Parashat Chukat - Sixth Aliyah

After the storm of the fiery serpents and the death of Aharon, the Torah turns to describe a quieter journey, a journey of stations that look mostly geographical. The camp advances from Ovot to the ruins of Avarim, to the brook of Zared, and across the Arnon on the border of Moav. Inside this sequence, which almost reads as a dry list, a song suddenly bursts forth.

In the middle of the stations comes a verse that changes the color: “Az yashir Yisrael et hashirah hazot ali ve’er enu lah” (Then Israel sang this song: Spring up, O well, sing to it, Numbers 21:17). Just before, the Torah said this is the well about which God told Moshe “Esof et ha’am ve’etnah lahem mayim” (Gather the people and I will give them water, verse 16).

Rashi on verse 17 explains that the well had been given to Israel from the beginning of the forty years, but here, at the end of the road, it came down again to publicize the miracles, and that is why the song was sung specifically now. The veteran well is revealed anew, and the people open in song, not over a new wonder, but over a presence that had accompanied them the whole time.

The expression “Be’er chafaruha sarim karuha nedivei ha’am bimchokek bemish’anotam” (A well that princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank with the scepter, with their staffs, verse 18) invites a double reading. In the plain sense, a real digging is described. In the words of the Sages, the “princes” and “nobles of the people” are Moshe and Aharon, and “with the scepter, with their staffs” is the staff itself, the symbol of authority turned not toward striking but toward quiet action.

The Torah then moves from physical stations to stations that speak also as an inner language: “Umimidbar matanah. Umimatanah Nachaliel. Uminachaliel Bamot. Umibamot hagai… rosh haPisgah venishkafah al pnei haYeshimon” (And from the wilderness a gift; and from the gift Nachaliel; and from Nachaliel the heights; and from the heights the valley… the top of Pisgah, overlooking the wasteland, verses 18-20). The Sages (Nedarim 55a) taught: when a person makes himself like the wilderness, free for all, the Torah is given to him as a gift. And from there, the one who received the gift inherits, the one who inherits rises, until he looks down from above on a place that had been wasteland before him.

A sharp message: the greatest song in this journey is not sung over a dramatic miracle, but over a well that was always there and was finally noticed. The spiritual elevation begins precisely at the station where a person agrees to be like the wilderness, open to receiving. The one who is willing to sit low receives the gift, and from there the road to the summit already opens by itself.