But the multitude among them began to have strong cravings. Then even the children of Israel once again began to cry, and they said, "Who will feed us meat?

We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt free of charge, the cucumbers and the watermelons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic.

But now, our souls are dried out, for there is nothing at all; we have nothing but manna to look at." (Bamidbar 11:4-6)

 

The cucumbers and the watermelons R. Ammi and R. Assi [were disputing its meaning], one said: They found in the manna the taste of every kind of food, but not the taste of these five; the other said: Of all kinds of food they felt both taste and substance, but of these the taste only without the substance.

(Yoma 75a, based on Soncino translation)

 

But not the taste of these - For they are bad for pregnant and nursing women. As it states in Sifri: It is like saying to a woman, "For the baby's sake, do not eat onions."

(Rashi ad loc)

 

Taste only without the substance - That is to say that the sensation was so powerful that it seemed to them as if they were tasting the substance, but in regards to these species one tastes their taste and not their substance.

(R. Steinzaltz's commentary)

 

Our souls are dried out - the appetitive soul, which is located in the liver.

(Ibn Ezra 11:6)

 

Our souls are dried out - It is as when the faculty of imagination of a hungry man causes him to dream of eating meat, while in reality, there is nothing at all; we have nothing but manna to look at, for it actually was not meat but only manna. And similarly it says in the Sifri (87): "And the Sages said: The manna would change for the Israelites into whatever they wanted, but they would not see [what they wanted to eat] with their eyes, for it is said: there is nothing at all; we have nothing but manna to look at. As far as looking goes, we have nothing but manna in the morning and in the evening."

(Malbim ad loc)

 

Between the Exalted and the Mundane

Moshe Lavee

Rise up, Lord and disperse your enemies, and you despisers shall flee before You - Sometimes the way a verse is used in liturgy and ritual constitutes a profound interpretation of Scripture. By singing this verse when the Ark is opened in the synagogue, the event is charged with recognition that we have reached the climax, that everything up to now has, to a certain extent, been nothing more than preparation for the reading of the Torah, which now becomes possible with the opening of the Ark. Indeed, these verses also mark a climactic moment in the course of the Israelites long trek through the wilderness; they announce that the great stopover has ended, the Israelites may journey forth once more. Ever since parashat Yitro, in which the Israelites reach Horeb and receive the Torah, they have remained encamped in one place. The Torah has been given; its laws have been given; Israel sinned with the Calf; the Tabernacle was erected; the laws of sacrifices and of purity and impurity relating to the Sanctuary rite have been studied; the Tabernacle has been dedicated; the Israelites have been counted and arranged into camps. All of these things happened in the section beginning with the middle of the book of Shemot and continuing up to our parasha in the first third of the book of Vayikra, and all that time Israel has remained in one place. This great respite appears to be bracketed by a chiastic structure marked by Jethro's arrival when the Israelites encamped and his departure when their journey was taken up again. Now they are moving, the trumpets blare and we can still hear their call. The journey is renewed; Rise up, Lord and disperse your enemies, and you despisers shall flee before You.

The people were looking to complain - Just at the moment the journey is to begin again, everything suddenly falls apart. Those who heard the footsteps of the completion of redemption and could already see the beloved land coming closer with the announcement of the return to the trek, suddenly found themselves broken and exhausted over the trivialities of everyday life. The people were looking to complain... began to cry, and they said, "Who will feed us meat?... our souls are dried out, for there is nothing at all...and Moses heard... The Lord became very angry, and Moses considered it evil. This context helps us understand the severity of Moses' distress, the great despair which took hold of him, and the fascinating reversal in his relationship with God. If earlier God was the one who despaired of the people, now Moses asks to to be relieved of his role: Why have You treated Your servant so badly?... Did I conceive this entire people? Did I give birth to them, that You say to me, "Carry them in your bosom as the nurse carries the suckling"?... it is too hard for me... If this is the way You treat me, please kill me... Moses asks to die, a request that can be understood against the background of the great downfall expressed by the contrast between the verses rise up, Lord and the people were looking to complain; the chasm yawning between the journey, the festive trumpeting, the celebration of ceremonies, the feelings of power and victoriousness, taking off on the journey, and the great aspirations as against petty mundane routine and the demands of everyday life. It is not accidental that Moses cites the image of the nurse and the suckling, a trope expressing demanding, mundane, exhausting experience that does not achieve realization in the short term. It takes over one's life, causes one to forget greatness and great hopes; it causes one to focus on the demands of the absolute, dependent, and non-autonomous other. The popular Hebrew lyric, "I have a holiday every day" does not work here.

I think that Moses' persona and the events surrounding his persona later in the parasha further clarify the situation we are discussing. The Moses of please kill me, of complete despair of contending with human routine, is also our Rabbi Moses of whom it is said, Not so is My servant Moses... With him I speak mouth to mouth; in a vision and not in riddles, and he beholds the image of the Lord. The Sages were making a point in stating that Miriam's gossip about Moses involved the claim that Moses had left his wife because someone who speaks with God on a daily basis cannot be with his wife, just as the Israelites were told not to be with their wives before receiving the Torah at Sinai. Consciousness of the transcendent conflicts with mundane life. It seems that the two cannot coexist. Moses' cry concerning Miriam, Let her not be like the dead, which comes out of his mother's womb with half his flesh consumed... I beseech you, God, please heal her, suddenly echoes events from earlier in the parasha; the fear of eaten flesh is the moment of flesh's discovery, the flesh requested for food. So too the human flesh that also finds expression in connection with the woman from whom Moses had separated himself. In Moses' cry we can also hear the cry of R. Shimon bar Yohai who discovered the fact of flesh's existence when tears rolled over the cracks in his skin after he left the cave. Perhaps it is also no accident that Moses here again mentions the baby, the very suckling whom he had no strength to bear in his moment of crisis. Now, suddenly, he comes to know that baby, to think of him, to pity him, to recognize his distress.

