Torah Thought: Nature- listening and speaking

....Moshe Kempinski..( parshat Chukat)..

We are faced with a very unusual commandment of G-d when He declares to Moses the following;

And HaShem spoke unto Moshe , saying: 'Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes, that it give forth its water; and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock; so thou shalt give the congregation and their cattle drink.'(Exodus/Shmot 20:7-8)

What does it mean that Moses was to "speak" to the rock? Do rocks have the ability to hear?

Maran HaRav Kook teaches that the answer is in the affirmative.All of nature is waiting to hear the song of redemption. The whole world is waiting to listen to the melody that was stilled upon the exodus from the garden of Eden.

Istead it felt the brunt of a staff raised in anger. Our sages tell us that the reason that Moshe did not speak to the stone was not out of disobedience but rather that he lost the ability to speak.He lost the prophetic ability to truly "speak" when he became angry.

10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said unto them: 'Hear now, ye rebels; are we to bring you forth water out of this rock?'(Exodus/Shmot 20:10) . In that anger lay the problem .

When Moses became angry he temporarily lost the ability to recieve and " hear" prophecy" and thereby lost the ability to speak propheticly.

It is this concept that is described by our sages; " anyone who is angry , if he is a wise man his wisdom will leave him. If he is a prophet , his prophecy will leave him" ( Masechet Pesachim 66b) .

We see a similar phenomenon in Parshat Vayigash when Jacob is informed that his beloved son was in fact, still alive.


And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them; and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. 28 And Israel said: 'It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die.'
(Genesis/ Breishit 45:27-28 27 )

Our sages describe that the Divine Presence which had left Jacob during his twenty two years of sadness had returned .Ruach HaKodesh, Divine Inspiration, cannot reside in the midst of sadness.The surprising but wonderful news that Joseph was in fact still alive allowed for Jacob to be filled with Divine Inspiration once again. It is no wonder that Jacob is again called Israel in the next verse. Israel is the name of this patriarch that relates to his and his children's Prophetic Destiny .It is the name given him by the angel and then confirmed by G-d Himself further on. It is the the name that predicts and confirms the destiny of his progeny, the people of Israel.

As a result nature and the stones were not given the oppurtunity to hear and respond and by so doing bring about a grerat sanctification of G-d's name.

Yet it is important to remember that Nature also speaks. The word for "Thing" iin hebrew is Davar. The word for speech is hebrew is rooted in the same hebrew "Davar". Everything in the world is speaking. G-d is using the reality to speak to us. Yet man hasn't yet learnt how to hear with his eyes.

We in this world need to learn to hear the song of G-d in the world around us and just as importantly the world around us is waiting to hear that same song from us.