I'd like to go in more depth about the Rambam's position, and the Ramban's rejoinder, through ( and this is something I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere) the Ritva's defense of the Rambam.
First, the Rambam, from the 4th chapter of the introduction to his commentary on Pirkei Avot, translation found here, with minor language updates and simplifications by me:
You should also know that God said to our teacher Moses, the master of former and later ages, "Because you have not confided in me, to sanctify me" (Numbers 20:12), "because you rebelled against my order at the waters of Meribah" (Numbers 20:24), "because you did not sanctify me" (Deuteronomy 32:51). All this (God said) although the sin of Moses was only that he departed from the moral mean of patience to the extreme of wrath when he exclaimed,"Hear now ye rebels" etc., yet for this God found fault with him that such a man as he should show anger in the presence of the entire community of Israel, where wrath is unbecoming. This was a profanation of God's name, because men imitated the words and conduct of Moses, hoping thereby to attain temporal and eternal happiness. How could he, then, allow his wrath free play, since it is a bad characteristic, arising,as we have shown, from an evil psychological condition? The divine words, "You have rebelled against My word" (Numbers 27:14) are, however, to be explained as follows. Moses was not speaking to ignorant and vicious people, but to an assembly, the most insignificant of whose women, as the sages put it, were on a plane with Ezekiel, the son of Buzi. So, when Moses said or did anything, they subjected his words or actions to the most searching examination. Therefore, when they saw that he was becoming angry, they said, "He has no moral imperfection! He must know that God is angry with us for demanding water, and that we have stirred up the wrath of God, for otherwise he would not be angry with us". However, we do not find that when God spoke to Moses about this matter, He was angry, but on the contrary, said, "Take the staff . . . and give drink to the congregation and their cattle".
[Me:] It seems to me that, according to the Rambam, while the sin of Moses certainly was his mistake in becoming angry, it was also the result of the anger, which was a public "profanation of God's name", because someone who is considered worthy of imitation can't make mistakes like that.
We have, indeed, digressed from the subject of this chapter, but have, I hope, satisfactorily solved one of the most difficult passages of Scripture concerning which there has been much arguing in the attempt to state exactly what the sin was which Moses committed. Let what others have said be compared with our opinion, and the truth will surely prevail.
Let's take him up on that.
Time for the Ramban, a little translation, a lot of summarization because it's long:
He has added nonsense upon nonsense!
1) The verse states, "You have rebelled against My word..." meaning they [Moses and Aaron] actually transgressed God's word!
2) It says, "You did not believe in me..." [meaning their sin was explicitly] that they [Moses and Aaron] lacked belief in God.
3) It should have counted it as a sin against Moses when he got angry at the commanders of the army for no reason, [referring to Numbers 31:14].
4) There's no indication in the verses that Moses got angry. "Hear now ye rebels..." only indicates rebuke, just like "You have been rebels against God since the day I knew you..." (Deuteronomy 9:24).
5) Aaron never got angry, in all his days [and not in this story. Why then is Aaron punished also?]
6) How is it possible that God was not angry at the Israelites? God got angry at them when they complained about being in the desert, when they said they would rather be in Egypt and enslaved than be a nation of God. Surely this is a worse sin, where they complained even more vociferously!
7) Moses said [in Deuteronomy 1:37], "God became angry at me as well because of you..." Not only does this prove that God got angry, it shows that the people actually sinned.
8) As for what the Rambam said that obviously God didn't get angry with them because he grants them their wish, know that God provided for them, even though they sinned, for "He is merciful, forgives sin, and does not awaken his entire wrath..." and therefore did not mention their sin, He just granted their wish. In fact, we see that God does get angry when they complain, even if He doesn't mention it, [see (Exodus 27:5-6)].
9) Furthermore, God got angry at Korach and the spies, and it mentions before their punishment that "God's glory" was present. We see this here, at Mei Mariva, see Numbers 17:6, indicating that God was indeed angry.
10) Psalms 106:32 explicitly states: "And they provoked anger at Mei Mariva..." indicating that God got angry.
