A Bitachon related Dvar Torah on Parashat Hukat:
Parashat Hukat talks about the famous story of the Mi merivah מי מריבה, where Hashem tells Moshe:
(ז) קַח אֶת הַמַּטֶּה- וְהַקְהֵל אֶת הָעֵדָה אַתָּה וְאַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ וְדִבַּרְתֶּם אֶל הַסֶּלַע
Take your staff, gather the people together and speak to the rock.
But instead of speaking to the rock, וַיַּךְ אֶת הַסֶּלַע Moshe Rabbenu hit the rock.
Then G-d says יַעַן לֹא הֶאֱמַנְתֶּם בִּי לְהַקְדִּישֵׁנִי
That because you didn’t believe in Me to bring about a Kiddush Hashem, you’re not going to bring the Jewish people into Eretz Yisrael.
We have to understand that Moshe Rabbenu made a major miracle. What would have been the difference if he spoke to the rock verses hitting it?
The Yalkut Shemoni says the following:
What does it mean “to speak to the rock”?
שנה עליו פרק אחד והוא מוציא מים מן הסלע.
He should have learned a perek of Mishnayot to bring the water from the rock.
Another Midrash says he should have prayed, and then the water would have come out. That would’ve been fine.
Why would that be better?
The Hemek Davar explains that of course the Jewish People believed in miracles. They saw all that Moshe Rabbenu had done previously with his staff- he split the sea, he brought water previously, etc. But the goal is not to live with open miracles. As we have discussed, open miracles are direct. It’s not that difficult to believe in open miracles. The goal here was to take the training wheels off and learn how to live with hidden miracles. To realize that Hashem can bring water in a hidden way, that our prayers could bring the rain down in a “natural” way. That was the problem.
The Hemek Davar says Moshe should have taught them Masechet Taanit, where it teaches what do you when you don’t have rain: Gather the people, the Elder gives them words of Mussar, the people do Teshuva.... it could have been a lesson for future generations יאך יעשו לדורות בא
ויאמינו שגם בלי כח ועוז של משה
אפשר לפעול בתפלת רבים.
To teach them that even without Moshe and miracles they have the ability to bring rain with Public prayer.
Moshe became a handicap for them. He became training wheels for them. They thought they couldn’t survive without Moshe Rabbenu. That’s why at the sin of spies 38 years earlier, they panicked- because they thought they had to go into Eretz Yisrael without Moshe Rabbenu. So now Hashem was giving Moshe a second chance. Now all the people involved in that debacle had died out. Now was the time to teach them that we don’t need open miracles. We don’t need an intermediary. It was the chance to teach them to pray and G-d would deal with them directly. If he had taught this lesson, he could have gone into Eretz Yisrael because they wouldn’t have used Moshe Rabbenu as a crutch. They would not have been fooled by Moshe’s power and thought that they needed to have him. They didn’t need an intermediary. That is and always has been the power of the Jewish people.
The Sefer Sror HaMor tells us:
"כי גאוננו ותפארתנו ועוזנו ביד שובנו היות לנו כח להוריד הגשמים בעתם בכח תפילתנו
Our glory and our pride, when we were in amongst our captors in Galut, was that we had the power to bring down rain at the right time, with the power of our prayers. It’s well know that after the Spanish Inquisition, we were accepted by other countries based on the condition that we could bring rain.
It was believed by the goyim that Jews could bring rain.
In Keriyat Shema, Hashem says, If you listen to Me, I’ll send rain, if you don’t listen I’ll stop the rain.
Rain is the way we see Hashem dealing with us in a hidden fashion.
That was supposed to be the lesson of the Mei Meriva. Had we taken the right lesson, everything would’ve been fine, but because Moshe Rabbenu hit the rock with the stick and thus it looked like it was Moshe’s power, they got the wrong message.
Our message is to always realize this:
Ramban says the purpose of Yetziat Mitzrayim wasn’t just to believe in open miracles, but to believe in hidden miracles as well.
Ramban says: שנאמין בכל
דברינו ומקרינו שכלם נסים אין בהם טבע ומנהגו של עולם,
We should believe that every happening is a miracle. There’s is no nature, no physical ways of the world. It’s all miracles.