From Stone to Water: Parshat Chukkat

The following source sheet was created for Temple Micah, Washington, D.C.
[PDF version]

Numbers 20:8

You and your brother Aaron, take the rod and assemble the community, and speak unto the rock before their eyes that it give its water. Thus you shall produce water for them from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their beasts.
  

HaKetav V’HaKabbalah (Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenberg—19^th century, Germany)

“Speak unto the rock before their eyes.” It really should have said “before their ears,” since speech is apprehended by the organ of hearing. We must therefore conclude that not external sight is meant, but rather insight—the mind’s eye—just as the phrase “And their eyes were opened” in the case of Adam and Eve implied that they became conscious inwardly of a new state of affairs, and not that any physical blindness of theirs was suddenly cured. Rashi’s comment, in light of this observation, becomes clearer: “Had Moses and Aaron spoken to the rock to bring forth water, God would have been sanctified in the eyes of the congregation. The congregation would have argued, ‘If this rock, which can neither speak nor hear, can be transformed by the word of the God, how much the more so can we.’”

Babylonian Talmud, Brachot 55a

Rav Judah said in the name of Rav [Abba Arika]: The world was created with the letters of the Aleph-Bet.

Byron Sherwin, Faith Finding Meaning (61)

In medieval Jewish literature, the consonants of the Hebrew alphabet are compared to a body and the vowels to a soul. Yet a Torah scroll is written only with consonants. Indeed, a vocalized [with vowels] Torah scroll is unfit for ritual use. The Torah requires a person to supply the vowels, the vocalization, the soul, in order for it to become animate, alive, heard. Without the person to animate it, to provide it with a voice, tradition might otherwise remain inert. By giving vocalization to the text, the reader animates and interprets the text, giving it life, allowing it to be spoken, heard, and understood.

Synesthesia at Sinai

“All the people saw the thunder and the lightening, the blare of the shofar and the mountain smoking” (Exodus 20:15).

Rashi (11^th century, France): They saw that which is heard, which would be impossible in any other place.

Sfat Emet (19^th century, Poland): Seeing and hearing are two distinct experiences, one unlike the other. And each one has an advantage and a disadvantage. For the seer looks at a thing in its completeness, exactly as it is. But for the hearer, the sound changes as it enters his ears, and isn’t exactly the same sound that was originally made. That’s the advantage of seeing. But with hearing, there is an advantage that the sound truly enters inside of him or her through the ear, whereas the sight remains outside. With this in mind, our verse teaches us that the Children of Israel had both advantages. They received words in the manner of “seeing sounds,” such that even though they truly entered inside of them, they nevertheless “saw” the sounds, without any distortion.