A Well In The Wilderness

Parashat Chukat, A Well in the Wilderness
Rabbi Andrew Kaplan Mandel

This week, we find the Israelites
in the midst of an emergency. 
There is no water, 
and they are beside themselves.

What do we do when we’re anxious about clear and present danger?

Well, for Jews, one thing we do is…complain. 
I mean that lovingly. 
We say something. 
We bring it to our leaders’ attention. 
It’s how the Israelites got noticed by G-d 
during slavery to begin with. 
They cried out.

Now, there’s a new crisis: 
Miriam the prophetess has died. 
Rabbinic lore states 
that, thanks to the merit of Miriam, 
a well had followed the Israelites 
throughout much of their journey. 
But with Miriam no more,
the wanderers are suddenly without water.

The Israelites are full throated when voicing their concerns, 
and G-d doesn’t rebuke them. 
It’s reasonable to be concerned when there’s nothing to drink
and you’re wandering in the desert.
So, G-d directs Moses to get them water from a rock.

Yet a few verses later, the Israelites kvetch that they also hate the food.
This goes a step too far. 
They’re now catastrophizing beyond an actual emergency. 
G-d doesn’t tolerate this and sends serpents to bite the complainers. 
So, the Torah portion is distinguishing between wants and needs.

But then G-d goes a step further,
offering the people an even more transformational lesson.
G-d gathers them around a human-made well.
This may not have seemed extraordinary, 
but the Israelites respond in a way they hadn’t since escaping Egypt. 
They sing:

Spring up, O well—
The well that the chieftains dug,
That the nobles of the people started
With maces, with their own staffs.

Notice that these lyrics praise those who dug the well. 
In other words, the Israelites appear to be celebrating human ingenuity, 
those who labored so that they could benefit. 
After receiving water through miraculous means 
– whether it was Miriam’s traveling well,
or from a rock – 
their gift this time is from human hands.
Maybe, in seeing other people’s initiative, 
the Israelites realize they have their own agency, too.

This is a mindset shift that they’ve needed desperately. 
After nearly four decades in the desert, 
they’re soon going to enter the Promised Land. 
G-d knows they’re going to need to be more independent 
and therefore gives them the gift 
of understanding their own capacities,
of seeing the well within.
It does the trick. 
This is the last time in Torah that the Israelites complain. 
Now, that’s a miracle.

This focus on our assets brings to mind
the people of a certain generation
here in New York who had nothing, but a library card
and the city college system, to help them improve themselves. 
Or a community I once visited in Alabama 
that did not have a lot of resources,
except for an abundance of bamboo,
which they ended up using to build a bamboo bicycle business. 
Or our country, whose founders, inspired by our Exodus story, 
envisioned a society
where the people were the source of power and possibility. 
Isn’t that what we’re celebrating tonight?
Moving from dependence to independence. 
Not relying on the whims of leaders from on high, 
but leaning into what we the people can do. 
Today, we are rededicating ourselves to the well
that our American ancestors dug for us in sweaty Philadelphia. 
They gave us the tools of a democracy: not guarantees, but tools. 
A well, dug deep, but never finished. 
I can hear those founding fathers and mothers now saying: 
Do not put those shovels down. 
Do not tolerate backsliding. 
Do not ignore erosion.

Are we hot and thirsty? Maybe.
Does this well need work? Absolutely. 
But according to my extensive YouTube research,
you can revive an actual dried-up well with high-pressure water jets 
that reopen the flow blocked by sediment and mineral deposits.
So if you have some forms of high pressure, 
this could be a good time to use them. 
Last year 35,000 people attended the Pride Parade in Budapest. 
This past Saturday, after Hungary banned the annual gathering, 
more than 100,000 people showed up. 
They are protecting that well.

You don’t need a leader
telling you what you already know you have. 
So, I’m going to ask you to turn to the person next to you,
or you can use the chat if you’re on Facebook with us. 
What are some of the wells that we can draw upon 
as we confront the long, hot marches ahead of us? 
What are the raw materials we are working with that
help us to remember we’re building from a foundation?

<Give space for a few to talk.>

What am I hearing?
If you don’t like the way an election is going, 
you can help campaign for someone else. 
I’m hearing that we have people with incredible wisdom. 
We have remarkable non-profit organizations with built-in infrastructure. 
We have a lot of resources. 
We do have friends and allies. 
Before we ever despair, let’s take stock of what we have.
We never start from nothing.

<begin underscoring God Bless America>

Twelve score and nine years ago, 
our forefathers started by complaining, articulating a set of grievances,
and then pooled their resources in response. 
Like the Israelites, America’s founders stood at the edge of a possibility,
not a perfect country, but a well they chose to dig,
one that we are called to keep digging today. 
Let us honor their labor— 
and the responsibility that now rests in our hands 
–with a song. Please rise.

<Dan leads us in G-d Bless America.>