Parasha: Beshalach · Aliyah: Fifth (Hod)

וילונו כל עדת בני ישראל…במדבר, The entire congregation of Israel murmured…in the desert. Their complaint was addressed to the fact that they had to wander through the desert. The route to the land of Canaan was well known and they had expected that Moses would take them along that route. G'd had His own reasons why He did not lead them along the accepted route. The Israelites believed that it was Moses' choice to lead them on this strange route through the desert.

ביד ה׳ בארץ מצרים, "by the hand of G'd, in the land of Egypt." They meant that if they had still been in Egypt and would have refused to leave they would have died by the hand of G'd in Egypt. They preferred to have died for that sin rather than to die in the desert from hunger without having sinned. The situation is reminiscent of Lamentations 4,9: "those who died by the sword are better off than those who died from hunger."

בשבתנו על סיר הבשר, "while we sat by the flesh-pots, etc." This verse clearly shows that the people who uttered this slander were not the ones who had performed slave labour, but had been overseers. The labourers had never had anything to eat but unleavened bread. Possibly the speakers were the well known Datan and Aviram who were known for their wickedness.

בשבתנו על, "when we sat by, etc." Possibly the reason they felt satisfaction when they ate bread was because they also had meat to eat with it.

Alternatively, it may mean that though they had already stilled their hunger by eating bread, they ate meat after having had their fill of bread. It is possible that the detail "by the flesh-pots" as opposed to "we ate meat," means that they did not eat the meat for some considerable time after it had been cooked and had already lost some of its taste, but that they sat by the pots waiting for the meat to be thoroughly cooked and then eating it at once. These people may have hinted to Moses that though he might tell them to go ahead and slaughter their livestock so that they would have meat to eat, this would not represent a permanent solution, seeing that in Egypt they had enjoyed a regular meat-based diet.

The verse may also explain why the Torah had previously described the whole congregation of Israel as complaining against Moses and Aaron. Under normal circumstances it is most unlikely that everyone in such a large group of people should be of the same mind when it came to complaining against G'd and Moses, His prophet. The fact that they were all of one mind in this case required the existence of two preconditions. There were two groups of people of which one demanded bread whereas the other demanded meat. The group of people which mentioned the time they sat by the flesh-pots were the wealthy Jews. Although they were a small minority, the Torah mentioned them first as in times of negative developments one usually mentions the extremists first. Afterwards the Torah mentioned the people whose principal diet had been bread, though they had enjoyed an abundant supply of that, i.e. "we ate bread to our satisfaction." Now that these people found themselves in an uninhabited desert they grew restless pending their leader providing them with their necessities.

ויאמר ה׳ אל משה הנני ממטיר לכם לחם מן השמים, G'd said to Moses: "I am about to cause bread to rain down for you from heaven." It is interesting that in this instance G'd did not instruct Moses to tell the people the news by saying לאמור. It is also interesting that whereas G'd started out by addressing Moses directly, He ended by referring to the people in the third person, i.e. to "find out if the people will walk in My ways or not." We can best explain this on the basis of Yuma 75 that the manna fell for the righteous in front of his tent so that the צדיק did not have to trouble himself to go outside the camp to collect it, whereas the manna for the majority of the people fell in a single area outside the camp and they went outside in order to collect it. The words: "here I shall cause it to rain down for you," were addressed to the righteous, whereas for the people who had displayed a lack of faith the manna fell outside the camp so that they experienced some effort in collecting it.

The reason that G'd did not preface the prophecy with the customary לאמור was because G'd would command them once more with all the details concerning the manna in the paragraph following. This is why at this moment G'd simply provided Moses with an answer to the people's request, whereas in verse eleven G'd tells Moses to address the people concerning both their demands for bread and meat. The glory of G'd appeared immediately after Moses told the people what was about to happen.

למען אנסנו, "in order that I may prove them, etc." The heavenly bread required no further preparation by the people to make it fit to eat. This would allow them unlimited time to study G'd's laws. Having this time at their disposal they could show G'd if they would put it to good use.

Another meaning of the word "I will test them," is the fact that they would only receive a day's supply at a time, דבר יום ביומו; in this way they would remain dependent on G'd's goodwill on a daily basis.

והכינו את אשר יביאו, "and they shall prepare that which they shall bring in, etc." The "bringing of the manna into the camp was in itself part of the process called "preparation." They had to do this on Friday so as not to violate the Sabbath by bringing the manna into the camp on that day. This is why Moses phrased the Sabbath legislation as including: "let no one go outside his place" (i.e. the camp, verse 29).

ערב וידעתם כי ה׳ הוציא אתכם, "in the evening you will realise that G'd took you out, etc." The fact that the Israelites had not previously asked for meat is proof that they had considered such a request unrealistic, that they did not believe that they would ever be supplied with meat in the desert. They did not even mention the word meat until they wished they had died in proximity to the flesh-pots, etc. G'd now was anxious to demonstrate that He Who had taken them out of Egypt and crushed their enemies could also provide for them wherever they were. G'd intended to teach the Israelites a moral lesson, such as we find in Isaiah 44,18 where the prophet scores the people for "having besmeared their eyes so that they neither saw nor understood." G'd insisted that they would realise that He had taken them out of Egypt when they observed what would happen in the evening as opposed to what would happen in the morning (seeing that they had considered the supply of meat the most unlikely thing that could happen).

ובקר וראיתם את כבוד השם. "And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord." The "morning" referred to is the one referred to in verses 8-10. This appearance of G'd's glory occurred on the day following. According to this interpretation the letter ו in the word וראיתם must be understood as a conjunctive letter, i.e. "in addition to what G'd had said you will also experience some kind of revelation of the glory of G'd." Alternatively, the meaning of the word ובקר, "in the morning also," is that at that time the Israelites would have another opportunity to realise that it was G'd (and not Moses) who had taken them out of Egypt. The verse then is a continuation of verse 6: "in the evening you will realise, etc." According to this interpretation the letter ו in וראיתם is not a conjunctive but introduces a new thought.

ויאמר משה בתת ה׳ לכם, Moses said: "when G'd gives you, etc." Whereas previously Moses had not spelled out what would happen in the evening and in the morning, he now spelled this out in detail.

ויאמר משה אל אהרון, Moses said to Aaron, etc. It is possible that Moses spoke this verse on the first day when he said to the people that they would recognise that it was G'd who had taken them out of Egypt and not he or Aaron. It is also possible that Moses spoke to Aaron only on the following day and that the reference to "evening" in verse 6 did not refer to the evening of that day, but to the evening following provision of the quail; in that case Moses refrained from mentioning what happened in the morning.

ויהי כדבר אהרון, It came to pass, as Aaron spoke, etc. G'd is described as if He was sitting waiting for the Israelites to look in His direction. He appeared through the cloud immediately after Aaron had delivered Moses' message to the people.