Parashat  Beha’alotcha

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   God's Servant's Double Trial

 Translated from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MAYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL

“And the people were sort of grumbling…”  (11:1)  Why “sort of”?  Why not simply “the people were grumbling”?  “Sort of” implies there was no specific, clearly-defined complaint they were able to express.  Rather, they simply made a sour face, as certain people do when receiving a gift: Rather than responding with a pleased expression, one appears displeased.  One’s facial expression demonstrates one’s dissatisfaction.

Therefore, they were punished with tavera, “the burning fire”: “Because they spoke in utter bitterness, as do those people who are experiencing genuine pain.”  “They would distress themselves and sorrow themselves, saying: ‘What shall we do and how shall we live in this desert, and what shall we eat and what shall we drink, and how shall we bear the affliction and how shall we escape from it.’  They expressed themselves in terms reminiscent of Lamentations: ‘What shall a living man lament?  A strong man shall lament his sins.’  Such terminology refers to pain and sorrow over oneself.’” (Ramban)

With the second complaint, their meaning emerged more clearly and directly: “Who will feed us meat?”  “We remember the fish that we would eat in Egypt for free.  [Rashi: “free of the commandments”]  And now our lives are all dried out, and all our eyes ever see is this mahn.”

This complaint of theirs requires closer examination.  After all, “the mahn was the bread of the ministering angels”.  It was a spiritual food that could open the gates of pleasurable experiences without end, tastes according to whatever the eye desired to see, according to whatever the palate of every single individual desired to taste, yet nevertheless they preferred the low-grade food of Egypt that they had paid for by the sweat of their brow, over the mahn, that they had not toiled for, that would appear on their doorstep without any effort on their part.  And it was during the toil of Egypt specifically, they perceived the bread as being free, rather than in the effortless activity entailed in gathering the manna that fell from heaven.

Another difficulty in their complaint about the mahn is the fact that they could have simply tasted, in the mahn, those same tastes that they remembered from Egypt, of fish and watermelon, garlic and onion, if such was their desire, and furthermore, why did they long for these tastes?

It appears that the ability to taste in the mahn anything that occurred to the eater’s imagination, was in fact dependent on the eater’s imagination – meaning dependent on a creative activity initiated by the eater – with all the associated characteristic components of free choice that this implies.

If the person eating the mahn had a slave character, and was capable only of reacting to stimulation from the environment, and lacked all personal initiative and choice, and lacked creative imagination, then he would be incapable of tasting, in the mahn, anything at all, and its taste in his mouth would be as impoverished as the wretched character of its eater.

We discover a new angle to the Talmudic statement: “Whoever is greater than his fellow, his urge is greater than his.”  Meaning even the urge to evil – when experienced by someone who is great, someone who possesses creative imagination – is greater, accordingly.

Rashi saw fit to interpret “free” as meaning “free of the commandments.”  The toil of serving God – the toil of creativity, the expression of the quality of the inner self – versus the toil of animalistic existential survival.  Yet they preferred the toil of the coarseness of physical matter over the challenge of creative quality. 

Such quality must be acquired at a certain price: Is the price withdrawing and distancing oneself from the contamination of physical matter? 

Price versus price.  Toil versus toil.  From a man’s preferences, you learn about his quality, his character, and what may be expected of him.

One might wonder, on the surface of things, why the options should be set up in terms of choice versus choice.  Is there anything else to be expected from God’s faithful servant, other than sheer blind obedience?  After all, this is how servants of God are pictured in every other religion.  Self-nullification of submissiveness, no freedom of choice, none of this examination or delving into every side of the doubt, none of this opening up of possibilities that there might be more than one single way to fulfill the command of the Creator, the single Master.

Now suddenly the people discover that the nature of worshipping God that Moses is teaching them, bears no resemblance whatsoever to this uni-directional religious submissiveness – which comes exclusively from the Master and devolves exclusively upon the obedient servant, but rather – Heaven forbid – the door is open to discussion and to choosing one’s own path, and the one who would serve God is obligated to reach his decision out of his own free choice.

Does not this possibility of choice on the part of the servant contradict the worship that is indicated by absolute submissiveness?  How is one to understand this two-way road, which is supported on a base of reciprocity?  Reciprocity between Creator and created!  Is it possible?

Over this contradiction, the nation comes to a halt, concerned and apprehensive, attempting to formulate a genuine religious logic: How can they succeed in creating a kesher shel kayama, a lasting tie with a Creator Who expects man to be the master in a certain sense, over himself at the very least.

