Bulletin Chukat

Welcome • ohtcv ohfurc
Shabbat Shalom • ouka ,ca
Chukat – 3 Tamuz 5782 • July 2, 2022
,ej
Kiddush Sponsors
The Board of Trustees
In honor of Rabbi Chorny’s
Birthday & his 10 th Anniversary
as Beth Tikvah’s Rabbi!
Kiddush Maven:
Linda Scheinberg
Assisted by:
Rosalee Bogo, Joe & Sue Hammerman,
Elaine Kamin, Fran Kaufman & Shep Scheinberg
To sponsor a kiddush, please contact Linda Scheinberg
missus205@gmail.com

Yahrtzeiten
July 2 • Tammuz 3 Max Stein – Father of Ralph Stein
Alfred Walpert – Husband of Ferne Walpert
July 3 • Tammuz 4 Peter Portnoy – Father of Bernard Portnoy
July 4 • Tammuz 5 Thelma Erenstoft – Mother of Edward Margulies
July 7 • Tammuz 8 Fred M. Samotin – Father of Myles Samotin
July 8 • Tammuz 9 Bertha Weiss – Grandmother of Mark Wasserman
Birthdays
July 2 Rabbi Ammos Chorny, Jay Kaye, Lawrence Macks
July 3 Michael Sobol,
July 5 Ilya Prizel,
July 6 Kathy Greenberg, Debra Antzis, David Sivakoff
Torah & Haftarah Readings:
Shabbat Chukat: Numbers 20:22-22:1 (Etz Hayim p. 887)
1. 20:22-21:3 2. 21:4-10 3. 21:11-16 4. 21:17-20
5. 21:21-25 6. 21:26-33 7. 21:34-22:1 M. 21:34-22:1 (p. 892)
Haftarah: Judges 11:1-33 (Etz Hayim p. 910)
Torah / Haftarah Summary
D'var Torah:
The Destructiveness of Anger – Rabbi Mordechai Silverstein
The tragic incident at Mei Merivah, which occurred towards the end of
the desert trek, marked the low point in Moshe’s career as the prophet
and leader of the people. Once again, the people demanded from him
water and once again, they taunted him with outcries that he had brought
them out of Egypt to die in the desert. As before, Moshe and Aharon
pleaded with God to intercede and help them meet the people’s demands
and God answered their request: “You and your brother Aharon take the
staff and assemble the community, and before their very eyes order the
rock to yield its water…” (Num. 20:8) Moshe took his staff, assembled the
people and addressed them sternly: “Listen you rebels, shall we get water
for you out of this rock?” (20:10) Moshe struck the rock twice and out
flowed water. For some unrevealed reason this episode ended tragically,
for God punished Moshe and Aharon, by denying them permission to
enter the land.
The Torah never makes it clear what Moshe and Aharon did to prompt
God’s ire, fostering a plethora of different interpretive possibilities. (Far
too many to recount all of them!) Situations like this, it is worth noting,
provide great midrashic and homiletic opportunities affording us with
windows into the thinking of the interpreters.
Rashi resolves this question technically through a careful reading of the
plot. God said to talk to the rock, so that is what Moshe should have done;
instead, he struck the rock. According to Rashi, this was a clear case of
disobedience before God and a show of breach of faith before the people.
Rabbeinu Hananel (11 th century Kairouan – Tunisia), on the other hand,

