Chukat

Parshat Chukat can be a little depressing if you think too hard about it. Moshe Rabbeinu strikes the rock in order to produce water and from this seemingly innocent act he is banished from Eretz Yisrael. Imagine you’ve led a bunch of irritating Israelites for years in the desert and because of striking a rock rather than just telling the rock to produce water, you cannot enter the promised land. Personally, I would’ve just lied down and died right there. I would’ve been done with the whole mission…but that’s just one of many reasons I will not be the leader of Am Yisrael anytime soon.

What exactly was wrong with striking the rock? Commentators have long said that Moshe disobeyed Hashem and made it seem as though HE was bringing forth the water (rather than the actual, divine source). I agree, that’s not cool to take credit for miracles. But Moshe clearly had no intention of doing that and he didn’t deliberately disobey Hashem either…

This brings me to my moral of the story: your intentions don’t always matter. If you say or do something hurtful it doesn’t matter if you meant to do it or not…you still hurt somebody. The end result is the same! That’s not to say intention plays NO role in our lives. Having good intentions often leads us to have good, positive behaviors. However, it isn’t enough to just not have ill will. We need to be aware of all of our actions and how they affect everyone around us. There are consequences for our actions even if our intentions were in the right place. Unlike Moshe Rabbeinu, I have the privilege of living in the holy land, but if I don’t think about my actions and how they affect and/or come across to other people then there will still be repercussions. Sorry…that sounded really menacing. I just meant to think before you act. Pretty sure that is what the parsha is telling us this week…but I’m no expert.