The best answer, which also good at pushing away objections, is that of Rabbeinu Chananel, who says that Moses and Aaron's sin was saying, "Shall we bring forth water..." making it seem that God was not the benefactor of the water, which could have been a great sanctification of God's name. They had made sure the people knew that God was the benefactor on every other occasion, but not here... When it says "You trespassed against Me (Deuteronomy 32:51), it uses the word "me'ilah", a form that is used when someone makes use of something holy, and they had usurped God's glory. When it says "You rebelled against me..." (Numbers 27:14), it might mean that God intended for them to sanctify His name and speak to the rock, and they rebelled against His word. Alternatively, it could mean that "you rebelled" - "maritem" might be translated as "you switched" [like from the word "temurah"], and it means "You changed My words for your own..." When it says, "You did not believe in Me..." it could mean in the hifil, "You did not cause them [the Israelites] to believe in me...]
The Ramban goes on, but more relevant to us is the litany of questions the Ramban asks on the Rambam, which I think I got all of, making a pretty compelling case that, 1) Moses actually did something specifically wrong, and its unclear he got angry in the first place 2) Aaron was somehow involved and was equally culpable, but he's not mentioned as doing so, nor does it make sense that he got angry 3) God did in fact get angry, and the problem of the people was not that they falsely thought He was angry through Moses, because He was.
Now the Ritva attempts the defend the Rambam in his book dedicated to this topic, called Sefer HaZikaron. What's so interesting about the Ritva is that he is a student of a student of the Ramban, so he comes from a similar school of thought, and probably agreed with the Ramban. Yet, he writes, that while the Ramban has made a strong argument, "we can still find solutions." And so he begins:
God forbid that all of this was hidden from the Rambam.
[Response to 4):] When our rabbi, Ramban, argued that there is no explicit verse that Moses got angry, it may be true that the Torah doesn't say it, but our sages do (see Sifri Matot 31:21), and the Rambam identified that moment as when he said, "Hear now ye rebels..." The Ramban's objection that this statement, "Here now ye rebels..." was just Moses' rebuke, but not anger, like "You were rebels...." in Deuteronomy is easily answered. While they have the same language, they were not said in the same context, and our sages in the Sifri saw this one as in anger, and not the other. "You were rebels..." is not seen as angry in context, but "Hear now ye rebels..." surely is, which was stated with a "heh hakriah" - "a letter connoting an announcing", and a "heh hatimihah" - "a letter connoting incredulity". The experts in logic have shown that one's voice can change one sentence to its exact opposite meaning. When one says to his fellow, "You did well!" it could mean two extremes in context. Even our sages have realized this, as they have said, (Bava Kama 93a) "Sometimes, 'yes' means 'no', and sometimes 'no' means 'yes'." The Rambam, did not innovate [this aspect of Moses' sin]. What he innovated was that this anger was the thing that sealed his fate, [not allowing him to go into the holy land].
[Response to 1):] The Ramban objected that the fact it says "You have rebelled against My word..." means that Moses actually did something wrong. The Rambam already addressed this. Why add more to what he already said? [Meaning, Moses rebelled against God's word by becoming angry instead of speaking nicely and making a sanctification of God's name.]
[Response to 2):] The Ramban objected that the fact it says "You did not believe in me..." means that there was some lack of faith in God on Moses' part. As is well known, the Rambam interprets Moses' request of God, to "Show me your ways..." (Exodus 33:13) as referring to the way of God's attributes. He states in the Guide for the Perplexed that Moses wanted to lead the Israelites with attributes similar to God's and how He acts in the world, and God showed them to him, which included "slow to anger", meaning to be long in patience with the wicked, and not be easily angered. When Moses failed to use this attribute at this time, it meant he did not truly have faith in this matter, for the belief is tied to the action.
[Response to 3):] The Ramban objected that Moses wasn't called to task when he most obviously got angry at the commanders in the army. If Moses got angry at that time, he was rightfully angry, for they had left the women alive, the very people who caused the Israelites "to go against God through the matter of Pe'or" (Numbers 31:16). With regard to pagan worship, his anger was appropriate.
[Response to 6, 7, 8, 9):] When the Rambam said that God did not get angry, he wasn't saying that there was no wrongdoing on Israel's part. God forbid. No, he was saying that they sinned, but for this particular sin, God was not angry with them.