To encompass all of his creative quality, all of the freedom of choice that is at his disposal – that is exclusively at his disposal, and yet at the very same time to feel like an utterly submissive servant, as expressed by that exalted ideal: “Whole and perfect shall you be with God your Lord.”

The difficulty of reconciling this contradiction bursts all boundaries of worship, and opens the way to a trial and a test, wherein man tries and tests – himself, for the most part, yet it is a test that appears outwardly to be a hesitancy, an impertinence toward Heaven: The act of choosing between one religion and another.  Civyachol.  “If such were possible.”

There is a need to rationally examine and to freely choose the toil of worship that is most finely-tuned to one’s own unique need for qualitative expression – within the framework of halacha.

However, one must not rationalize hesitation, for rationalized hesitation kills the emotional awakening to the need for God while it is yet in its embryonic state.  Rationalized hesitation has a lethal effect on the ability to be swept away by the excitement of worship.

“And God was very wroth [at the people's grumbling] and in Moses' eyes it was evil.”  God, “Who sees into the heart” is relating to this tendency with the utmost gravity, because He views it as the beginning of a deterioration whose end is as the shattered fate of the scapegoat sent over the cliff to “the jagged land”. 

Deterioration through rationalized hesitancy leads to utter impotency, to a total inability to withstand even the slightest and smallest of temptations.

The Creator has no wish for “pierced-ear slaves”, devoid of personality, devoid of self-respect – mobs of yes-men who never digest, never internalize, and never identify with the Godly imperative. 

This is the herd: Not for such as they had God destined His Torah, nor are they worthy of the shidud ma’archot, “the violating of the [natural] systems”, in which God clears Nature away and allows His servant to pave a direct path between himself and his Possessor.

For what God wrought was to bring something new down to this lowly world, a new creation: Godly Presence, enduring and illuminating in its own right, totally independent of any of the natural, material forces of the creation.

You are not “like all the other nations, O House of Israel.”  Rather, Israel is “a nation that dwells alone, and need not consider the other nations.”  “Not on the road [of nature] shall [their] glory shine”, but rather in spite of, and against the will of the laws of nature.  The victory of the absurd.  Breaking a path to a direction far beyond the expected, far beyond the planned and predictable.  “Torah that I learned by spite...”  “When a man shall die in the tent [of Torah].”

Such a methodology tolerates no surrender whatsoever to the natural reality, yet it also tolerates no withdrawing or distancing from the laws of nature.  This worship of God demands that one relate to the universe, yet without surrendering in the slightest to its laws.

“And in Moses' eyes it was evil.”  Moses does not see into the distance as does the Creator of the universe.  He is seeing only the passively submissive path of the “pierced-ear slave”, who expects nothing at all from himself, who likes to make his own life easy – and it is a life that contains no self-respect.  A life devoid of the challenge of creativity.  A life devoid of choice.  A one-way worship of God that sheds all responsibility as partner to the covenant – will ultimately become a burden that falls on Moses' shoulders alone.

“If You say to me, ‘bear him in your bosom, as the nurseman bears the nurseling:’” A servant who, for the price of submissiveness, makes only demands upon his master, and none upon himself. 

Moses' pleas to his father-in-law, who wishes to leave them and to return to his own land – are also relevant to our discussion.  Yitro’s advice was to share the heavy burden of the nation, to give some of the heavy burden back to them – that the people themselves should take part in responsibility for themselves: Moses was in need of Yitro’s presence as an educational reminder to the people, who otherwise tended to evade bearing the burden. 

“Kill me pray, truly kill,” because there is no need of me as bearer of the burden, for I am thereby showing the people the path to evasion.  I might almost have been the one inciting the people to sin in a sense, by causing them to rely solely on me – as seen in the act of the golden calf.

According to the principle, “there is no ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ in the Torah” it seems we might be able to place this scene prior to the act of the golden calf: Moses here predicts this dire and dangerous outcome, effectively casting doubt on the nation’s ability to bear the banner of the Godly Presence in this universe in a worthy manner, in the capacity of “kingdom of priests and sacred nation”.

“ ‘If this is how You do to me,’  Moses' power weakened as if he were a female. [You is written in feminine form in this verse]”  The bond that characterizes the relationship between a mother and her infant is a one-directional relationship, from the mother to the infant, with no expectation of appropriate response.  Moses views this relationship of his to the nation as intolerable for any length of time, and seeks help from the Holy One.  The Holy One solves the problem through the seventy elders: “And I shall impart from the spirit that is upon you, and I shall place it upon them.”

