Parshat Be-Ha'alotcha by Rabbi Adam Rubin
The Call of the Torah
Our parashah contains perhaps the most important turning point in the entire Torah. In the previous two parshiyot, there are elaborate about preparations for the journey to the Land of Israel. The atmosphere is optimistic. The camp is organized precisely around the mishkan (tabernacle)– every tribe has its place, and its banner. No need to worry about directions -- the camp is surrounded and protected by God’s protective cloud, and pillars of cloud and fire will guide them. Trumpets are sounded.
And then, as soon as they set out on the long-awaited journey, the complaining begins. “We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now there is nothing to eat but this manna…nothing at all! (Numbers 11:1-6). Cucumbers and garlic?! They endured endless years of oppressive slavery. They then witnessed the splitting of the sea, the wonderous revelation at Sinai, and the construction of the miskhan. They receive food directly from heaven. And they miss cucumbers and garlic? This is the turning point; we will soon encounter the incident of the spies, a punishment of forty years in the desert, the rebellion of Korah, the false prophesy of Bilam, sexual and religious transgression and idolatry. So terrible is the reversal in our parashah that it essentially causes Moshe to have a nervous breakdown (verses 10-15).
What can we learn from this transformative moment in the Torah? One answer can be found in the commentary by Rashi, who notes that of course the food was not “free” when they were slaves in Egypt. So what does the Torah mean when it uses this word? Drawing on a midrash, he says that it means “free from mitzvot.” That is, the word is not a reference to the absence of costs, but to an absence of responsibility. The people are still spiritually immature, pining away not for the conditions of slavery, but rather for their previous “childlike” state of being taken care of. In Egypt, they did not need to bear the very adult task of living out a covenantal relationship with God by following the mitzvot of the Torah. Their complaints, and misguided nostalgia, can therefore be understood as a flight from structure, responsibility and obligation. The call of Torah is a call to responsibility – and our ancestors were not (yet) ready to answer that call.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Adam Rubin