From the Clergy Corner with Cantor Phil Baron: Parashat Chukat

Parashat Chukat-30 Sivan, 5774 
by Cantor Phil Baron

Our many centuries of Torah discussion and commentary, called midrash, are an essential part of who we are as a people.  Normally this process is conducted verbally – out loud or written, and often preserved or added to a kind of ongoing forum which engages and merges the opinions of contemporary Jews and scholars from the distant past.

Composer Michael Isaacson teaches that music is also midrash – or should be. Music comments on the written word, and when the two are in sync, the results can often express meaning more powerfully than either medium can on its own.  With this in mind, composer Bob Remstein, a member of the Helfman Composers Group I helped create, has given us a musical/lyrical midrash on this week’s parasha that is both thought-provoking and very funny. Those of you who joined us for last year’s Shabbat Shira will agree it is unforgettable.

What Remstein does so successfully is to look at all the personalities involved and reveal each character’s inner narrative.   There is plenty to “unpack” in this week’s parasha, Chukat, which tells the tragic and puzzling story of Moses’ striking of the rock.

The story begins with the people’s latest complaint.  Water is in short supply, and once again they blame Moses.  “Why have you brought the Lord’s congregation into the wilderness for us and our beasts to die there?” (Ex. 20:4)  They even claim that things were better when they were slaves. “Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? There is not even water to drink!” (Ex. 20:5)

Remstein’s Hebrews cry out (you will have to imagine the music here):

Water, water! Water, water!
We’ve been waiting, and we’ve been wandering
Waiting for someone to answer our prayers
Forty years of hard desert living
Parents die, leaving but dust to their heirs… 

Moses you are our leader; you speak to God at the times that are worst
But what kind of a leader can’t help to satisfy his people’s thirst for…

Water, water! Water, water!

Right.  The people do have a legitimate complaint.  After all, aren’t our leaders supposed to solve our problems?  Lack of water is a big problem.  So Moses and Aaron pray, and God tells Moses to speak to the rock, “…and before their very eyes, order the rock to yield its water.  Thus you shall produce water for them.” (Ex. 20:8)

Remstein looks into Moses’ conflicted mind at that moment:

Speak to the rock?  I ought to but
Speak to the rock? How can anything flow from a stone?

In the desert long ago, Adonai told me to strike the rock and watch the water flow
It worked once; why not again?

Here the composer/lyricist is giving us some insight, and a radical notion: does Moses also lack faith?

I know that I must trust in God, follow his ev’ry word
Still I’m afraid that if I start conversin’ and there’s no water, things will worsen…

Finally, the people’s demands drive Moses to the breaking point. He cracks, and proceeds to strike and crack the rock. But in this composer’s version of the story, the rock talks back – and he’s a comedian! Imagine Billy Crystal as the Rock:

What a Crack on the noggin’! Feels like I fell off a toboggan!

…If you want me to start a-gushin’
There’s no need for me to suffer a concussion.

If you want to witness a sea of mayim (water)
Mind your golden manners and say “L’chayim!”

So in this midrash, even the rock has a personality, an inner narrative, and the arc of a character. For the rock has a serious side as well. When God’s anger at Moses’ lack of faith results in the ultimate punishment – eventual death in the wilderness, the Rock is reassuring. He has the perspective of someone who has seen a thousand tribes pass this way, and more than one prophet grow disillusioned. He leaves Moses with this thought:

Though I’ll admit it’s not a pleasant thought
That you’ll be here until you’re dead
You can take comfort in the knowledge that your work
Will be remembered, l’olam va’ed (forever and ever)

There is much more to this thought-provoking piece than I can include here. I only hope to demonstrate that music, song in this case, can make a distant world seem alive, which is the whole point of midrash. We need to communicate our stories and traditions in new ways, and this charming “sermon in song” is a great example.

Remstein’s “Moses and the Rock” has been performed several times to great acclaim, but no good recording is yet available. When it is, I’ll post it here on the VBS website and encourage you to visit this ancient tale, told in a new and musical way.