Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha… diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself.

Hi, I’m Imu Shalev. As we read through the beginning of the Book of Numbers and into Parshat Beha'alotcha, things are really looking like they are on the up and up for the Israelites: the nation is starting to take shape with each tribe encamped around the Tabernacle; manna falls from the heavens, providing sustenance for all; and the Israelites march onwards with the Ark leading the way, just a short distance away from the Promised Land. Everything looks really, well…promising. 

But in this parsha, the fate of the Israelites starts to take a dive, and that promise quickly fades into despair. Ultimately, that despair crescendos in the story of the spies in Parshat Shelach. As a result of that tragic episode, God determines that the entire generation must die before a new one may enter the land. 

How could the tide have shifted so dramatically? What sent the fate of the Israelites tumbling so far downhill that the entire generation would be wiped out?

This week on Into the Verse, Rabbi Fohrman suggests that to really understand the loss of that entire generation, you have to look at where it all begins to unravel. The tragic fate of that generation may have been sealed in the account of the spies, but their downward slide was set in motion by a much more subtle event that takes place here in Beha’alotcha. And interestingly enough, when you take a look at that event, it has echoes of something earlier in the Bible with far more devastating consequences than even the episode of the spies. 

Oh, and just one more thing, I’ll be popping in later in this episode to clarify an argument or two. So, if you hear my voice in the middle of Rabbi Fohrman speaking, don’t freak out. Here’s Rabbi Fohrman.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Hi, everybody, this is Rabbi David Fohrman and welcome to Aleph Beta.

Parshat Beha'alotecha marks a kind of turning point in the Book of Numbers between the good times and the bad times. The bad times reach a kind of climax in Parshat Shelach, just a little bit later on in this book, when God decrees that an entire generation... they will die in the desert. They will not live to see the land. Only their children will come and inherit the land. 

And I want to suggest to you that to really understand the loss of this entire generation, you have to look at this week's parsha, Beha'alotecha, because this is where it all begins to unravel. Everything goes really, really well, and then there's a point, a tipping point, where after that it's all bad times. They were preparing to go: they were only eleven days away, eleven days' journey by foot to the land of Israel, when those eleven days became forty years. What happened at that point to begin this terrible slide towards disaster? 

The text says: וַיְהִי הָעָם כְּמִתְאֹנְנִים רַע בְּאָזְנֵי יְקוָה – the people were like complainers, it was evil in the ears of God (Numbers 11:1). Now let's examine this carefully. These complaints that the people lodged with Moses against God, they started off as just amorphous mumblings, but then they coalesced into something: a rejection of the manna – bread delivered directly to man, made by God. The people say: נַפְשֵׁנוּ יְבֵשָׁה – our souls, we feel all dried out, אֵין כֹּל – we have nothing, בִּלְתִּי אֶל-הַמָּן עֵינֵינוּ – except for this manna (Numbers 11:6).

Now let me ask you something: does that remind you of anything? Was there ever another time in biblical history when God provided food directly to human beings? When human beings rejected the food that God had made for them?

Rejected Food

You see, back in the Garden, God had provided food for man. He had provided all of these trees and allowed man to partake of the fruits of any of them, with the exception of one tree: the Master's own tree, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What happened in the Garden is that we rejected that gift. God was holding out special food made by God just for us, and we didn't want it. We wanted control over the Garden, to pretend that we were master of the Garden. The only tree that mattered for us was the Master's own tree.

When we indicated to God that we wanted control over our food sources in that way, we didn't want gifts – we wanted to own the whole refrigerator, as it were – so God said, “Look, if that's the way it is, if you really want ultimate control over your food:” בְּזֵעַת אַפֶּיךָ תֹּאכַל לֶחֶם – by the sweat of your brow you shall make bread (Genesis 3:19). Bread is the original processed food, the original man-made food, as opposed to God-made fruit.

God says: “Look, you'll have to struggle, you'll have to harvest wheat, beat it down, extract the seeds, grind them into flour. But at the end of the day, at least it's real that you're controlling your own food source.” And with that, we were exiled from the Garden – this special place where God offered us His precious trees. God sets up two cherubs, two כְּרֻבִים, these angels, at the entrance of the Garden to make sure that we will never find our way back there.

Redeeming the Sin of the Garden

But then, one day, that changed. The people of Israel left Egypt on a moment's notice and didn't have time to pack food for the way. In the words of the verse, צֵדָה לֹא-עָשׂוּ לָהֶם – they didn't take provisions (Exodus 12:39). They just trusted that God who was leading them out into the desert, that He would provide for them somehow. And how did God respond? He provided us with bread, manna, from heaven. 

