Claim: When Moses hit the rock, though indeed he was going against God preferred action, and had to bear a penalty for that, nevertheless we need not necessarily conclude that he "sinned", nor need we claim that he was "punished".
See below the views of several of the great classic Traditional commentators including Ramban, and a more recent one from of one of the rebbes of chabad that: "Moses’ sin was not as a rebellion against G‑d; it wasn't even a mistake. It was for G‑d’s sake .......".
We will claim that Moses' reason was in order to defend the Jewish People, as he had consistently done throughout his 'career'[ however with all that, Moses acted in a way that was meant to also convey to them that they were acting dangerously rebellious.] and that God was actually pleased and rewarded Moses and Ahron with the highest form of passing over to the next stage of existence "death via kiss of God" soon after the story of the rock and water (to us this clearly seems to indicate that his death was NOT a punishment - after all, who would not wish to pass on this way - and indeed is evidence that he had achieved a yet-higher state, now deserving of this type of 'passage',)
Our defense of Moses: One must remember that God in a previous instance indeed asked Moses to HIT the river near Pharaoh while still in Egypt, and in the beginning of the desert-sojourn he was asked to the rock (with his rod) in order to get it to give forth water:
Exodus (Shmot) 17:5-6: 5 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Pass on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thy hand, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.' And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
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We can see that It is only now towards the end of the desert-wandering that God changes the process to ASKING. So Moses' action was not just his own total improvisation, it had divinely-ordained precedent, and so his action needs to be seen in this context.
And why the change in what God asked him to do?
I believe that the clue is in the story directly following this parsha (ie next week's reading) of Bil'am and his donkey. The prophet Bil'am does not see the angel that even his donkey sees, and the animal follows God's will more than does his human master. God in this way intends to contrast the prophet unfavorably with his animal, not just in the story but in the event itself - to shame him or shake him up, so that he will realize his wrong behavior. Imagine the great prophet Bil'am on his momentous mission to attempt to subvert God's will by channeling divine energy to a curse on the Jews, and yet this great prophet, master of energies, cannot even perceive an angel placed in his path with a sword - when even his lowly donkey senses it!
The contrast renders Bil'am pathetic.
Perhaps something similar - ie an unflattering comparison - was meant by God via a vis the rebellious Jewish People (this is mentioned in certian ways by various commentators). God says "speak to ("daber el") the rock", exactly like the phrase which appears over and over in the Torah "speak to the People of Israel" - God may have intended to contrast the behavior of the stone to that of the JewishPeople, ie even a stone does God's bidding when asked, as opposed to the People, who were constantly complaining (now about water).
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To me this juxtaposing of the stories of the stone (which is to be spoken to and respond) and the donkey (which speaks and responds) is God's way of telling us that this was God's intent in our story as well.
However Moses however refused to be part of this vilification of the disobedient Jewish People, and so he did not allow the contrast to an obedient stone, and so he deliberately hit the stone instead of speaking to it.
More-detailed explanation: We'll act as Moses' defense-attorney and provide here what we believe might have been Moses' chain of reasoning leading him to act as he did. And following this approach of various Traditional commentators, we prefer to frame the situation as follows: he acted against God's wish, but for idealistic reasons, to do what he felt was protecting the Jewish People from God's wrath (as had occured several times before), but he had to suffer the consequences of his taking independent action - and what follows later on (the manner of death God granted him) showed that God loved him all the more as a result of this: for his intention of protecting the Jewish People, for his courage ('standing up to the 'All-Powerful'), and his willingness to do this despite knowing that as a result he would pay a steep penalty, which turned out to be that he had to give up what he so deeply cherished (entering into the Land).
What I mean by this, and the reason for the Traditional commentators surprising opinions of this matter, are explained below.
First, see the text itself: https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0420.htm Bamidbar/Numbers 20,
12 And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron: 'Because ye believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.'
24 'Aaron shall be gathered unto his people; for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against My word at the waters of Meribah
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From the above, you can verify that God does NOT say in the Torah explicitly that:
1) Moses sinned,
2) that he was punished,
3) nor even does the Torah say that Moses was not allowed to enter the Land because he hit the rock instead of speaking to it!
