Shabbos Parashas Beha'alosecha - 5777
Shabbos Parashas Beha'alosecha - 5777
Rabbi Hal Miller
The rabble that was among them cultivated a craving, and the children of Israel also
wept once more, and said, "Who will feed us meat?" [Bamidbar 11:4]
Ramban asks an obvious question. Some of the tribes had an abundance of cattle, sheep,
goats, flocks of various birds, etc. Not everybody eats meat every day. Certainly they had
meat. Who was it who cried this cry, and what did they really want?
A close look at our verse shows that it was the Jews who spoke this question, not the
rabble of non-Jews. Were they put up to this? That is what the first part of the verse seems
to be saying.
Rav Hirsch sees that this is not a matter of nutrition. In the next verse, the people talk about
fruits and vegetables that they claimed they had in abundance in Egypt. These foods are not
as nutritious or necessary as are the proteins of meat, yet they ask to go back to such a diet.
He puts words in the mouths of the people, "what we lack are the tasty stimulating foods that
excite the appetite. The complete monotony makes it unbearable." But since we know that
the manna tasted like whatever you wanted it to taste like, this argument also fails to explain.
Nechama Leibowitz reminds us that this was asked by the people who witnessed G-d's power
in Egypt, who were rescued from slavery, who were saved at the Reed Sea, and who had
been sustained for quite some time in an uninhabitable desert. They knew they had food that
was capable of sustaining them. They had to be asking something other than what the simple
meaning of the words indicates.
Sforno says that our answer comes from Tehillim 78:18, "And they tested G-d in their
hearts by asking for food for their cravings." But what is this food, and what are the cravings?
Ramban tells us that it means physical pleasure. The rabble in particular had been accustomed
to the material in Egypt, and was more interested in returning to that than in being with G-d.
Their cry made sense to the Jews, who knew no better, and were convinced by these non-Jewish
neighbors to join them in lust for the physical. Eventually, this became a lust for the forbidden,
which is the root of rebellion. It wasn't food they wanted, but immersion in the forbidden, the
physical, the sexual, the material pleasures. Thus the question.