In the Garden, you rejected me but here in the desert, you're coming back to Me. I'll give you food, I'll even give you bread. That's what the Torah calls it back in Exodus 16: "bread from Heaven." And the people looked at the bread that had come from Heaven, they didn't understand what it was. They said: “מָן הוּא” – “what is that?” And Moses said: “הוּא הַלֶּחֶם אֲשֶׁר נָתַן יְקוָה לָכֶם לְאָכְלָה” – “it's the bread that God is giving you to eat” (Exodus 16:15). It's a paradox, an oxymoron – bread from Heaven. Bread, it's man-food, but God loved us so much, He went out of His comfort zone to provide us with man-food. The rejection of God back in the Garden was redeemed by the acceptance of God as we followed Him into a desert, the opposite of a garden, without taking food of our own.

Indeed, the zenith of the good times in the desert is when the Ark travels before us, only eleven days away from the Land of Israel, ready to help usher Israel into the land. The Ark was adorned by two cherubs, two כְּרֻבִים. The same angels that kept us away from God's special garden would now bring us to God's special land.

Imu: Hi, Imu again, just popping in to clarify a point Rabbi Fohrman is making. Up until now, Rabbi Fohrman has been showing how the rejection of the manna, of bread from heaven, feels really similar to mankind’s rejection of God’s gifts in the Garden. But these parallels aren’t only conceptual. Rabbi Fohrman actually sees an intriguing pattern in the text that has him make that claim. Let me describe that pattern to you now. 

All throughout the manna complaints story, there’s a word that appears again and again. It’s the word “רַע” or “evil” – וַיְהִי הָעָם כְּמִתְאֹנְנִים רַע בְּאָזְנֵי יְקוָה – the people were complaining, and it was evil in the ears of God (Numbers 11:1). Or take verse 10, וּבְעֵינֵי מֹשֶׁה רָע – it was evil in the eyes of Moses (Numbers 11:10). Those are just two examples, there are more. But if you pull back the zoom lens a bit, in the story preceding this one, a story about Jethro and Moses, you get another repeating word. Only it’s the opposite of “רַע.” The word “טוֹב” or “good” appears again and again, five times. Five times on one side, you hear about “טוֹב.” Four times on the other side, you hear about “רַע.” And in the middle? Those verses about how the ark would journey before the people. An ark, by the way, that was adorned with cherubs. 

When Rabbi Fohrman first showed this to me, he said there seemed to be some kind of Rorschach symbolism going on – טוֹב’s, and רַע’s, that remind you of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And in the Garden, there were cherubs that protected the tree. Here again, there is an ark with cherubs, leading the way to the Promised Land, a new garden for Israel. What Rabbi Fohrman suggested is that the text may be asking us to visualize a Tree of Knowledge, with its branches of טוֹב hanging on one side of the text and branches of evil hanging on the other. This tree marks a transition point from the good times in the desert to the bad times, beginning with our story – the complaints about the manna. 

Rabbi Fohrman is about to go into this theory more deeply:

In the Shadow of the Tree

Rabbi Fohrman: But alas, just after this moment, the dark specter of the Tree of Knowledge returned to cast its shadow once more. When we rejected the manna, we rejected that great gift that was designed to heal the wounds of the Garden. Indeed, if you look carefully at the verses in Numbers that surround the story of the Ark traveling before Israel, you will find a hint to the darkness of the Tree of Knowledge.

Right before that zenith moment of the travels of the Ark, you'll find the word “טוֹב,” good, appearing over and over and over again, and then, right after that moment of the Ark's travels with the cherubs, you'll find the word “רַע,” evil, appearing over and over and over again. טוֹב and רַע: It's as if there's this, this Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil casting a dark shadow over the whole story that follows. In that following story, the people reject what God had provided for them, and one more time, as it did in the Garden, death. A whole generation would perish. How did it come to be? Why did the people reject this great gift of heaven-made bread? 

Let's look at the very first mention of the word "רַע" in that chain of רַע’s: וַיְהִי הָעָם כְּמִתְאֹנְנִים רַע בְּאָזְנֵי יְקוָה – And the people were as complainers (Numbers 11:1). What does that even mean? They were almost complaining. Well, on a certain level, that's understandable that they weren't actually complaining. What was there to complain about after all? They were on their way to the land. It was all taken care of for them: they had the manna; God was leading them with the Ark, but there was a faint murmur, as if they were complaining.

מִתְאֹנֵן – it actually might mean something else. A little bit different than complaint, the way most translations translate it. מִתְאֹנֵן is the hitpael form of the word אֹנֵן, a word that in Hebrew also signifies mourning. Indeed, in Jewish law, the very first stage of mourning, before burial, is known as אנינות (aninut) – the stage of being an אֹנֵן. It was as if they were mourning, as if they were grieving – כְּמִתְאֹנְנִים. Well, you mourn over a loss. What were they mourning about? What great loss had they suffered?

