On the verse, “They could not drink water from Marah, because it was bitter,” the Maggid of Mezeritch makes the following linguistic observation. When translated literally, the Hebrew words for “because it was bitter,” ki marim heim, actually mean: “because they were bitter.” According to this teaching, the real reason that the water at Marah was undrinkable was because the Israelites, not the water, were bitter!
This point can be understood on both spiritual and psychological levels.
On the psychological level, the people were in an ugly mood, and correspondingly perceived ugliness in everything they encountered. Their mood had been set by a horrible week. It began with them being forced by Moses to cut short their bounty-gathering on the bank of the Sea of Reeds. While a fortune was to be made from the floating remains of the flamboyant Egyptian army gone under, Moses had stressed that Mount Sinai was waiting.
And days later they were at their wits’ end, having traveled through the desert of Shur for three days without water. They were frustrated with Moses, and just a tad angry with his Boss. They were stressed out and looking to vent.
Vent they did, according to the verse: “The people complained against [not to] Moses.”
The biblical commentator Rashi has this to say about the prevailing mood of the Jews: “They did not consult with Moses using gracious language, saying, ‘Pray on our behalf that there should be water for us to drink.’ Rather, ‘they complained.’”
They looked for, and found, something to complain about. The water tasted much like their mood. To be sure, the water was “objectively” bitter, but since when is the experience of taste objective?
Thus, while the water could have been bitter, it could also have been not. Sweetness need not have been imparted or imported for the waters to become drinkable; a change of mind, mode and mood could equally have done the job.
On the spiritual level, too, the cure is in the mind.
“They walked for three days in the desert but did not find water.”
Water is a reference to Torah, says the Midrash. Thus, metaphorically, the verse teaches that for three days the study of G-d’s Word was neglected. According to one interpretation, then, physical water was withheld from the Jews because they stopped partaking of spiritual waters.
A kinder interpretation has it that this was not punishment, but cause and effect. The undrinkable waters of Marah reflected the spiritual state of the people. They had run empty on meaning; they were spiritually void and thirsty, and therefore bitter. That was the cause. The effect was that the water was “undrinkable”—it left their thirst unquenched. For it wasn’t physical hydration they were after; it was their soul crying out for nourishment.
No wonder Moses was the subject of complaint. The integrity of sacred symbols, traditions and leaders are often attacked by people when they themselves are spiritually lacking. (Perhaps this is their unknowing way of reaching out, of trying to establish a connection?)
So, how does one fill an emptiness of spirit? How does one quench the thirst of a soul?
Believe it or not, the answer is simple.
“The L-rd instructed him concerning a piece of a tree, which he cast into the water ...”
The Torah is called the Tree of Life. “Take a piece of it,” says G-d, “just one thought, a nugget, and ‘cast it into the water,’ taste it, dwell on it, process and apply it to your life, and ‘the water will become sweet’—your soul will be nourished, and your inner peace will be restored.”
That’s one solution: sweet and intuitive.
But there’s another, more challenging, option. Take a bitter olive branch, a poisonous oleander, and harness its healing powers. Recognize that the spiritual thirst itself, the depth of its yearning, the power of its want, is all itself part of the sweetening process.
Then name the place of your life’s spiritual drama “Bitter.” Internalize and utilize the power of Bitter, the extraordinary force created by the voids in your life, and drink of it even—or especially—when life’s waters are sweet.