When understood in their historical context, the Sages' dicta regarding Moses, and the story about R. Shimon bar Yohai to which I alluded, seem to be part of the reaction to the ascetic challenge. Asceticism was an alternative religious model that developed in the times of the Sages; it called for people to attend to exalted things and cut themselves off from mundane life. However, I believe that the Sages' comments have timeless significance that goes beyond the immediate problems of the period in which they were produced. Our parasha offers an existential quest for the path of human journeying; to turn towards the transcendent, to feel the transcendent, to know it and experience it, while managing to live in the here and now, making compromises with the mundane aspects of everyday life.

It seems that the parasha not only presents this fundamental tension to us; it also deals with the search for solutions to that tension. The seventy elders who join Moses are supposed to ease the burden of his isolation. However, if I have correctly identified the source of the problem as resting in the essential tension between the exalted and the mundane aspects of life, the seventy elders who leave the camp to join Moses will not succeed. That is left to Eldad and Meidad, who prophesize in the camp. By acknowledging Eldad and Meidad, Moses is also acknowledging the possibility of dissolving the dichotomy, leading to his saying, Were that all the people of the Lord were prophets... and Moses joined the camp, he and the elders of Israel.

I have not attempted to treat all of the parasha's details in the framework of this short article; other aspects of the parasha can also be understood in terms of the pair of contrasting ideas I have described. In the end of the parasha, Miriam rejoins the camp, just as Moses and the elders did before her. Now the camp encompasses them all and it can finally accomplish what we expected it to do immediately after the trumpets were blown. Now, not only, So it was, when the ark set out, but also, then the people set out.

Moshe Lavee is a lecturer in Talmud and Midrash in the Jewish history department at Haifa University. For information regarding the department's new program, write to mlavee@research.haifa.ac.il

 

The "External Sciences" are Necessary for Understanding the Torah

It has already been made clear in the beginning of parashat Tetzaveh that the Menorah alludes to the illumination of the wisdom of the Torah through the sharp analysis of the Torah, through investigation and study. The six braches of the menorah together with the central lamp are the seven sciences "external" to the Torah. The Torah needs them in order to be interpreted through them regarding all of the details of measurements and the like that come to be explicated in the Torah...the cups represent the giving of drink; the Torah gives the drink of the sciences, and the sciences give the drink of knowledge - to know and understand the details of God's word.

(The NeTziV of Volozhin's Ha'Amek Davar)

 

Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord put His spirit upon them: there is No Monopoly on Spirituality

We were instructed that, it is fundamental to the highest spiritual leadership that no one was given special privilege ("monopoly") over spirit. God-given spiritual talent is independent of position; it is not a class privilege. The very least one of the nation may be endowed with the Lord's spirit, just the same as one who serves in the most elevated role of the royal court.

(R. Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, Bamidbar 11:29)

 

Rise up, Lord and disperse your enemies, and you despisers shall flee before You! Who is being referred to?

Moses recognized that this Torah from its very entry into the world would have to expect enemies, opponents, and foes, that people would hate it. Its demands for justice and love are so very much in opposition to the dictates of force and selfishness, the curse of which is felt so keenly by the weak and needy. Those in power unite in an alliance to impose these dictates. They are the enemies of the Torah who form a tacitly united front, opponents of the Torah who bar the entry of its influence into the world. Its demands for self-control and sanctification of morals are so much in conflict with the allures of ignoble passion that one finds among all classes not only those who oppose it but also those who incite against it, not only hate but also persecution...

(R. Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on Bamidbar 10:35-36, Levy translation)

 

Envy, Lust, and Vainglory Shorten a Person's Life

The Graves of Desire - One might think that that this was its original name, but the Torah teaches that: Because there were buried... Because of that incident it was so called, but this was not its original name. But you do not know who were those who accustomed Israel to sin, therefore it says, The riffraff [lit. "those gathered"] in their midst - these were the converts gathered from everywhere. Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya says: These are the elders among them, as is written, Gather me - the elders, then, provided an a fortiori argument by which others could be judged [i.e., "If the leaders could behave so, then what can we expect of the masses?!"]. Similarly we say with regard to the passage, And the Sons of Elohim saw the daughters of man: What did the sons of the judges [the term Elohim - a widespread appellation of God, can also refer to human judges] do? They would grab women from the market place and rape them. If the judges' sons could so behave, then a fortiori, so would the ordinary people.

(Yalkut Shimoni Beha'alotkha, 247: 732)

 

When the Lord enlarges your territory... and you say, "I shall eat some meat" - teaches us that great expansion causes man to follow his passions, "and the lion roars only over a pile of meat" (Berakhot 32), here it is written, When the Lord enlarges your territory - this leads to removal of the mask of shame from your face to the extent that you unabashedly say, "I shall eat some meat". This is somewhat similar to the throwing off of the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and to questioning the place of sacrifices; the reason for all this is, The place where the Lord has chosen to establish His name is too far from you, [since] fear of the Kingdom of Heaven is proportionate to closeness to the Temple, as is written, and fear my temples (Vayikra 19:29), meaning that fear of the Kingdom of Heaven flows from the Temple. But the fact that, The place where the Lord has chosen to establish His name is too far from you causes God to be far from your thoughts, therefore you shall experience desire all the time, and you will not be ashamed to say, "I will eat some meat". I therefore permit you to do so, and you shall offer up from you cattle, etc., as I have commanded you, but not at all times, but occasionally, when desire becomes overwhelming.

(Kli Yakar, Devarim 12:20)

 

 

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