Parashat Chukat - Learning to Do Things Differently

I heard a brief segment about the implications of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Science Friday this afternoon. One of the comments caught my ear. I wish I could tell you who said it. When asked what the worst possible outcome of the spill could be, one expert summed it up. She said, "Not to have learned anything from this." A lot of comparisons have been made between the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico. Better than knowing how many Exxon Valdezes equal each day of this crisis, we need to know how we can do better. While fines of BP may begin to offset some of the loss, what really matters is doing things differently. The host, Ira Flatow, noted that rather than President Obama declaring war on oil, he would have rather seen the President ask us all to chip in in our own communities. The President should have motivated us to help clean up local waterways and make an environmental impact that would ripple out to those around us. This might have a more profound impact than any efforts in the Gulf will have.

In this week's Torah portion, Chukat (which happens to be my Bar Mitzvah portion), Miriam dies. In the wilderness, Miriam was the source of water. We commemorate this role with Miriam's Cup on the Passover Seder table. The text tells that following Miriam's death at Kadesh, "The community was without water" (Numbers 20:2). You probably know the story that immediate follows this: Moses strikes the rock out of anger with the Israelites. But I want to jump about a chapter past that incident.

In the middle of Numbers chapter 21, amidst the verses I read when I became Bar Mitzvah, we read that God tells Moses to assemble the people so that God may give them water. Then, the Israelites sing to the well, requesting water from it. The words that introduce their song, "Az yashir Yisrael et-ha-shirah ha-zot - Then Israel sang this song" (Numbers 21:17), are the same words that introduce the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:1). One midrash, Yalkut Shimoni, teaches us that at the Sea of Reeds, Moses had to lead the song, but at the well following Miriam's death, the Israelites gain the courage and maturity to sing for themselves.

Through Miriam's death, she passes the baton to the people, empowering them to find water for themselves. Though initially they are scared, so much so that they rebel against Moses causing him to lose his temper, the Israelites realize that they have to learn from the tragedy of Miriam's death and learn to do things differently. So, too, we need to respond to the oil spill. We may initially respond with anger and fury, but if we are to survive, we have to learn how to do things differently.