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.

The Courage For Real Change

Moshe Kempinski

In his powerful election night acceptance speech, President Barack Obama announced, “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” No one asked the candidate what that change entailed. No one dared to demand that the fawning press do their job ,and ask the questions that needed to be asked .

America wanted instant change with the same passion that they demanded “ instant fame” , “instant wealth” and “ instant power”. Just as those" instant" dreams have fizzled or collapsed completely , we are beginning to see that so has Obama's promise of "change".

Change involves work and struggle. Change involves sacrifice and reality based "vision". Real " change " is what the Iranian protesters ( as opposed to Moussavi) were trying to implement.

That type of change , though, also involves sacrifice. Before Neda Agha-Soltan was gunned down in the streets of Teheran , she displayed her resolve and lack of fear with words she shared with a friend "Don't worry, it's just one bullet and it's over, “she reportedly said .The 26-year-old philosophy student whose murder has made her a martyr to the Iranian opposition, was determined to support the protesters. The rest of the world shed a tear with her murder but is still unwilling to rock the boat.

The Jewish people were taught the lesson of hard earned change and growth many centuries ago.
" And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that G-d led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, because it was near; for G-d said: 'Lest peradventure the people lose faith when they see war, and they return to Egypt.' ( exodus 13 :17).
Which land was near, the land of Egypt or the Promised Land? The verse could not be speaking about the land of Egypt because as we see in a following verse the Israelites actually cut back towards the land of Egypt.
" And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying: 'Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, before Baal-zephon, over against it shall ye encamp by the sea." ( Exodus 14: 1-2).

It was the land of Israel that was too close. In order for these slaves and sons of slaves to become the free people they needed to become, the journey and the process had to become more extended. It was in the wilderness that courage was discovered. It was in the journey that faith was kindled.

The world is entering into its own wilderness .The instant solutions and remedies being offered by the world’s leadership are not only futile, they are actually very dangerous. The focus on predetermined results rather than on resolute determination will only lead to calamity and confusion. Unless the lessons of journey and process become absorbed by the leadership of the world in general and by the American and Israeli leadership in particular , great dangers await the world at every turn.

Yet instead of bravery and courage the American Administration is showing hesitancy and shaky resolve. US President Barack Obama supposedly stepped up criticism of Iran's regime, saying he "strongly condemned" its crackdown. That was sure to frighten the Ayatollah’s?!?

At the same time he made sure to deny that he was interfering in the deepening crisis. Obama’s meager contribution was to articulate a State Department-esque fear that if America was to be seen as “meddling” in the internal affairs of Iran, Ahmadinejad would use that fact against America and set back Obama’s high hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear weapons advance. That, of course, does not prevent Obama and his people from increasingly meddling in the affairs of the State of Israel , as Israel in their eyes is simply a vassal state. Obama's hesitation, as was his latest decision to reconnect with the regime in Syria ,was meant to ensure that nothing would interfere with his “new world vision” embracing a sanitized Islam and a welcoming west.

As a result just as we have seen that Obama is ready to sacrifice the security concerns of Israel on the altar of his great vision, he seems to be doing the same thing as regards to the plight of the courageous young people on the streets of Teheran. This can prove to be very dangerous to this world.