We Want to Want and We Want It Now!

A couple verses later: וְהָאסַפְסֻף אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבּוֹ הִתְאַוּוּ תַּאֲוָה – people amongst Israel, they desired something (Numbers 11:4). But it's not immediately clear what it is that they're desiring. Later on, a few lines later, they'll talk about wanting meat. But right now it doesn't say הִתְאַוּוּ לְבָּשָׂר – they wanted meat. It actually says, if you read carefully, הִתְאַוּוּ תַּאֲוָה – they desired a desire. That's what they were mourning.

All our needs are taken care of, every want anticipated and fulfilled. I'm living from the hand of God. It doesn't feel normal. They desired to actually have a desire, to want something that they didn't have. So, they came up with something. They cried, and they said: מִי יַאֲכִלֵנוּ בָּשָׂר – let's have meat, we don't have meat. Or even better yet: some other kinds of food, too.

Listen to the next words of the verse: זָכַרְנוּ אֶת-הַדָּגָה אֲשֶׁר-נֹאכַל בְּמִצְרַיִם – we remember the fish that we used to eat in Egypt. אֵת הַקִּשֻּׁאִים – the cucumbers, וְאֵת הָאֲבַטִּחִים – the watermelons, הֶחָצִיר – the leeks, הַבְּצָלִים– the onions, הַשּׁוּמִים – the garlic (Numbers 11:5). Immanuel Shalev in our office pointed out a fascinating thing to me. Fish, cucumbers, watermelons, leeks, onions, garlic – it's all underground food or underwater food. What kind of food are they rejecting? Look at the next line: וְעַתָּה נַפְשֵׁנוּ יְבֵשָׁה אֵין כֹּל – our souls feel dry, we don't have anything except this manna (Numbers 11:6), the heaven bread. We don't want heaven bread. We want underground stuff, as far as you can get away from the heavens.

Imu: Just a brief editorial note: cucumbers and watermelons don’t quite grow under the ground, they grow on the ground. But the point we’re trying to make is that it’s interesting that the complainers aren’t asking for wheat, or fruits, or even berries - the stuff of grasses, trees or bushes. The kind of food, and even flesh, they are craving is ground food or water food, as far from sky food as you can possibly get. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Look at the next verse. It describes what the people would do with the manna: שָׁטוּ הָעָם וְלָקְטוּ – the people would go about, they would gather it, but then, instead of eating it directly, טָחֲנוּ בָרֵחַיִם – they would grind it in mills, אוֹ דָכוּ בַּמְּדֹכָה – beat it with a mortar, בִשְּׁלוּ – they would bake it, עָשׂוּ אֹתוֹ עֻגוֹת – they would try to make it into cakes (Numbers 11:8). They would try processing it.

Here it was, it was bread, it was already processed for them at the hands of God, but they would try to process it again in whatever ways they could, to try to control it even more. It's like we were back in the Garden again. It was that attempt, once more, to ultimately control your food source. Yes, then we were thrown out of the Garden; then we were cursed to make bread; and then God in His love gave us bread, but now we were trying to control that very bread that God gave us. At the end of the day, we want to be regular: we don't want to be fed at the hands of heaven.

You know, if you count the טוֹב’s just before the story of the Ark, there are five of them. If you count the רַע’s just afterward, there's four of them. It seems asymmetrical, five and four. But you know? After those four רַע’s, there's one טוֹב: it's the טוֹב that's not really a טוֹב but a רַע: 

טוֹב לָנוּ בְּמִצְרָיִם 

(Numbers 11:18)

It was good for us in Egypt.

Was it really so good? It's so easy to forget, isn't it. The pain and the screams and the suffering of Egypt, somehow that fades in the distance. We were normal people back then. We ate food like anybody else did. They wanted to be back in that state of need. They wanted to want.

A State of Not-yet-ness

And yes, there is something within all of us that just wants to be regular. A human being, almost by its very nature, is engaged in trying to fulfill its needs, and we don't feel right when we're not doing that, when we're just taken care of. But, sometimes, there are moments when we just need to be taken care of.

At the end of life, that's true: when we're elderly and need to be helped by others. And at the beginning of life, in the womb, it's true, as well. Something like that was happening here. In the desert, they are in a close, intimate and yes, dependent relationship upon Him. In the desert you can't make food. You'll get to the land where you control things, but you're not there yet. God is taking care of you now, as if you're still in a womb.

