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This week's parasha is sponsored
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The Torah, like Manna, is a heavenly, nourishing substance that tastes different for each person.
Lessons for Today
"Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish we ate for free in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all except this manna to look at." Numbers 11: 4
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God brought down for them the manna, in which all kinds of flavours lodged, so that each Israelite could taste therein anything he particularly liked, for it is written, "These forty years Adonai your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing" (Deut. 2:7) What is the meaning of "you have lacked nothing" (davar). When a man desired anything special to eat, he had only to say "I wish I had a fat capon to eat", and the morsel of manna in his mouth immediately acquired the taste of fat capon. They had only to say the word (davar) and Adonai performed their will. R. Abba said: They were even spared the utterance of their wish, for God fulfilled the thought still in their heart and they tasted their heart's desire.
Ezekiel says, "My bread also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee" (XVI, 19). One verse tells us, "Behold I will cause to rain down bread from heaven for you", and another verse says, "And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey" (Ex. XVI, 31), and yet another, "And the taste of it was as the taste of a cake baked with oil" (Num. XI, 8). How do you reconcile these three verses?-The young tasted therein the taste of bread, the old the taste of honey, and the babies the taste of oil [rich cream].
Exodus Rabbah
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R. Simon said, "Wherefore did the manna change its flavour into that of anything one wished except into these vegetables here [assuming the people lusted after these tastes that were unavailable to them]. Because they are injurious to nursing mothers. So indeed people say to nursing mothers: "Do not eat garlic or onions on account of the baby.
Sifre quoted in Rashi
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The generation of the wilderness that received the Torah, lived on Manna, 'food from heaven.' The taste of manna is described in the Bible in a variety of ways (flour, honey, rich cream), and the midrash harmonizes these texts by suggesting the manna could taste like anything. Just say the word (davar), or, according to R. Abba, just think of the taste, and the manna would be magically transformed. It's like it was the original 'tofu': it tasted like anything. (If you look closely at how it was to be prepared you'll even see a hint in the Hebrew: "Bake what you would bake... et asher tofu eifu (Ex. 16:23b); I'm not making this up)! But this midrashic solution creates a new problem: if it really could taste like anything, then why this week's complaints: "we're sick of manna"? The rabbis try to resolve this (it didn't look very nice, the texture was always the same). One solution is that it could taste like anything, except the above mentioned foods, although none of these solutions are very satisfactory.
Of course, this is not the first time we've encountered the manna. We find a similar narrative in Exodus when the newly-freed slaves were terrified of their new freedom and the prospect of famine: "You brought us to this wilderness to kill all the congregation with famine" (Ex.16:3). But instead of anger, God showers the immature Israelites with quail and miraculous manna. Here the situation is different. This time, they have already been feasting on manna, yet their complaint is: "Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish we ate for free in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic." (Num 11:4). Commentators have picked up on this 'fish for free' business, and suggest that the Israelites were just looking for a pretext to complain. The Israelites resented their obligations spelled out in Torah (life was no longer 'free of restrictions'), and the monotonous life in the wilderness. So it's not surprising that this time Moses loses his cool and God gets angry. This time the complaint is the lack of variety on the menu!? (Note to self: make a plate of melon, onion, garlic and cucumber and put them on a plate beside the Passover plate as a symbol of Egypt).
In Exodus, God gives the Israelites manna, 'in order to test them.' but what was the test? Obedience? Faithfulness? Gratitude? A previous excellent column (Beshalach 5760 by Rabbi Neal Loevinger) explores this concept. As he points out, Rashi understands the test as one of obedience: "Whether they will keep the mitzvot relating to the manna, ie. that they will not leave any of it [overnight] and that they do not go out on Shabbat to gather it." In other words, the test was not the manna itself, but in following the restrictions that came with it.
Later, in Deuteronomy, Moses reminisces about the experience: "Remember the entire path along which Adonai your God led you these forty years in the desert. God sent hardships to test you, to determine what is in your heart, whether you would keep God's commandments or not. God made life difficult for you, letting you go hungry, and then God fed you Manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever experienced. This was to teach you that it is not by bread alone that a human lives, but by all that comes out of God's mouth" (Deut 8:2,3). At the end of forty years, what was the test? Here, instead of saying the test was again about mitzvot, this time Rashi adds to the words: "whether you would keep God's commandments" - that you not test God and that you not be critical of God. Why is Rashi not consistent? According to Avigdor Bonchek, initially, the test was in how they followed the rules regarding the manna; after forty years, the test was if they could be satisfied with the manna and not complain, demonstrating their acceptance of God. Manna, the miraculous bread from heaven becomes a symbol of keeping God's mitzvot.
We just concluded the festival of Shavuot, and learned how the Torah has seventy faces. Like Torah, manna is a heavenly, nourishing substance that tasted different for each person. The midrash makes the connection explicit:
The voice of the Adonai is with power (Ps. 39: 4); not "with God's power", but "with power", i.e. with the power of each individual, even to pregnant women according to their strength. Thus to each person it was according to his strength. R. Jose b. Hanin says: If you are doubtful of this, then think of the manna that descended with a taste varying according to the needs of each individual Israelite. ... Hence did R. Jose b. Hanina say: If the manna, which is all of one kind, became converted into so many kinds to suit the capacity of each individual, was it not more possible for the Voice, which had power in it, to vary according to the capacity of each individual that no harm should befall him?
Lessons for Today
There is certainly a strong pro-vegetarian lesson in the graphic (and gross) image of the Israelites stuffing themselves sick until "the meat comes out their nostrils" and then dying with the meat "still stuck between their teeth." But it is more than that. What a tragic image, and a disheartening lesson. According to Rashi there were two different tests. How did the Israelites do on the first test? Don't collect too much manna (failed that one) & don't collect manna on Shabbat (yup, failed that too). Forty years later: Hmmm, let's see. How do they fare on: Don't test God by being critical? "Now our gullets are shrivelled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look at! (I guess failed again).
The Israelites, sadly, did not wake up each day in the wilderness and express gratitude for finding everything they needed. In fact, not only did they complain, but if the midrash is correct that manna tasted like (almost) anything, they actually were looking for excuses to complain. Instead of complaining, we should appreciate having Torah, that like the manna, can nourish each one of us.
Shabbat Shalom
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