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Sidrah

Parashah of the week: Chukkat

“We will not pass through fields or vineyards, and we will not drink water from wells. We will follow the king’s highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left until we have crossed your territory” Numbers 20:17

July 3, 2025 09:26
Well in desert F110711MS24.jpg
A man looks into a water well in the Judean desert (Photo: FLASH90)
1 min read

The symbol of the well is returned to repeatedly in this week’s parashah. We start with the famous midrash of Miriam’s well when her death spells thirst for the Israelites. Later, Moses provides water in a place named “Well”, and the Israelites sing the Song of the Well.

And twice, Moses gives a promise about wells to a foreign king: if you allow us to pass through your lands, he says, we will not drink well-water.

The surface-level reading of this promise is that the Israelites require passage and nothing else. It will be as if they were never there. They won’t take anything from the Edomites (and later, the Amorites), even water.

However, the wording of the promise proves puzzling. Moses promises that the Israelites will not drink meiy-v’eir, literally “water of well”, formulating “well” in the singular and apparently failing to mention other water resources such as cisterns.

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