It is one of the most perplexing, even disturbing, passages in the Torah. Moses the faithful shepherd, who has led the Israelites for forty years, is told that he will not live to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land.

No one has cast a longer shadow over the history of the Jewish people than Moses – the man who confronted Pharaoh, announced the plagues, brought the people out of Egypt, led them through the sea and desert and suffered their serial ingratitude; who brought the Word of God to the people, and prayed for the people to God. The name Israel means “one who wrestles with God and with men and prevails.” That, supremely, was Moses, the man whose passion for justice and hyper-receptivity to the voice of God made him the greatest leader of all time. Yet he was not destined to enter the land to which he had spent his entire time as a leader travelling toward. Why?

The biblical text at this point is both lucidly clear and deeply obscure. The facts are not in doubt. Almost forty years have passed since the Exodus. Most of the generation who remembered Egypt have died. So too had Miriam, Moses’ sister. The people have arrived at Kadesh in the Zin desert, and they are now close to their destination. In their new encampment, however, they find themselves without water. They complain. “Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness only for us and our livestock to die here? Why did you take us up out of Egypt to bring us to this dreadful place with no grain, no figs, no vines or pomegranates – there is no water to drink!” (Num. 20:4-5) The tone of voice, the petulance, is all too familiar. The Israelites have hardly deviated from it throughout. Yet suddenly we experience not deja-vu but tragedy:

Moshe and Aharon went away from the assembly to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. They fell on their faces, and the Lord’s glory was revealed to them. And the Lord spoke to Moshe: “Take the staff, you and your brother Aharon, and assemble the community. Speak to the rock before their eyes and it will give forth water. You shall bring forth water for them from the rock, giving the community and their animals to drink.” Moshe took the staff from before the Lord, as He had commanded him. And Moshe and Aharon gathered the assembly together before the rock. He said to them, “Listen now, rebels! Shall we produce water for you from this rock?” Then Moshe raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their animals drank. But the Lord said to Moshe and Aharon, “Because you did not put your trust in Me to demonstrate My holiness in the Israelites’ eyes, you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I am giving them. (Num. 20:6-12)

Moshe and Aharon went away from the assembly to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. They fell on their faces, and the Lord’s glory was revealed to them.

And the Lord spoke to Moshe: “Take the staff, you and your brother Aharon, and assemble the community. Speak to the rock before their eyes and it will give forth water. You shall bring forth water for them from the rock, giving the community and their animals to drink.”

Moshe took the staff from before the Lord, as He had commanded him. And Moshe and Aharon gathered the assembly together before the rock. He said to them, “Listen now, rebels! Shall we produce water for you from this rock?” Then Moshe raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their animals drank.

But the Lord said to Moshe and Aharon, “Because you did not put your trust in Me to demonstrate My holiness in the Israelites’ eyes, you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I am giving them. (Num. 20:6-12)

Where had Moses gone wrong? What was his sin? What offense could warrant so great a punishment as not to be privileged to see the conclusion of the mission he had been set by God?

Few passages have generated so much controversy among the commentators. Each offers his own interpretation and challenges the others. So many were the hypotheses that the nineteenth century Italian exegete R. Shmuel David Luzzatto was moved to say, “Moses committed one sin, yet the commentators have accused him of thirteen or more – each inventing some new iniquity!” One modern scholar (R. Aaron Rother, Shaarei Aharon) lists no less than twenty-five lines of approach, and there are many more.

The following are the most significant: Rashi, offering the simplest and best-known explanation, says that Moses’ sin lay in striking the rock rather than speaking to it. Had Moses done as he was commanded, the people would have learned an unforgettable lesson: “If a rock, which neither speaks nor hears nor is in need of........

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