June 18/05 — Shabbat Beha'alotecha

Commentary by Rabbi Alan Green

And the children of Israel wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat for free in Egypt; the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now, our souls are shriveled. And there is nothing at all to look at, except this manna!” (Numbers 11: 4-6)

The Israelites have by now experienced centuries of slavery in Egypt, and witnessed the wonders of the ten plagues. They have been saved by the miracle of the splitting of the Reed Sea, and they have received the revelation of the essence of the Divine One at Mt. Sinai. They have been sustained daily in the desert by manna, the food of God, which falls freely from the heavens.

How then, could it have been possible for the Israelites to rebel so outrageously against the very idea of liberation from the burdens of Egypt? Haven’t they experienced enough miracles, and Divine illumination, to be permanently immune to this kind of reversal?

It’s easy enough for us to look at the Israelites through the prism of time, and see how foolish they were. However, I suspect that if we were to stand in their sandals, we would be guilty of the same spiritual myopia. In fact, we are guilty of it in the way we live our lives today!

Nothing scares us more than the prospect of change. It is human nature to feel more comfortable with the devil that we know, than the angel we don’t yet know. We inevitably feel happier in the hovel in which we’ve lived for years, than the palace that awaits us just beyond the horizon of possibility.

This is why the rabbis interpret the verse (Exodus 13:18), VA-CHAMUSHIM A-LU V’NAI YISRAEL MEI’ERETZ MITZRAYIM (“and the Israelites went out armed from the land of Egypt”), focusing on the unusual word, “chamushim” (“armed”). “Chamushim” comes from the same root as the word, “chomesh”, or “one-fifth.” The rabbis tell us that only one fifth of the Israelites actually left Egypt. 80% of them stayed behind, and remained slaves to Pharaoh.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that the 20% of Israelites who actually left Egypt should have had their own misgivings about the new path they were treading. After all, Egypt had its advantages: security, predictability, and spicy food to boot! Moreover, life in the desert couldn’t have been all that easy. Along with all the miracles inevitably came sun, heat, insects, lack of water, and the occasional attack from hostile peoples. There is little security or predictability in the life of a desert nomad.

Similarly, today. Many of us prefer to keep things the same, in spite of the personal price we pay. We remain locked into dead-end jobs, relationships, communities, and ideologies, because they are at least secure and predictable. We fear leaving Egypt when we get the chance, because who knows what the future might then bring? Maybe it will prove to have been the wrong choice!

So, why was the Torah given in the desert? Why do the Israelites spend so much of their early, formative history wandering in the desert? The rabbis answer, (Pesikta de Rav Kahana 107a) “To teach you that if one doesn’t hold himself to be as unpossessed as the desert, he doesn’t become worthy of the words of the Torah; and that, as the desert has no end, so with the words of the Torah: there is no end to them.”

To grow—in knowledge, in wisdom, in our capacity to absorb and act upon Truth—we must be willing to let go of our present configuration of priorities. At least temporarily, we need to loosen our iron grip upon who we conceive ourselves to be right now, and become open—like a desert--to new thoughts, habits, and possibilities for change. Then we may merit to grasp more clearly and completely the words of the Torah, the nature of our slavery, and the opportunities for our liberation from it.

The possibilities for growth and spiritual evolution are endless, only limited by our imagination, and our desire to embrace change.