Dear Rabbi,
Going back to my childhood in the Bronx, I heard fanciful stories
of those Jews with some wealth vacationing in the hotels in the Catskill
Mountains north of New York City. From what I was told, there were many
activities to participate in while staying at one of these places, but the
“activity” that everyone joined in was eating. One could order over and over
whatever he or she wanted and it would just keep coming out.
There is an old joke that summed up the thinking of most that took part in this ritual. It went something like this:
After eating a meal at the dining area, many of the participants would have to sit around in the lounge area because they could not move after downing more food than a body could normally handle. While seated the conversation would revolve around the food and the complaints would resonate around all those that were seated. The complainants would state among other things that “the bread was stale”, “the potatoes were lumpy” and “meat was undercooked”. Some would argue other things that were “wrong” with what they had just consumed, but there was universal agreement among them all that the biggest problem was that “the portions were too small”.
There was one other ritual that they would all engage in. Regardless of how much they had eaten at the table, they would all ask the waiter to prepare something that they could eat “for later”. This was despite the fact that they would be eating three full meals for everyday they were guests of the hotel.
What I described above is apparently a reflection of what these people were mimicking as it relates to their ancestors in the desert, and they just wanted to carry on a tried a true tradition of complaining despite what they had been given.
We are at a portion of the Torah where the Israelites had just witnessed ten plagues that befell their oppressors of which they were spared, which led to their freedom from bondage. In the first parshah, G-d tells Moses to tell the people that they are to go to encamp by the “sea” and that G-d would “harden” Pharaoh’s heart to pursue the Israelites and bring them back to Egypt. G-d told Moses that he had a plan but when the Israelites saw the Egyptians and their backs were to the sea (be it “Red” or “Reeds”), they panicked and said the following to Moses at Exodus 10:11:
“Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us to die in the desert? What is this that you have done to us to take us out of Egypt?”
I can give them a pass because it looked like they were trapped and were about to die, but this is just the first example of a people constantly complaining despite what they had just witnessed. We then read that G-d saved them by actually splitting the sea, which allowed the Israelites to pass through unharmed and once they were on the other side of the sea, G-d took his wrath out on the Israelites’ oppressors by drowning them, which was witnessed by all those that had just walked through a true miracle.
For the moment, our ancestors understood what had just happened as stated in Exodus 14:31:
“And Israel saw the great hand, which the Lord had used upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in Moses, His servant.”
They then sang the Lord’s praises, but this was short lived. They walked for three days and were thirsty. They came to Marah and because the water was not drinkable they again cried out. G-d comes through again showing the Israelites another miracle when Moses, under instructions from the Lord took a “wood” and made the water “sweet” to drink. I would also give them a pass on this one because this was all new to them and their belief in the All Mighty despite all they had already seen might still be suspect.
It is here though that G-d tests the Israelites at Exodus 15:26, with the following law they had to follow:
“And He said, if you hearken to the voice of the Lord, your G-d, and you do what is proper in His eyes, and you listen closely to His commandments and observe all His statutes, all the sicknesses that I have visited upon Egypt I will not visit upon you, for I, the Lord, heal you.”
G-d has delivered more than once and all the Israelites have to do is obey this statute and all will be well. Do they heed this advice? They are out of Egypt about 45 days and they apparently run out of food. Let’s pick up the narrative at Exodus 16:3:
“The children of Israel said to them, If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat, when we ate bread to our fill! For you have brought us out into this desert, to starve this entire congregation to death.”
First off, it seems to me that the memory of the Israelites is pretty short lived only a month and a half out of bondage to think they were eating hearty meals in Egypt, but maybe hunger was clouding their thoughts when they said what they said. In any event G-d is again testing them in Exodus 16:4 when the following is stated:
“So the Lord said to Moses, Behold! I am going to rain down for you bread from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather what is needed for the day, so that I can test them, whether or not they will follow My teaching.”
It seems at this point, G-d is getting somewhat tired of the complaints and tells Moses that the people should tone down the rhetoric. Moses attempts to do this at Exodus 16:8 with the following:
“And Moses said, When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and bread in the morning [with which] to become sated, when the Lord hears your complaints, which you are making [the people] complain against Him, but [of] what [significance] are we? Not against us are your complaints, but against the Lord.”
As we read on, the Lord comes through with manna and quail with but one instruction, “do not gather more than you can eat” but do the people listen? Let’s see what happened in Exodus 16:20:
“But [some] men did not obey Moses and left over [some] of it until morning, and it bred worms and became putrid, and Moses became angry with them.”
There was one other caveat as it related to the gathering of food. In preparing for Shabbat, they were to gather two days’ portion the day before and just rest on the Sabbath. But do all of the people listen. No, and there was no food for them to eat. The Lord tells Moses that he is getting fed up with their unwillingness to listen and obey his teachings. Moses then reads the Israelites the riot act for their disobedience despite all they were given. Let’s go back to the Torah at Exodus 16:29 to see how Moses explained what the people were to do:
“See that the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth day, He gives you bread for two days. Let each man remain in his place; let no man leave his place on the seventh day.”
I would like to quote one more verse in the Sixth Aliyah, at Exodus 16:33 and the significance that it should hold for all of us:
“And Moses said to Aaron, Take one jug and put there an omerful of manna, and deposit it before the Lord to be preserved for your generations.”
As I understand this paragraph, one portion of the manna was to be placed in the yet to be constructed Tabernacle, as a testament for all future generations.
If you are not aware of your own history, maybe you are doomed to repeat it. Going back to what I said in the beginning of this observation as it relates to my reference to the hotels of the Catskill Mountains, it should be noted that they are for the most part long gone. Could it be that our not so distant ancestors did not heed the significance of only taking enough food to fill oneself and should not have complained about what they are given and especially should not have taken something “for later”?
