Hello and welcome to another episode of Covenant and Conversation with me, Rabbi Sachs.

In each new episode, we'll explore a Jewish idea from the Hebrew Bible based on the Torah reading of the week.

Rukut, losing Miriam. It's a scene that still has the power to shock and disturb.

The people complain. There's no water. It's an old complaint and a predictable one. That's what happens in a

desert. Yet, Moses should have been able to handle it with ease. He'd been through far tougher

challenges in his time. Yet suddenly at Maymariva, the waters of contention, he exploded into

vituperative anger. Listen, you rebels.

Shall we bring you water out of this rock?

Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff.

In past essays, I've argued that Moses didn't sin.

It was simply that he was the right leader for the generation that left Egypt,

but not the right leader for their children who would cross the Jordan and engaging, conquering a land and building a society.

The fact that he wasn't permitted to lead the next generation wasn't a failure.

It was just an inevitability.

As a group of slaves facing freedom, a new relationship with God and a difficult journey physically and spiritually, the children needed a strong leader capable of contending with them and with God.

But as builders of a new society, they needed a leader who wouldn't do the work for them, but would instead inspire them to do it for themselves.

The face of Moses was like the sun, says the Talmud, the face of Joshua, like the moon.

The difference is that sunlight is so strong it leaves no work for a candle to do.

Whereas a candle can illuminate when the only other source of light is the moon,

Joshua empowered his generation, more than a figure as strong as Moses could ever have done.

But there's another question altogether about the episode we read this week. What made this trial

different? Why did Moses momentarily lose control?

...