None of the above are in the Torah! Rather all this is inferred by many readers, but rejected in some way or degree by many of the greatest Traditional Rabbinical commentators, as indicated below, and in the sources I provide.
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4) God tells us in the Torah that God told Moses the reason - that it was because Moses "did not trust/believe in God, to sanctify God" - no mention of this being in connection with hitting the rock instead of speaking to it, and it is not mentioned what this all would have to do with sanctifying God.
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5) Furthermore: see Moses' speech to the assembled People later on, when he tells how he pleading with God to be allowed to go into the Land. We expect perhaps something like:
"And I pleaded with the Lord in that time, begging for Divine mercy, to forgive my transgression when I hit the rock, and I told God then "Verily am I intensely sorry for my actions; for I have sinned deeply, and now humbly beg for your forgiveness. And the Lord replied to Moses harshly saying: "No, Moses, for your transgression in going against my Will, hitting the rock instead of speaking to it as I expressely commanded, that is a terrible and great trangsression, and by disrespecting me in this way in public in front of the whole People, you desecrated my Honor."
Something like that.
But none of that appears in his speech, nor in God's reply.
Instead was said by Moses and by God is as follows: Deut (Dvarim) 3: 23-26:
23 And I pleaded with God at that time, saying: 24 'O Lord GOD, Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness, and Thy strong hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth, that can do according to Thy works, and according to Thy mighty acts? 25 Let me go over, I pray Thee, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly hill-country, and Lebanon.' 26 But the LORD was wroth with me because of you, and did not listen to me; and the LORD said unto me: 'Let it be enough for you; speak no more unto Me of this matter.
It is striking (sorry for the pun, it just slipped out :) that neither in our portion nor later (in the quote above when Moses described his praying to God to be allowed to enter the Land) does Moses mention that he sinned, or that he is sorry for transgressing, that he asks God for forgivenes, or that it had to do with hitting the rock!
Instead he seems to feel that he is being penalized for the flaws of the People, who he has been trying constantly both to mold into a God fearing nation, and to protect, even from God. And God's reply also does not at all indicate that he sinned or was being punished, or tha tit was because he hit the rock, etc.
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All this leads me to my interpretation: the fact that Moses was given "death via kiss of God" soon after the story of the rock (see eg https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/17054/what-is-the-kiss-of-death), such an incredibly holy way to die, to me clearly seems to indicate that his death was NOT a punishment, and indeed is evidence that he had achieved a yet-higher state, now deserving of this type of 'passage'.
Rather than being a punishment, his death was a consequence of his action: he had lived far beyond the usual of his time, he was 120 years old, this was the limit mentioned earlier in the Torah, and because he was so independent-minded in acting for the benefit of the People even against God, he would not anymore benefit from divinely-bestowed life-extension. But the death he merited was of the highest possible type, reflecting God's great love for him, because of his actions, not despite them. As I explain further below.
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One important approach - that of Rashi (which is usually based on earlier Traditional sources) - is indeed that it was the hitting instead of speaking, however other no-less-prominent Rabbinic commentators state that perhaps Moses and Ahron were meant to strike the rock (since the staff was to be present). And maybe they were even meant to say the phrase recorded in the Torah "shall we extract water from this rock. And the issue that led to it being classified by God as 'non-sanctification' was the improper emotions they had when they made this statement.
See eg Ramban (Nachmanides): here's an English translation: https://www.sefaria.org.il/Ramban_on_Numbers.20.1.1... commentary on "VAYEISHEV HA’AM’ (AND THE PEOPLE ABODE) IN KADESH."
See his discussion of the 'sin' of Moses, and the deep mystery it represents, and especially his presentation of Rabenu Chanan'el's approach.
See Abrabanel https://www.sefaria.org.il/sheets/120889?lang=he
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See this chabad site https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3839434/jewish/Moses-Strikes-the-Rock-The-Full-Story.htm for a great overview of various views, and he concludes with the view of one of the rebbes of chabad mentioned earlier (which ends with: "The Good Sin: ...Moses’ sin was not as a rebellion against G‑d; it wasn't even a mistake. It was for G‑d’s sake .......").
