This week's Torah portion,Ba’ha’alotkha the Israelites finally begin the journey to the Promised Land, but don't make it very far. Michael (MichaelStrassfeld.com) mjstrassfeld@gmail.com
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A word of Torah:
This week we read in parashat Ba’ha’alotkha that the Israelites are finally ready to travel on to the Promised Land. After the building of the mishkan—the portable sanctuary completed at the end of Exodus and the description of the sacrificial rites in Leviticus, the beginning of the Book of Numbers includes a description of the order of march. At the end of chapter ten, they finally begin. As soon as they begin, they complain bitterly (starting in Num. ch.11):
The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to.”
At first glance it seems all too familiar. Once again, the Israelites are complaining about food and expressing a desire to return to Egypt where everything was so wonderful. While it sounds the same as before, it is important to notice much has happened. At least a year has passed since they left Egypt. Shouldn’t that be enough time to leave Egypt behind and adjust to their new reality. Didn’t they stand at Sinai and receive the Torah? Didn’t they come together to build the mishkan? Haven’t they had enough to eat during the past year? Most striking of all, why are they complaining about not having enough to eat, when manna routinely falls from heaven ensuring that they never go hungry?
A careful reading of what they say reveals what is going on. They have a “gluttonous craving,” meaning a non-specific desire that cannot be fulfilled. They forget what Egypt was really like, ignoring their slavery and only remembering the free food. At the same time, they demean what they do have—the manna. Perhaps what is problematic about the manna is in fact it falls reliably without any effort on their behalf. They don’t plant it or harvest it. In Egypt, they worked hard for their food. Here it comes for free. They remained psychologically enslaved because they have no sweat investment in the manna. Ironically, they describe their slave food as be-hinam/free.
The bible commentator Nehama Leibowitz said: “This is the trick that memory plays to make life bearable. We remember the good and forget the painful.” The midrash suggests that the hinam refers to the idea that the Israelites are free from having to observe the commandments or, I would suggest, free from responsibilities.
The Torah tells us that they only traveled three days before they started complaining. After a year of preparation, their belief in themselves lasted only three days before collapsing! It is an ongoing story in the Torah and in life. Today in America, some look to a golden age of the past, but the truth is that golden past can only be imagined by forgetting everything that was wrong with that past including forgetting the slave labor that made it possible.
Intention/kavana for the week לֹא־נָסוֹג אָחוֹר לִבֵּנוּ וַתֵּט אֲשֻׁרֵינוּ מִנִּי אָרְחֶךָ
Our hearts have not turned back,
nor have our feet strayed from Your path
Ps. 44:19
What draws us back to unhealthy places from our past?
What should be "forgotten" so we can move forward?
Song:
a wordless niggun/melody of the Belzer Hasidim
to help us move forward rather than backwards.
