Beha’alotcha
Numbers 8:1-12:16
Zecharia 2:14-4:7
This week’s parashah deals with the mitlonenim (complainers, or in the
vernacular, the kvetches in the desert), and it requires analysis.
“And the people took to seeking complaints; it was evil in G-d’s eyes. The rabble that they had taken in amongst them cultivated a craving and they said, ‘Who will feed us meat? We recall the fish that we ate in Egypt for free and the cucumbers and the melons. … But now our life is parched, there is nothing; we have nothing to anticipate but the manna.'” (Num. 11:1-6)
They complained that they had no meat; yet the Torah (Ex. 12:38) clearly states that they had taken sheep and cattle with them when they left Egypt. They hadn’t yet consumed all of these “very great flocks” yet. In addition, the manna that they received every day from heaven had the miraculous quality of being able to acquire the taste of whatever the taster desired, including meat. Yet here they were, yearning for the food they had eaten as slaves in Egypt, apparently longing for the good old days.
Their complaints, it would seem, had less to do with hunger for a wider variety of food and more to do with their reluctance to do mitzvot and to endure the hardships of their long desert journey. When they referred to the fish in Egypt which was “free,” they meant there were no strings attached.
It is difficult to understand how people who had to perform backbreaking and degrading work to receive very limited food could express a preference for that over receiving food in exchange for a commitment to keeping the Torah. They who had been privy to the greatest revelation of all time longed to return to Egyptian slavery. Better slaves to Pharaoh than to their Creator, they reasoned.
There wasn’t an iota of truth to any of their claims. “They sought to find fault and accuse,” Rashi comments. “They searched for ways to justify their non-observance of mitzvot.”
This attitude, sadly, is not missing from society today. Many who are alienated from Torah amass abuse and disdain against the Torah. They need to denigrate anything religious as well as those who have not abandoned our beautiful heritage. They proclaim that no one has to answer to a higher authority.
This subjugation of their lives to Torah was the real motive behind the complaints that were actually all unfounded.
The more we examine the character of the complainers of that time, the more we realize how many individuals continue to follow in their path.
Interestingly, the complaint of lacking physical comfort is met by G-d responding that He will give them their hearts’ desire, but in such abundance that they will get sick of it. “So G-d will give you meat and you will eat. Not for one day shall you eat nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days nor twenty days. Until an entire month of days until it comes out of your nose and becomes nauseating to you because you have rejected G-d …” (Num. 11:18-20)
When, however, in this same chapter some Jews complain about a spiritual deprivation, the response is completely different. Those who had been spiritually unclean and therefore unable to offer the Pascal lamb sacrifice on Passover came to Moses and Aaron complaining, “Why are we to be kept back from offering the sacrifice of G-d in its appointed time among the children of Israel?” (Num. 9:6-7)
When Moses relays their frustration to G-d, he returns with the halachah that a person who was unclean or out of the country on the first night of Passover will have a second chance to offer this sacrifice on Pesach Sheni, one month later. (Num. 9:10-12) Here the complaint is deemed legitimate and a second chance is offered to purify oneself.
Here the Jews were looking forward with hope and optimism to their precious future of freedom and observance of mitzvot, while the others regrettably looked back through rose-colored glasses to a horrific past. In their delusion, they had no gratitude for having been spared an endless and miserable future of slavery. It is a meaningful message for all of us to consider.
Shabbat shalom.
Rabbi Pinchas Lipner is dean of Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy in San Francisco.