Of course if it is true that Moses was wrong in hitting the rock (not all the commentators agree on this) then Moses should NOT have disobeyed God in that way, and in the end this was a failing in his mission of following God's Will but not in his mission as he understood it of protecting and leading the People; it could be considered a 'sin' only in the technical sense that his action was against God's Will.
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As defense attorney for Moses, to judge his actions favorably, we point out that God does NOT say in the Torah explicitly "Moses, you sinned, I will punish you" and so we ask others not to say this either. Indeed we point to what we take as an indication of RewARD for his actions - instead of crossing into the Land of Israel (or even seeing it), he was given the most spiritual death possible ("kiss of God"), as described in the Torah.
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Below I'll sketch :
1) a speculation as to the noble motivation Moses may have had for acting as he did.
2) a reason - not punishment - that Moses was slated to die after this incident.
However, in order to understand my approach, we'll first need to explore the following conundrum:
Can a person legitimately challenge God's expressed Will?
Obviously the God in the Torah teaches us that indeed God loves most those who challenge the divine expressed WIll, if it is in order to protect humans, with the two famous examples of the two people who founded the Jewish faith and nation, Abraham and Moses - Abraham's famous intensely-chutzpah challenge to God re S'dom "Can it be that the Judge of all the earth will do this injustice (killing everyone in the city irrespective of whether they are good or evil)?!" , and Moses equally-chutzpah declaration to God "if you do that (destroy the Jewish People), take my name our of the Book You have written".
However, what if as part of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham had told God "I love my son, and believe it is wrong to offer child sacrifice - and I even believe that what You conveyed to me in the past suports that conclusion", would God have "gotten angry" at him and "punished" him, or would this have been a legitimate response? I believe that it would not be a 'sin' and there would be no 'punishment' but rather God would have said "ok, but there are consequences to your refusal" eg he can't be the progenitor of the nation God had spoken of since what wa sneeded was someone who would follow God's direclty-expressed Will above all else; or he would be told that he can't continue to live to extraordinary ages in deferment of usual death before 120, in order to be there to affect history - he was already almost 140 - and instead would die soon. Of course this is pure speculation, but that's how I would understand it.
Indeed, Tradition points to a possible negative consequence of Moses' confrontation of God (telling God "erase my name from your book if you decide to kill the Jewish People"), that Moses' name is omitted from mention in a certain section following this. On the other hand God I think it is clear that God loved him all the more for his actions/words.
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Another example: A person can decide that they will protest a government action and end up in the street with thousands of people, non-violently, and not calling for violence etc, and get arrested for obstructing trafic and spend hours in jail, and later on they can run for public office and various people will say they admire their willingness to sacrifice comfort to stand up for one's beliefs, and that clearly this person is an idealist and there was some justice to their cause, but nevertheless that the arrest was justified.
So there is a difference between an illegal action which is considered as a character stain, and action against the authorities which is wrong but idealistic and in line with the beliefs of a large amount of law-abiding people, but nevertheless carries a necessary negative consequence which is justified.
So Moses violated God's command and was willing to suffer consequences, but God loved him all the more for it, and the consequence was that he couldn't anymore live past 120 as would have been the case, and couldn't remain the protector of the Jewish People as they transitioned out of the desert into the Land, but this in my view does not mean it was a 'sin' in the 'character-stain' sense, and that he was 'punished'.
There is a famous notion with a long history “If a man is not a Socialist at 20 he has no heart, but if he remains one at 30 he has no head.” [see the history here: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/] so one can admire someone who in their youth was a little contrarian and attended illegal demonstrations, and who was willing to suffer for their beliefs, and yet one can also feel the jail sentences they received were justified - all of this is not self-contradictory. Even the sentencing judge can feel admiration, but nevertheless sentence to jail time or other consequence since the law was violated, and there is a good reason for that law.
