urgency, takes the staff and strikes the rock twice.
Our commentators notice an immense linguistic detail that reveals the origin of the error: some time earlier, at Rephidim, G-d had commanded Moshé to strike the rock using the term Tzur, which indicates a hard, rough and refractory stone. In this second episode, however, the Torah uses the term Sela, which describes a higher, fissured rock that is intrinsically sensitive. A rigid and identical response is applied at that moment to two completely different situations and entities, failing to grasp the variability of the context and the profound metamorphosis that had taken place in the interlocuteur. This error introduces a psychological and relational reflection that King Solomon expresses in Proverbs through two consecutive and apparently contradictory verses, where he first states not to answer a fool according to his folly and immediately afterwards commands to answer him according to his folly (Mishlei 26:4-5). The Gemara resolves this paradox by explaining that there is no contradiction, since the duty to answer applies to matters of Torah and the search for truth, whereas the prohibition to answer concerns provocations and worldly disputes (Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 30b). From this principle, rabbinic pedagogy has extracted the golden rule according to which one must not simply answer the question, but the "questioner", implying a whole series of specific contextualisations for the case at hand. In a psychological and Musar sense, this teaches us that there is no universal educational, therapeutic or relational response; mental rigidity pushes us to strike every problem with the same staff of past experience, but people change and contexts evolve, and emotional intelligence requires abandoning automatisms to tune in to the uniqueness of the person in front of us. This flexibility is not a moral surrender or a relativist compromise, but constitutes the beating heart and the very structure of Halacha. If in fact we were to ask in absolute terms whether it is permitted to desecrate Shabbat or consume non-kosher food, the formal answer would clearly be negative, but Talmudic logic replies that everything depends on the circumstances. For example, danger to life, Pikuach Nefesh, overrides and suspends almost all Torah prohibitions, and the Chachamim explicitly declare that it is a duty to desecrate a single Shabbat for a sick person so that the latter may then observe many other Shabbatot in the course of their life. At that precise moment, the apparently transgressing act is not a tolerated concession, but even becomes a Mitzvah of the utmost importance. Halacha possesses a rigorous structure that protects the boundaries of the law, but within it lives an intrinsic elasticity that recognises how the application of divine truth must be measured against the change and fragility of human circumstances. The people always have the same objective necessity, namely the thirst for water, but the channel through which the abundance must flow must necessarily change. When man persists in using force and judgment where the compassion of dialogue is required, he can trigger destructive consequences instead of constructive ones. The Masters summarise this ethical attitude by stating that a human being should always strive to be flexible like a reed and never rigid like an oak (Talmud Bavli, Ta'anit 20 see there the curse of Ahijah and the blessing of Balaam). Parashat Chukkat challenges us to examine our daily rigidities, inviting us to ask ourselves whether we are speaking to the heart of the present situation or whether we are continuing to strike a rock that has already changed. Learning the art of the Talmudic "it depends" means developing the humility to understand that the truth of the Torah is not imposed by the percussion of the staff, but is revealed in the ability to make the water of life gush forth by adapting with gentleness to the evolutions of the human soul. Flexibility and adaptability are perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned in order to be able to enter Eretz Israel.
Shabbat Shalom
Translated from the Italian with Google Gemini. The Italian text is the original.