Lead Tidbit
Maybe Not THAT Extreme, but...
Moshe Rabeinu hit the rock rather than speak to it, as he was instructed to by G-d. This, says G-d, demonstrates a lack of faith and a missed opportunity to sanctify My name before the people of Israel. Therefore, you will not bring the people into the Land that I gave them. Seems like a very harsh assessment and punishment for a seemingly mild... what shall we call it? Mistake? Misdeed? Transgression?

Rashi says that the Torah is stressing that this alone was the reason that Moshe (and Aharon) did not enter Eretz Yisrael - NOT any of the other sins of the Wilderness Generation. He also points out that Moshe's questioning of G-d's ability to feed the people meat was a more serious "lapse" on Moshe's part, but that had been in private - just between G-d and Moshe. This episode, on the other hand, was public, and the missed opportunity for a Kiddush HaShem is tantamount to the opposite.

People tend not to internalize or personalize certain episodes in the Torah, because "the Avot, Moshe Rabeinu, et al were on a much higher level" and therefore judged differently, more strictly, than the average person. As true as that is, it should not be an excuse not to learn what the Torah is trying to teach us by "reporting" these types of episodes.

In our everyday lives as Jews and as human beings, we are continually faced with opportunities to sanctify G-d's name, to bring honor to Judaism, to Torah observance. We are also presented with many situations that challenge our faith, at least a little bit.

Do not think that we are uninvolved observers to what we read in the Torah. Everything that G-d chose to include in the Torah is to teach us how to behave in our variations of those situations.