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The example of Adam & Eve: Many people assume the Torah tells that Adam and Eve were cursed, but reading the actual text makes it clear that they weren't. It seems to people that they were expelled as a punishment for eating of the tree of Knowledge, but that's not what the Torah says. It doesn't even say they sinned or were punished, only that there were consequences to their having eaten, and that now as a result they could not reminain in Eden (Indeed see eg the sefer: "Madregat Ha'adam" where the idea is raised that God wanted them to eat of the Tree in order to become free willed and then accept the Torah, living in the real world we know of for which the Torah is suited, rather than in eden where all is automatic, and that Adam & Eve were amazingly courageous in being willing to forgo the simplicity of life in Eden, and give up eternal pleasure-filled life in the Garden, in order to enter the 'real world' of challenge and potential for spiritual growth. They 'disobeyed' God's expressed Will but fulfilled a deeper not-opnely expressed Will, but had to be willing to pay a great price, and they were indeed willing.
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Back to Moses: Similarly, as was pointed out above it is not at all obvious that in the story of hitting the rock Moses sinned or that he was punished. There was a consequence, that he could not exit the desert to enter the Land, parallel to Adam and Eve's consequence that they could not remain in Eden and had to exit to ordinary reality.
Since although we are told that it was all because Moses did not sanctify God's name, but it is not obvious from the story how this constituted non-sanctification of God's Name, we can perhaps interpret the lack of meniton in the Torah of this explanation as an indication that it was not a deliberate 'rebellious' or 'transgressive' act of Moses, and therefore there was no unishment or penalty only a payment of the required price. Even if all supposed 'sin' and 'punishment' can be viewed instead as cause-effect in the divinely-instituted cosmos, in this case I prefer to interpret events as pointing to the lack here even of that, ie instead of the not entering the land being seen as punishment or even simly the 'divine-karmic result of disobeying God's Will, I would prefer to see it as a knowing choice by Moses, willing to give up a goal very dear to him, in order to attain another goal even more precious. .
[Also: perhaps even if God considered it a transgression (which I think was not the case), I would say that no human is at the level where they could judge Moses this way and so God deliberately left out words such as "Moses sinned", or "and Moses was punished" etc.]
And if you read the links provided above, you saw how hard the Traditional rabbinical scholars struggled to find the meaning of this story, what Moses did wrong and why the hitting was so bad that Moses was told that as a result he wouldn't be able to enter the Land, and why it was considered secifically 'nonsanctification of God'. After reading all the conflicting views, what is clear is that the reasons are not at all obvious... and this leaves us room to interpret as well..
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Explanation of 1:) a speculation as to the noble motivation Moses may have had for acting as he did.
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And now finally to the defense's closing speech: Of course there are many ways to interpret all this, '70 valid differing faces of Torah', I simply offer this one for consideration as defense attorney [and perhaps there are Traditional commentators who have proposed this] that Moses understood the reason for the new request by God to only speak to the rock rather than hitting it as last time, and knowing the reason motivated him to deliberately NOT follow, and to do it instead as in the earlier instance. Via the contrast to the previous time, by not hitting it this time, just talking to it, it would have been perceived as being even a bigger miracle, a greater willingnes sof the rock to follow the Will of God, and this was exactly what Moses wanted to prevent, and so denied the stone the opportunity of manifesting greater obedience to God's will than the Jewish People. Just as Bil'am's donkey showed greater prophetic ability and willingness to obey God than he did himself, the stone would have displayed great prophetic ability in understanding God's request, and would have embrassed the People in indicating such great willingness to follow God's WIll despite being asked to do something so far from its nature. And so in direct contrast to the stone and the donkey, Moses disobeyed God's express Will even at great cost to himself for disobeying God as (lehavdil) Bil'am disobeyed God. And this brings us to another parallel between the stories: Traditional considers Bil'am and Moses to have been at same the prophetic level! The notion is that God provided the other nations a prophet as great as Moses in order to create balance, to be just. In the stories mentioned here, both acted against God's Will despite being great prophets. Bil'am was paid to curse the Jewish People by nations considering them to be a threat to their people, and perhaps Bil'am felt his nation was threatened, and so decided to counter God's will. And this juxtaposition of events and accounts in the Torah would be a hint by God to the motive of Moses in countermanding God's will - that he too wanted to protect his people. Specifically, in this case he was willing to sacrifice himself, and his opportunity to be in the Land of Israel, in order to save his people from shame or punishment.
Now we can perhaps understand God's wording, ie why God uses the word "lehakdisheni" "to sanctify me", which I interpret as meaing in this case "to prevent a desecration", ie Moses was preventing the desecration of the name of God ("chilul hashem") which would result from embarrassing God's people (as Moses had previously said that if God destroyed the People in the desert it would be a desecration of God's name among the nations who would think that God was unable to complete the task.).
