Thoughts on Chukat

[rosends]

I did some reading and thinking about the stories at the outset of Parshat Chukat. Maybe I'm a bit too critical of Rashi and Moshe or a bit too charitable in my sense of the people, but there you have it.

The Cow and the Rock

Rashi, in his commentary on the Chumash, often asks why certain sections were placed near each other if, as is often taught, the text need ...

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[Jayhawker Soule]

So, you write:

Rashi, in his commentary on the Chumash, often asks why certain sections were placed near each other if, as is often taught, the text need not be presented in strictly chronological order. Once the timeline is not the defining feature, there must be a reason why certain stories, laws or events are related in the text when and where they are.

The over-arching questions are ...

1. what was intended,
2. by whom, and
3. when.

Orthodoxy offers traditional and well respected answers - at least to #2 - while modern scholarship searches for alternatives. I tend to prefer something akin to

The Grain and Pomegranates of Mei Merivah (מי מריבה)​

while acknowledging that such explanations tend to strike me as overly speculative.