[Response to 10):] The Ramban objected that the verse in Psalms explicitly states that "They provoked anger at Mei Mariva...", referring to God's anger. But perhaps the Rambam believed that that referred to Moses' anger. Even though the end of that verse refers to Moses by name, making it seem that the first part was not referring to him, we find that this type of thing happens in many other places, such as "And she saw him, the child..." (Exodus 2:6).
[Response to 5):] It seems certain that according to the Rambam, Aaron also got angry, and he sinned, but Scripture focuses only on Moses for he was the greater of the two, as David says there "They provoked anger at Mei Mariva, which was bad for Moses because of them." It wasn't only bad for Moses, it was bad for Aaron as well! Moses also spoke for the both of them when he said "Will we truly get water from a rock for you?" True, Aaron was never angry... except for this incident. This is the opinion of the Guide, the Rambam.
There is an extra answer that the Ritva gives, but I could not find the objection in the Ramban that was addressing, so i diod not include it. In all, the Ritva answers all of ther Ramban's objections, and ends off with:
I know that the Ramban has accepted the kabbalistic understanding of the sin, but there are 70 faces to the Torah, and these and those are the words of the living God.
However, response to number 2 is pretty tricky. What was his disbelief in God? From the fact that he didn't actually emulate God after expressing that he wanted to. Couldn't this apply to any sin? That is, if belief is tied to action, when I do a wrong action, am I really saying I don't believe in God?
Additionally, his response about God's anger is somewhat tendentious. Really, you believe the Rambam was saying that God did get angry, but not here in this story? What was different about those places to here?
I believe that the Rambam's true answer is that Moses' sin was that he accidentally taught the people that God experiences emotions, when He doesn't, according to the Rambam (Guide 1:55):
Whenever any one of His actions is perceived by us, we ascribe to God that emotion which is the source of the act when performed by ourselves, and call Him by an epithet which is formed from the verb expressing that emotion... His actions towards mankind also include great calamities, which overtake individuals and bring death to them, or affect whole families and even entire regions, spread death, destroy generation after generation, and spare nothing whatsoever... Whenever such evils are caused by us to any person, they originate in great anger, violent jealousy, or a desire for revenge. God is therefore called, because of these acts, "jealous," "revengeful," "wrathful," and "keeping anger" (Nah. i. 2) that is to say, He performs acts similar to those which, when performed by us, originate in certain psychical dispositions, in jealousy, desire for retaliation, revenge, or anger: they are in accordance with the guilt of those who are to be punished, and not the result of any emotion: for He is above all defect!
By being a person who represents God, he made it seem that God experiences human emotion. Yes, God is described as being wrathful and angry. But that is only it appears to the human mind, in how His external actions affect the people. He "gets angry" many times, but never did Moses make the people think that that was human-like emotion! God is no Greek myth, says the Rambam, and Moses failed in his leadership to make sure they knew this when they would go into the Holy Land, where they would be judged for their good and bad. If they thought God was truly angry, or truly sad, their religion would continue to be a primitive, sacrificial cult that attempts to "please the gods". Thus, Moses was barred from entry into the Holy Land, so he could no longer remind the people of God's "angry" human-like emotions. And thus, they could see that God interacts with them as they interact with Him, and He does not react out of some emotional state of imperfection.
To the Rambam, theological truth is of utmost importance, and Moses failed. This could also be why Moses' prayers did not work to assuage God, even though he was the most powerful man when it came to interacting with the Creator. Prayer is a powerful thing, and it effects within us a sense of taking responsibility for our actions, and repenting, but it could not help Moses. For all the repenting he did for the sin, how could God grant his wish? Wouldn't it just look like God is angry one day, and pleased the next? The people would never learn their lesson. And so, Moses could never go to the land he had brought the people out for.
Update: I see now that Rabbi David Horwitz, a rosh yeshiva at YU and one of my professors for Jewish history, has said something very similar to what I wrote above. Oy I can't catch a break on originality.
Edit: Possible answers include Maimonides' understanding that one can act angry for pedagogical purpose, also kapach uses the language of "enraged", not just plain anger.
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