asserts the Moshe’s sin was that he seemingly took credit for himself
in performing the miracle instead of attributing it to God. (See Ramban’s
survey of the various interpreters)
For Rambam (Maimonides), Moshe’s sin was in exhibiting inappropriate
behavior as a leader:
You know that He (God), may He be esteemed, said to the master of both
earlier generations and later generations, Moshe Rabeinu (our teacher):
‘Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight
of the Israelite people’ (Num. 20:12), on that you disregarded My command
(20:24), for you broke faith with Me among the children of Israel (Deut.
32:51).” All this on account of his sin, peace be with him, for veering to
an extreme from the quality of moderation, by showing anger by saying:
“Listen, you rebels” (Num. 20:10) God criticized him since for a man like
him it is inappropriate to become angry before the children of Israel…
(adapted from Shmonah Perakim ch. 4, M. Schwartz ed. p. 25 Heb.)
Since proper behavior, according to Rambam, requires a person to
act with moderation, a show of anger, particularly for a leader who
represented God, was inappropriate. Rambam was not the first to assert
that it was Moshe’s anger that “did him in”. (I would also not be surprised
if the following midrash was the inspiration for his interpretation.) What
this midrash adds, though, is a storyline for what prompted Moshe’s
angry outburst:
And all Israel stood and saw the miracles of the rock. They began to say
[to themselves]: ‘Moshe knows the ways of that [particular] rock. If he
wants, he knows how to draw water for us from it (and therefore, there
is no miracle in that!). So, they said to him: ‘Here is the rock. Just as you
wanted to bring forth water from that rock, bring it forth from this rock.’
This put Moshe in a quandary over what to do. If he listened to the people,
then it would be necessary to ignore the words of God. [In exasperation,]
he yelled back at them: ‘Listen, you rebels, shall we get water out of this
rock?’ (Num. 20:10) (Adapted from Tanhuma Hukat 9)
Moshe, like most leaders, was constantly tested by his people. Should he
abide by principle and follow God’s words or should he give in to popular
demands. All this at the very end of his successful forty-year mission to
transport his people to its homeland. Imagine the tremendous stress and
anxiety thrust upon him. In the end, according to this midrash, he burst
forth and blurted out an inappropriate response to the people, something
a leader must never do, rendering himself no longer capable of leading
the people.
What a tragedy! What a lesson for all of us in dealing with others
D’var Haftarah:
Life's Tightrope – Rabbi Mordechai Silverstein
There are lots of difficult biblical stories; some which transmit societal
rules and then go about breaking them as part of the storyline. We

are familiar with this phenomenon already from the earliest stories
in the Torah. Early biblical society practiced a principle known as
primogeniture, namely, the firstborn son was intended to carry on
the familial legacy. Yet, time after time, in the patriarchal stories, it was
not the firstborn who heads up the next generation but the younger son.
In our haftarah, Yiftah is a character, who for all intents and purposes,
was meant to be a societal outcast. He was born of an illicit relationship:
“And Yiftah the Gileadite was a valiant warrior, and he was the son of
a whore-woman, and Gilad had begotten Yiftah.” (11:1) This did sit well
with his step brothers, sired by his father once he married: “And Gilad’s
wife bore him son, and the wife’s sons grew up and they drove Yiftah out
and said to him: ‘You shall not inherit your father’s house, for you are
the son of another woman.’” (11:2) Yiftah was forced to flee and to live
on the fringe of society. The story obviously does not end here for Yiftah
becomes a “strongman” who is called upon to save the nation from its
enemies and to serve both as its leader and savior.
The medieval commentators make an effort to try to temper Yiftah’s
strangeness by somehow elevating his social status. Targum Yonatan,
the Jewish Aramaic translation of the Prophets, turns “zonah – harlot”
into “pundekita -innkeeper”. Rabbi David Kimche (12 th century Provence)
asserts that Yiftah’s mother was a “pilegesh” (concubine), a relational
status established in rabbinic law. He further states that the reason she
had this status was because it was thought improper to marry someone
outside of your own tribe so that the tribe’s property would remain in
house. The common thread in these comments is the search to give
Yiftah a sense of legitimacy.
Still, it seems that the story is intent in capitalizing on Yiftah’s status as
an outsider, a common theme among the heroes of the book of Judges.
Perhaps there is a lesson to be had here in both the biblical story and the
attempt of the commentators to legitimize Yiftah’s status. The storyline
seemingly chastises the community for making Yiftah an outcast. It
makes its leaders “eat their words”. On the other hand, the commentators
teach us how important it is for a society to have rules which govern
conduct in order to establish legitimacy. The wisdom is in knowing how
to balance between these two disparate values.
“...rautn vhfnu`u vc ohehzjnk thv ohhj Jg”
“She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;
Remember
those who
Lunch-N-Learn
hold her tight are happy…”
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