Jun 2/07 — Parashat Beha'alotecha: “The Theology of Desire”

Commentary by Rabbi Lawrence M. Pinsker

The Israelites, fed up with having the same thing to eat for months without a break, turned their complaints about their daily diet into a matter of public record:

“Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish that we used to eat for free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic. But now our gullets are parched. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!”

Their outcry is full of self-pity, but God is not sympathetic to them. Evidently their cravings blind them to the daily miracle of manna that is keeping them alive. So God sends them fresh meat – migratory quail blown in from the sea – and they stuff themselves until God inflicts a plague upon those who had complained.

What sin did they commit that warranted death? How can wanting variety in our diet be a sin? Maybe they could have phrased their request more respectfully, but couldn’t a kind and patient God have given them a break?

Classical sources respond that the Israelites had no reason to crave for a more varied diet. Rabbinic Midrash says that the manna had a unique quality: somewhat like vegetarian restaurants that flavor tofu and wheat gluten so that it tastes like beef, chicken, duck, turkey, and so on, God had endowed manna with whatever flavor the person eating it craved. They may have eaten the same substance each day, but its taste varied and they didn’t need to crave anything else.

So why did they complain? The traditional explanation is that we humans have two types of passion. We are born with the first, a biological need to eat and drink in order to survive. We simply cannot live without food and water, and so are driven to find them.

The second passion is cultivated, like the desire for fine wines or sophisticated culinary treat, whether it is a main course, appetizer, or dessert. Bread, a few vegetables, and protein sustain us without our needing them to be elaborately prepared.

We are not born with the taste for haut cuisine. People are not born as wine connoisseurs. Such tastes are developed and cultivated. The ancient Rabbis concluded that the Israelites’ craving was not integral to their survival, since manna would have taste like meat if they wanted that.

Instead, their passion for the feasts they fantasized as being back in Egypt was an unsubtle criticism of God who had liberated them from the “pleasures” of slavery.

In thinking obsessively in this way, they undermined their ability to master their lives. They thwarted God’s gift and unleashed crippling desires. This concept is expressed in the Torah itself: “And the rabble in their midst cultivated a craving and then the Israelites also sat and wept….” (Numbers 11:4).

God was angry because they amplified cravings until their painful longing obliterated every single aspect of their wondrous experience. Suffering replaced hope with false memories. With imaginations running rampant, leaving Egypt became must absolute torment.

Our ancestors thought: If the Israelites could cultivate such powerful craving for luxury foods unconnected to their survival, think of what they could have done by showing self-control and building greater feelings of gratitude and hope, the building blocks of spirituality!

Sadly, we are stuck with this problem. Many of us believe that either you are born with spiritual feelings or not. We think that some people are just drawn to prayer, study, and spirituality and some aren’t.

But spirituality, like an appreciation of sports, literature, art, classical music, or fine wine, is an acquired taste. Many families spend large amounts of time, effort, and money to expose their children to sports, the arts, good music, and literature because they believe that exposure leads to appreciation.

If we can succeed in helping our children to appreciate the finer things in life, why shouldn’t we be able to do the same with religious and spiritual concerns? Notably, only religion gets short-changed in our efforts.

The message of the manna story is that through effort, it is possible to develop a passion for almost anything. But it is a difficult task to control bad cravings once we allow them to develop.

The question for us, therefore, is: Do we value a more spiritually fulfilling life than we are currently living and are we prepared to invest serious effort in achieving it?