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Also: God uses the word "lo he'emantem bi" where the root is like in the word 'amen'' which is a sort of assent (agreeing to a statement) and so it can mean here either "since you didn't believe in me/trust me" or "didn't go along with my plan."
So altogether it means that by saving the Jewish People from this unflattering comparison "you didn;t go a long with my plan, and you did it in order to prevent a desceration pf My Name".
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Of course God was not 'angry' at this (anger usually is loss of control so this term is generally used in the Torah as applied to God in a ,way meant to convey something deep, but not necessarily the literal sense, and also as for example when a parent acts angry to a child), even though Moses was interferening in God's plan, especially since this is exactly what God hoped Moses would do to protect the People. Nevertheless God showed Moses that even when taking the right and hoped-for action, there is always a consequence, a price to be paid - and a true leader is willing to pay that price to protect his people. Moses indeed had to give up his being able to experience the holy land.
Of course Moshe disobeyed, and that's why he was removed as leader, but the above is why I go along with the interpretation that it was NOT a sin, and that he was NOT punished - instead, God loved him even more for being willing to sacrifice himself, and so as opposed to getting punishment, what happened was that instead of transitioning to the Land of Israel, he transitioned to his next spiritual stage via the "kiss of God"
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So we really owe Moses for hitting the rock rather than talking to it, and can show our gratitude by recognizing that it was to defend the Jewish People yet again that he hit the rock.
[This is all of course only an interpretation, motivated by the desire to defend Moses and judge his actions favorably ("lelamed zchut & dan lekaf zchut), in return for his having defended us (the Jewish People) so many times in the desert.]....
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Explanation for 2: Why Moses was slated to die after this incident;
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Moses 'evolved' from being self-effacing and passive at the burning bush ("who am I, let someone else do it, I don;t even know how to speak well.."), to taking responsibility for the Jewish people's destiny and being full of 'chutzpah' in telling God (when God stated "I'll kill the Jewish People and place your family instead") "if you do that, erase me please from your book", in order to defend the Jewish People. All this while maintining geat humility! Or as a result of that humility. When Moses said "erase me' he of course knew that God could strike him dead right on the spot, and he clearly was ready to die for his stance of protecting the Jewish People (considering each person equal in worth to him, and not being concerned at all with possible danger to himself).
Obviously this was exactly what God wanted from a leader, and God's response was to show Moses the divine Presence and to reveal the attributes of mercy, and moses' face shone,and his action led him to have a yet-higher level of prophecy/closeness to God (God describes it as "face to face," etc).
But at some point this always has some price, and a real leader is willing to pay that price. And here indeed the price was that if Moses was not anymore going to comply with God's Will, he couldn't anymore be leader (On Yom Kippur we read the liturgy of the ten righteous martyrs and the angels cry to God how could this be and God says accept this or I will have to erase the universe from existence, this is how it must be"), and if he could not anymore accept carrying out God's Will and could therefore not anymore be the leader, he could not lead them into Israel, and so there was no reason for him to be given extra years of life to live past 120.
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So I don't think he was punished by not going into the land - his not going into the land was simply the effect of dying at 120 without the special life-extension he would have had if he would have remained a compliant leader. ABut as we see from God's reaction in our parsha, perhaps Moses' action was a high level of 'holy chutzpah', it thus deserved the 'kiss of death'.
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So although it was the wrong choice, and a weakness, succumbing to strong temptation (and in that weakness even some arrogance towards the People [judging from his words to them] may have leaked out, sneaking past his usually-high barriers) but all this was not a "sin" and he was not "punished", the result - completing his leadership - was simply a necessary consequence, and then came the ultimate reward, for all the times that he defended the Jewish people, Moses was given "the divine kiss of death" where God's closeness is so great that his soul left his body...
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[But of course this is simply an opinion, I fully embrace that it is not the ONLY TRUE WAY to interpret this.]