I would love to read your response.
Shalom
Mordecai
Dear Mordecai,
I both agree and disagree with you about whether the rabbis of yore had too much time on their hands. I do think the statement rings true, but I also know that in earlier ages, people legitimately found sustenance in these intellectual explorations. We might not see them as “fun” today, but I think they were in their time for those who were literate and had a command of the sources.
You raise several problems with the interpretations I brought, and we once again circle around to the relevance of the Midrash. I won’t defend the interpretations I put forward. They are not meant to definitive answers but suggestions. That’s how the rabbis intended them to my mind, too.
The most interesting points you raise come at the end of your email about how Jews thought that we are better than other people. Like your point about the rabbis having too much time on their hands, I both agree and disagree with you. I enjoy reading about the grimier side of Jewish life. For example, Jewish life in Warsaw in the 1930s had an underbelly that included sex trafficking, prostitution, and criminality writ large. We have this one image of Jewish life in the old world in which everyone is pious and poor. This is simply an idyll. All that said, doesn’t the Shoah, which we discuss often with each other, reveal the lowliness of the nations, their susceptibility to evil? I think that the difference between Jews and non-Jews can be overcome, but this outstanding example seems to bear out the truth of a difference between Jews and non-Jews as regards the moral life.
Shalom,
Rabbi
Dear Rabbi
I find it amusing that you would like me to think of myself as Moses. As anyone in my family can attest to, I am very impatient and I do not have much tolerance for those that act stupidly or who think that what they have to say or do is more important than anyone else. I only look at the portions of the Torah to see what relevance it has to me and when I come across with things that seem to be ambiguous or do not make sende, I ask questions and would like responses from someone qualified to give them, a rabbi, a teacher. I cannot understand how Moses put up with the things he endured for forty years and never "abandoned ship" so to speak.
In some ways I can understand why G-d was using miracles to try to convince the Israelites that he was on their side if only they would obey his laws. In their minds, they had been abandoned for over four hundred years and needed a jolt start to get them back "on track". Because of my family's immediate history, I often make references to the Shoah. How my father and mother went back to a religion that had caused them to live through a hell that cannot be adequately described, is something I cannot answer. I grew up in a Jewish home that tried to live up to what is called for in the Torah. Their faith was not shaken despite not having much of their immediate family there to console them because they had been killed as part of the "final solution"..
As to my anecdote of the "Catskills", there is a show on Amazon that is now in hiatus entitled "The Amazing Mrs. Maisel" that I love and cannot wait for it to come back. It depicts the lives of wealthy Jews in NYC from the late 1950's to the early 1960's. The show's main character, Mrs. Maisel is great. Her central theme is about her becoming a comedian but it is the way her "Jewish life" is depicted that has me in stitches. Her needs for she believes is a proper appearance is something that I think others looking at our "religious ways" think is how we all act. This goes beyond only her and depicts her family in the same zany way. There was a particularly funny sequence when her family and her divorced husband's family stay at one of the "Catskill Mountain hotels" I alluded to in my opening remarks. This sub plot takes place in the middle of the summer and her ex mother-in-law has to show everyone up by wearing her mink coat to many social gatherings, which in the mother-in-law's mind shows a "high status" and "class", regardless of how she is feeling. There is a word in Yiddish, narishkite, that perfectly describes life in the Catskill Mountain hotels during that period. As I stated in my initial remarks, our ancestors in the desert, did not make it to the promised land because of their narishkite, and the hotels of the Catskills are for the most part a thing of the past.
I never said that "Jews thought we are better than other people." What I said was that rabbinical interpretations place Jews at a "higher level" than other religions and that if you are not a Jew you are not as worthy. (Read your mishnahs re Isaac v. Ishmael, Jacob v. Esau, etc.)
Jews have had their mobsters, Myer Lansky, thieves, Bernie Madof, and I could go on but even these notorious characters have a reputation of being "better" at their craft than the common crook.
Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion famously said about the State of Israel: "We will know we have become a normal country when Jewish thieves and Jewish prostitutes conduct their business in Hebrew."
My point is, rabbis have sat around since they came into prominence and debated
what the Torah means. That may be an honorable thing to do, but it seems to me,
there are too many quotes like "the face of Jacob" stopping Joseph,
or your comment based on something you read about "adultery running
rampant in Egypt" making the Egyptians even worse than they even were that
tests my patience. Regardless of how ruthless the Egyptians were towards the
Israelites, they were merely pawns in the "grand plan" G-d had as he
relayed it to Abraham.
You may not possess Moses’s patience, but you have his passion for justice. I see the passion for truth, too, which is why you may be impatient with stupid remarks or shows of self-importance. I am ambivalent about the miracles. I can see their role in jumpstarting, but they also seem to have delayed Israel’s recognition of the true nature of the world.
Your parents are heroes to me for what they did in affirming Torah and Judaism. I can see how they did that but don’t know where they got the strength. Someone needs to hold G-d accountable, though, and I’m glad they did.
Yes, “The Amazing Mrs. Maisel” is a superb show. Are they bringing out another season? I’m amazed at how well the actress Mrs. Maisel plays a Jew. Isn’t narishkite simply a feature of this world that can’t be excised? A little narishkite doesn’t hurt.
I am familiar with that Ben Gurion quote. What’s odd is how he, too, plays into the self-image we have constructed of ourselves as a people without an underbelly. Consider this book.
Look, the midrash is fanciful, but I think it’s effective at certain points. The message is that adultery is wrong. How do you convince the people to shun adultery? One way is to associate this behavior with a people that is already associated with wickedness. This is not how we would treat the matter today where we would force people to look at themselves rather than depict another group in a poor way to demonstrate a contrast.
Shalom,
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