How does Moses impart of his spirit to the seventy elders? 

On the one hand: “What did Moses resemble at that moment [of imparting of his spirit]?  He resembled a candle placed on a candelabrum, and everyone lights from it, yet its own light is never depleted.” 

Yet on the other hand, “the metaphor is comparable to the guardian of an orchard who demands that the owner of the orchard provide greater guard reinforcement.  The owner of the orchard warns him that the added cost of more guards would be deducted from what he receives."  Moses is not being threatened here, in order to persuade him to reconsider whether his request is worthwhile or not, in that his salary risks being reduced, for after all the metaphor of the candle clarifies the fact that Moshe’s light would not be made lacking in any way. 

It seems that what we have here is a promise that Moses' spirit – which did not resemble the spirit of the nation, for they refrained from any initiative of choice and behaved like slaves, always in reaction – this spirit of Moses' that excelled in the perfection of initiative, would be conferred by God onto the seventy elders, and they would spread it, spreading this revolutionary manner of serving God, among all the people.

“Where will I get meat to give to all this nation?”  Could it be that Moses did not believe in the unlimited ability of the Holy One to provide meat for them?  This demand by the nation for meat is indicated by passivity: Receiving without giving.  For such a demand, Moses wonders if they will merit heavenly assistance, to have such a selfish request granted, one that lacks any personal initiative, any investment of personal effort.

“ ‘Until it will come out of your noses, and be zara for you’ – something zar, a thing strange, and abominated.”  Because the human way is not to be a passive receiver.  “One wants one’s own kab more than the nine kabs that belong to one’s friend.”  Whoever receives only, with no initiative of investment of effort, ends by despising and abusing and rejecting in disgust what he has been given.  Such is the case with the physical and material, and in spiritual matters – how much more so.

What we have before us is yet another emphasis on the crucial importance of toil, to the point of self-sacrifice, on the part of God’s servant, who expects the maximum from himself rather than from his Creator.

“And put in our hearts to hear/listen/understand, learn, and teach, keep and do all the words of the teaching of your Torah, with love.”  This means Creator-created relations on a plane of reciprocity, out of longing, out of “a love that is not dependent on anything else,” without expectation of recompense.  In which the one who serves, desires only to give, and give yet more – to the end.

“Would that all the nation of God were prophets,” Moses replies to Gershom, his son, and to Joshua, his faithful servant.  Even they do not dare accept the new worship of God based upon reciprocity.  Instead they view Eldad’s and Medad’s prophesizing as an act of insolence, as a declaration of independence that borders on rebellion.  Moses surprises them: If only all the nation would stand on its own feet, and not fall as a burden upon Moses, who aspires to mold independent servants of God, responsible for themselves and for others.

“And Miriam spoke, and Aaron, against Moses, regarding the Cushite woman he had taken.”  “And the man Moses was very humble, more so than any person on the face of the earth.”  We need to distinguish here between the Torah’s description of Moses as “very humble” and as “more so than any person on the face of the earth.”

If we wish to say that Moses' humility had no match, it would be simple to understand that his humility had reached peak height.  For what purpose does the Torah see fit to emphasize the idea of being “very” humble?

It seems that Moses' humility was outstanding not only in comparison to the level of humility attained by all the other humble people, but was rather unique and original in its quality, rather than merely in its quantity, through comparison.  His uniquely original quality had been absolutely freed of dependence on survival mechanisms, and detached from any limited reality.  For this reason, it was not even in the power of God’s most sacred people, Miriam and Aaron, and despite their being related to Moses, to have any comprehension of the awesome power of Moses' humility, which diverged entirely from Creator-mortal relations, more closely approaching that of a “face to face” relationship, which mortals cannot attain.

According to what we have said before, we may be able to comprehend an inkling of this level, as being the ultimate in devotion initiated, to the point of absolute self-sacrifice, of renouncing all that is dear to one, even and including the features that characterizes one’s uniquely original self.  See more on this in Parashat Matot, regarding the distinction between the “personal” and the “private”.  According to this distinction, we might understand Moses' level as being wholly indicated by the personal and unique, and not at all indicated by the private. 

Moses here enters into the mystery of the dialectics of dvaikut, where “annulling [the Torah] is upholding [the Torah]”, and “if a man dies in the tent – of Torah, he merits the life of Torah,” the life that bestows bounty without limits.