Indeed, the notion of still being in the womb, the womb of God, that too recalls the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden, in Hebrew, גַן-עֵדֶן, “Eden” - a colleague of mine once suggested, is related to the word adayin, still, not yet. It was the garden of not-yet-ness, when existence hadn't yet quite come to be. It was a kind of womb. That's what a womb is – when you aren't yet really born. God took care of mankind, provided him with every possible tree.

And now? All this would happen once more – not for all of mankind, but for a particular nation. In the desert, after leaving Egypt, people were in a kind of womb. Their nationhood was in nascency. It was just beginning to develop, and God was caring for them, preparing them to enter the land. That stage involves intensive nurturing, as a mother would nurture a baby.

If you reject that nurture, you're just trying to get out too soon. If you get out too soon, you die. It was that way back in the Garden when we left that womb too soon. Death itself came to the world. And here, in the desert, this new rejection of God-food becomes the beginning of a trail of tears whose climax is the sin of the spies, the death of an entire generation.

That was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil – not in a garden, but in a desert.

Imu: Hi everyone, I hope you enjoyed. So, here are my reflections this week on Parshat Beha'alotcha. If we really want to understand the sin of the מִתְאֹנְנִים, of these complainers, it seems that at the heart of what they’re doing is something insulting. When God gives you food from the heavens, don’t reject it. Right, that's a pretty black and white take away. But I think the Torah is actually teaching us something very subtle. I think what makes things a little bit more relatable is a little bit of the speculation that we’re doing on why they rejected Godly food. Right, who in their right mind would reject Godly food. 

This piece has me think about one way of seeing the sin of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In a world where man had fruit, he decided to bake bread. One of the opinions of what the Tree of Knowledge was in the Gemara is that it was חיטה (chittah), it was wheat. And the evidence for that claim is that God’s curse for Adam is, בְּזֵעַת אַפֶּיךָ תֹּאכַל לֶחֶם – by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread (Genesis 3:19). God’s sort of saying, “hey, you, man, you think my fruits aren’t good enough for you. You need to process my gifts and turn them into your own kind of fruit, your own special creation, bread. Well then, great. Do that.”

If that’s true, if eating from the Tree of Knowledge is related to man's desire to bake bread, why wasn’t man satisfied? Why didn’t he just enjoy the fruits he had in the Garden? Why did he make bread? I think there’s something very human about that desire to make bread, the desire to perpetually improve the world that we’re in. Sure, the fruits are great. Thank you, God. But I think I could do something a little better with this raw material. 

And let me ask, is that so bad? I like to take the gifts that I’ve been given and to apply them creatively, to show up to a community or to a job and say, “Hey, I think I can add value here. I think I can maybe do a little better than we’ve been doing.” What’s so wrong with that? And if the nation in the desert wanted to process their manna and bake it into cakes, grind it, if they liked it better that way, what’s wrong with that? 

I think the Torah is actually teaching us that the context for our creativity and the underlying motive for our creativity really matters. 

If the context for our creativity is, when you’re in the womb, as Rabbi Fohrman says, or you’re in a desert getting gifts from God, it’s a little bit insulting to say, “Hey, I can do better.” It’s like you’re at a friend’s house for a meal that he or she cooks for you, and they plate it with beauty and grace, and you grab your plate, barge into their kitchen, pull out a skillet, dump the contents onto that skillet, and cook up something new. 

So the context matters, but the motivation matters as well. Are you really doing this to improve something or are you doing this because you want to be in control, because you’re uncomfortable being so deeply connected to the person who gives you those gifts, to the Being who gives you those gifts? And I really do think it’s subtle. If you show up to a new community or a job, and you want to add value because of your own ego, because you want to be adored, or worse, be in control, that’s really different than showing up to a new community or to a new job and asking how can I serve. Is this just about me, is it about you, is it about us? 

This reminds me a lot of the work we did back in Parshat Emor, where we talked about creativity and the bounds for creativity, and how humanity’s creative endeavors are blessed by God, but we have a series of mitzvot, of Shabbatot, of Moadim, commands, rests, and holy times, that have us rein in our creativity, or at least wield our creativity with clear knowledge of the source of our energy and the source of our gifts. Because creativity is a wonderful and powerful tool. But the kind of creativity that God seems to bless is creativity with knowledge of where our energy and our gifts come from, where the raw materials come from.. 

Those are some of my thoughts that I’m taking from Parshat Beha’alotcha. Thanks for listening.

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Credits

This episode was written and recorded by our lead scholar, Rabbi David Fohrman. 

When this episode originally aired on Aleph Beta, it was edited by Rivky Stern. 

Into the Verse editing was done by Evan Weiner.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Our editorial director is me, Imu Shalev.

Thank you so much for listening.