Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying. "Take the staff and gather together the assembly, you and Aharon your brother; and you shall speak to the rock before their eyes and it shall give its waters, and you shall bring forth for them water from the rock, and give to drink to the assembly and to their animals".
On these words that Hashem spoke to Moshe, Rashi expounds as follows.
And to their animals. From here we see that Hashem has pity on Israel's property.
Apparently Rashi was bothered as to why Hashem would explicitly command Moshe to give drink to the animals. It is this difficulty that brought Rashi to explain that Hashem gave this command only in order to convey to us this message that 'Hashem has pity on Israel's property'.
What's difficult to understand is, firstly, why in the first place was Rashi bothered as to why Hashem gave that command, when it can be explained simply; Hashem commanded Moshe to give drink to the animals as well, because that is precisely what the Jews complained about in the earlier Passukim,
And there was no water for the assembly... and the people quarreled with Moshe and spoke up... "Why have you brought the congregation of Hashem to this wilderness to die there, we and our animals?"
Furthermore, why didn't Rashi explain that Hashem commanded Moshe to give drink to the animals, in order to convey to us that which the Gemara in Shabbos teaches us, Hashem sits and sustains every member of the animal kingdom, from the reindeer to the eggs of lice?
The Midrash and Alexander's Encounter
The Midrash relates to us the following incident. Alexander went to see a king at the other end of the world, beyond the Mountains of Darkness. On his way there, he went to a province called Afriki, and told the people there that he has come to see their judicial system. They sat Alexander near the king so that he may observe how he judged the people.
While they were sitting, two men came for adjudication before the king. One of them said: My master, I bought a ruin from this man, and I dug it up and found a treasure therein. I said to the seller, "Take back your treasure, for I only bought a ruin from you, and not a treasure". The seller replied: Just as you are fearful of the punishment for the sin of robbery, so am I fearful of the same. When I sold it to you, it was the ruin and all that was inside of it that I sold to you. The king turned to one of the two men and asked him, "Do you have a son?" The man answered, "Yes". The king turned to the other man and asked him, "Do you have a daughter?" The man answered, "Yes". The king then said to them, "Go and let them marry each other and they shall partake of the treasure together" [i.e. thereby, both men would enjoy the benefits of the treasure, through their respective children].
Upon seeing this Alexander became astonished. Seeing his reaction, the king said to him, "Why are you astonished? Have I not judged well?" Alexander replied, "Yes, you have judged well". The king then asked him, "If this case had occurred in your land, what would you do"? Alexander answered, "We would behead both the seller and the buyer and the treasure would go to the storehouse of the king". The king said to Alexander, "Does the sun shine in your land?! Does rain fall in your land?!" Alexander answered, "Yes". The king asked, "Are there small animals in your land?" Alexander answered, "Yes". The king then stated, "It is only in the merit of the small animals that the sun shines upon you, and that the rain falls upon your land; and it is only on the account of the small animals that you are spared".
Explanation of Rashi's Concern
We can explain that when Hashem said, 'and give to drink to the assembly and to their animals', Rashi was never bothered as to why Hashem mentioned the animals specifically, for that indeed can be simply understood; Hashem specifically commanded Moshe to give drink to the animals, for that is precisely what the Jews complained about.
What bothered Rashi was the following. In order to address that which the Jews complained about, it wasn't necessary for Hashem to explicitly mention the animals as a separate entity by saying 'give to drink to the assembly and to their animals', rather it would have sufficed to mention them in a more casual way, by just saying 'to the assembly and their animals'. Moreover, by mentioning the animals as an explicit status of their own, it might be interpreted that the Jewish People themselves were not worthy for the stone to miraculously give forth water, rather the water was provided in the merit of the animals and the Jews got to drink only on their account; similar to that which the king of Afriki chastised Alexander about.
To this Rashi replies, that on the contrary, when the Torah mentions the animals as a separate entity only after mentioning the Jews, it clearly shows us that the water came forth in the merit of the Jews, and the animals got to drink only on the Jews' account, for 'Hashem has pity on Israel's property'
Zera Shimshon Parshas Chukas, Ot Ches
