One of the questions people like to ask is “If you
could eat only more thing for the rest of your life what would it be?” That's a
tough question to answer because obviously we like different types of food, but
when all is said and done for me the answer is olives. Green or black, I love olives. I can go through a whole jar in a single
sitting and if I have to choose one type of food for the rest of my life then
it would have to be olives.
The Israelites in the wilderness weren’t asked this
question, but they were only given one type of food to eat, manna. In that inhospitable environment God’s manna
was the only way for the people to survive, and one might expect that the
Israelites would be grateful; but in this week's Torah portion we read about
the Israelites complaining. ‘The
riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept
and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used
to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the
garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing
but this manna to look to!”’ (Num. 11:4-6).
We might think that slavery and suffering would be
the primary ways in which the Israelites would remember Egypt; but now just
over a year after they left they think back to it more fondly, remembering the
food that they ate and exhibiting a lack of gratitude for the manna that God
has provided. Moses is upset with the
people and God gets very angry, so angry that God instructs Moses to tell the
people: ‘Purify yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have
kept whining before Adonai and saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Indeed, we
were better off in Egypt!’ Adonai will
give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat not one day,
not two, not even five days or ten or twenty, but a whole month, until it
comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you’ (Num. 11:18-20).
In this moment we see that the people might have
pushed God a little bit too far, and God's response is to give them exactly
what they wanted – meat and lots of it, so that eventually there will be too
much. We can imagine that after a month
of eating just meat they will grow tired and exasperated with it.
As we read the story there are a number of lessons
that we can take from it. One of them is
that we need to be grateful for what we have.
In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of our Ancestors (4:1), we read: “Who is rich?
The person who is happy with their lot.”
It is clear that the Israelites don't seem to have understood the idea that we
need to be grateful when we have enough food to put on our plates and when
we're able to survive; especially in an oppressive environment like the wilderness. With an attitude of gratitude perhaps we
would not have got to the point of complaining.
But when we reach that point of complaining it's
important to remember that too much of a good thing, no matter how much we
might crave it, is never good for us. This
story is a cautionary tale about moderation and gratitude, a lesson for the Israelites
in the wilderness and one which I'm sure all of us today can benefit from as
well.
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