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We could perhaps phrase it as follows: Moses's failings were those of a person at a very high level, in this case he failed in giving in to his strong desire to protect the Jewish People despite the inner knowledge that this was the wrong choice, that he should obey God at all costs; he had in the past argued with God, spoke with chutzpah to God, to save the Jewish People, but not disobeyed God, and perhaps this failing happened because Moses was 'burnt out' from so many years of leadership self-sacrifice that he was not strong enough to resist his temptation to take action against God's Will, in order to save the Jewish People and God saw that he could not lead anymore in the perfect way he had done it until now, and so God effectively said to Moses "ok, you did an amazing job, and now it's time to retire and hand it over to a younger person with all his energies at maximum'. And Moses was ready to pay the price of his death - at 120, in the desert - rather than continuing to lead the People into the Land (as long as they had Yehoshua to lead them, to whom Moses gave some of his 'hod'/glory, and God promised that Yehoshua would be a good leader.
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Conclusion: However we interpret it, may we always have the ability to make great efforts to judge others as favorably as we can - as in our attempt regarding Moses above. At the same time, we can hold ourselves up to the highest standard. However, if we do not live up to our highest aspirations, at that point we can try to defend ourselves - we deserve it no less than others - as long as this is part of the positive self-healing we need in order to pick ourselves up, to overcome discouragement - like the burning-out of Moses - and try again to reach toward lofty goals.
And maybe Moses could have benefitted form some positive feedback from some of the People? And wouldn't that potentially have had a great effect form which the entire Jewish People would have benefitted? So if we see another who is failing in their duty, may we be blessed to find in ourselves not only the willingness to overcome judgement but even to provide them with support, and show that we judge them favorably, and hopefully this positivty and support would snowball to even greater cosmic effect.
To clarify my point: Of course Moshe disobeyed, and that's why he was removed as leader, but I believe it was NOT a sin, and that he was NOT punished - instead, God loved him even more for being willing to sacrifice himself, and his opportunity to be in the Land of Israel, in order to save his people from shame or punishment. And as reward for all the times that he defended the Jewish people, Moses was given "the divine kiss of death".
Of course Moses should NOT have disobeyed God, this was a failing, and it happened because Moses was 'burnt out' from so many years of leadership self-sacrifice, and since he was burnt out God saw that he could not lead anymore, and so Moses was ready for his death - at 120, in the desert - rather than continuing to lead the People into the Land. But Moses's failings were those of a person at a very high level, in this case he gave in to his strong desire to protect the jewish People despite the inner knowledge that this was the wrong choice, that he should obey God at all costs, but because he was burnt out from self-sacrifice he was not strong enough to resist his temptation to save the Jewish People.
So although it was the wrong choice, and a weakness, succumbing to strong temptation (and in that weakness even some arrogance towards the People [judging from his words to them] may have leaked out, sneaking past his usually-high barriers) but all this was not a "sin" and he was not "punished", the result - completing his leadership - was simply a necessary consequence, and then came the ultimate reward, God's closeness so great that his soul left his body...
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Addiitonal point:
We learn from Jonah yonah via Trditional tachings that he ran to protect the Jewish Poeple, etc.
Quesiton: Why not get the JP to also do techuva and then the Bet Hamikdaash woulnd NOT be destroyed by the people of Ninveh!
Answer; As prophet he also knew it would happen (he didnt expect to prevent, it, just didnt want to be the oe to cause it)...so having ninveh repent was also an unflattering comaprison if th Jewish People did NOT repent when Ninveh DID! Similarly re M"R and the rock...
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I said this at Machlis
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The previous time M"R was indeed instructed to hit the rock, so now he did too, not a big deal perhaps...
God often told MR 'daber el bney yisrael', and now it is 'daber el haselah'. interesting.
Maybe this was related to MR's words: "ha min hasela..."
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words in the snake story reminiscent of other stories.
snake eden, hu yeshufcho rosh.... akev --> ekev, esav... so parallel to edom, went round to avoid, this borught companint and then war loss
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20:11: M"R & A hit the rock. They were guilty of ego: M"R said "Will we take water out of this rock"? in mockery, when it wasn't HIM that was taking the water out in an case, and also, he was in some sense self-aggrandizing (tkaing credit) and grandstanding, mocking sarcastic/ironic, and this is all ego and so MR was punished (& A too).