“The riff-raff in the midst (of the children of Israel) had a great craving, and turned everything upside-down. 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. There is nothing to look at, except this Manna!’” (Numbers 11:4-6)

The book of Numbers features two spectacular rebellions against the authority of Moses and Aaron, and also a number of smaller ones. This is one of the smaller ones. But even this rebellion is spectacular in its way. What exactly were the people complaining about?

It wasn’t exactly an emergency. No one was starving. In fact, God had taken it upon Himself to provide His people with Manna, “the food of the gods,” as it were. Exactly what Manna was is hard to say. This fact is conveyed by the name Manna itself, coming as it does from the Hebrew, MAHN HU (“What is it?”)

But this much we know from the Torah: the Manna condensed on the ground every morning, like dew, and could be gathered with a minimum expenditure of effort. Apparently it had the taste of honey on wafers or fresh cream, which makes it sound as if Manna, whatever it was, must have been highly palatable.

Tradition has it that Manna could taste like whatever food you wanted, which is perhaps another way of saying the same thing. And if, in fact, the Israelites sustained themselves in the desert for forty years by eating only one kind of food—this Manna—then whatever its deficiencies, it must have been a kind of supernutrient.

So what exactly was the problem? Let us turn to the text: “We remember the fish that we used to eat for free in Egypt; the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” The word that practically leaps off the page here is, in Hebrew, CHINAM—”for free.” But this food was hardly provided free of charge! And so we might ask: are the rigours of enslavement so easily forgotten? Are dehumanizing labour, daily beatings, and the slaughter of infants so easily put aside? What could be responsible for such a distorted perception of reality?

The problem faced by the children of Israel in the desert is the problem faced by anyone in transition. One stable situation has been left behind. Another stable situation has yet to manifest. The in-between stage, inherently unstable and chaotic, is therefore dominated by feelings of fear and insecurity. In fact, since the stable state of the future hasn’t yet materialized, the natural tendency, in the midst of transition, would be to want to revert to the stable state of the past.

This is what the Israelites are fantasizing about in the passage above. So strong is the fear of the chaotic present, and so powerful the pull of the much more predictable past—horrible though it may have been—that it distorts the colours of the memory spectrum. Whatever it was that was good about slavery in Egypt—Was the food was tasty? Were meals served on time?—now comes to the surface.

Meanwhile, whatever is less than good about the present is also pushed into the spotlight. Certainly, there is much to complain about when one lives a nomadic life in the desert: hot days, cold nights, insects, no water. Obviously, given dry desert conditions, food is bound to be much less fresh or tasty than in a well-established agricultural economy such as existed in ancient Egypt.

And so, in Parashat Beha’alotecha, the focus of the insecurity and discontent of the Israelites in the desert becomes food: fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. Why these foods, in particular? They may well have been the staples of the slave diet in ancient Egypt. Also, these foods possess two characteristics that one would be unlikely to find either in Manna, or in a typical desert diet: juiciness, and pungency.

The Israelites complain about these specific dietary deficiencies when they say, “Now our souls are shriveled (in Hebrew, NAFSHEINU Y’VEISHA).” Apparently, they miss the moisture of foods from the well-watered Nile delta, as well as the strong tastes that produce from such farming would yield.

But these objections are all symptoms of a deeper spiritual problem—a problem embodied by the Israelites’ disparagement of the Manna. The problem is, “Better the devil I know, than the angel I don’t know.” Better the hovel with which I’m familiar, than the mansion with which I’m not. Better the boring job with which I’m comfortable, than the new position with which I’m not. Better the abusive relationship in which I’m financially secure, than a new life in which I’m not.

The Israelites’ problem is the problem of Every Man, and Every Woman. We love stability, even if it’s bad for us, and we hate instability, even if it’s good for us. The fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic were all perks of the stability of enslavement—an enslavement that had already lasted over two centuries, and could easily have lasted two centuries more. The Manna was a perk of the instability of freedom. There wasn’t anything else to eat in the desert, and the desert wasn’t a particularly comfortable place for anyone to be.

Consequently, at least in the short term, life in Egypt, and the slave diet was idealized, while life in the desert and Manna, “food of the gods,” was denigrated. However, there is always a price to be paid for a distorted perception of reality. In this case, according to the Torah, many Israelites paid with their lives. Today also, we pay for our perceptions in the currency of months or years of life that could have been spent in far more positive and progressive pursuits.