This is from the Kedushat Levi on this week's parsha. I just copied the English translation from Sefaria. You can look here for the Hebrew. וראוין הדברים למי שאמרם.
Numbers 20,8. “you are to speak to the rock in full view of them, etc.”, “because you did not have enough faith in Me to sanctify Me in full view of the Israelites.”
Rashi and Nachmanides disagree with one another concerning what was Moses’ sin. One says the sin was that he addressed the Israelites by calling them “obstinate, rebellious” people, i.e. שמעו נא המורים, whereas the other sage claims that Moses’ sin consisted in striking the rock instead of speaking to it.
I believe that Rashi and Nachmanides do not really disagree because the cause that Moses was angry enough to strike the rock was the rebelliousness of the people.
Rebuking people, especially the Jewish people, calling them to order, can be done by two different methods. Both methods are designed to make the people carry out the will of the Creator. One approach stresses the greatness of the Lord, and presents this as the reason why not obeying His commands is a non starter. It reminds the people that their very souls originate immediately beneath the Creator’s throne in heaven. It reminds people of their duty to provide G’d with the pleasure of observing His people performing His will. When the people listen to this kind of rebuke their hearts will surely be moved in the right direction and they will realize that it is incumbent upon them to accept the yoke of heaven.
The other method of admonishing people stresses reminding people of the results of their failure to respond to the rebukes, the penalties in store for them. It is customary that when using this latter dimension of giving mussar, commonly known as the “fire and brimstone” approach, the preacher relies on the feelings of shame in every individual causing him to turn away from doing evil and do good instead.
The difference between these two methods is that the first method relies on reminding the subject of his high rank among the creatures G’d has created, a fact that makes it their duty not to go astray. This former method, through constantly pointing out Israel’s great virtues etc., will likely evoke in the listener a desire to conduct himself in a way that will justify the compliments paid to him by the person doing the rebuking. The person using the method of harping on the wrongs the people are guilty of all the time, cannot at the same time arouse the feeling that they are basically highly valued people in G’d’s eyes, and need only to correct a flaw that has been brought to their attention on this occasion. The person who rebukes the sinner on this occasion, by acknowledging that though accused of an error, whether committed through negligence or even knowingly, he is still considered as part of G’d’s people, i.e. part of the elite of the human species, will evoke reciprocal feelings in those whom he addresses. Moses, on this occasion, chose to use the method of belittling the people and to shame them. It was therefore in keeping with this approach that he struck the rock, symbolizing how an obstinate rock has to be treated.
Since G-d had a) not instructed Moses to berate the people for demanding water, and b) would have preferred for him to choose the first method of rebuking, He had thereby missed an opportunity to demonstrate that even words sounding like compliments addressed to an erring Israelite when criticizing a sin, or even all of them at the right time, in the right circumstances, would have the desired effect on people of the spiritual greatness of Israel. This is all alluded to in G’d’s telling Moses about his failure to have grasped the opportunity to sanctify His Name before all the Israelites.
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