In Beha’alotcha, we encounter one of the central themes of the book of Bamidbar: the Israelite people complaining. They are unsatisfied with the Divinely-provided manna, and long for what they remember as the bounty of Egypt. They then cry out in complaint.
וְהָאסַפְסֻף אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבּוֹ הִתְאַוּוּ תַּאֲוָה וַיָּשֻׁבוּ וַיִּבְכּוּ גַּם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמְרוּ מִי יַאֲכִלֵנוּ בָּשָׂר׃
The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat!
זָכַרְנוּ אֶת־הַדָּגָה אֲשֶׁר־נֹאכַל בְּמִצְרַיִם חִנָּם אֵת הַקִּשֻּׁאִים וְאֵת הָאֲבַטִּחִים וְאֶת־הֶחָצִיר וְאֶת־הַבְּצָלִים וְאֶת־הַשּׁוּמִים׃
We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
וְעַתָּה נַפְשֵׁנוּ יְבֵשָׁה אֵין כֹּל בִּלְתִּי אֶל־הַמָּן עֵינֵינוּ׃
Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!”
(Bamidbar 11:4-6)
Ultimately, in response to this outcry God sends a wind which “swept quail from the sea and strewed them over the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and about a day’s journey on that side, all around the camp, and some two cubits deep on the ground,” (Bamidbar 11:31). Wading through this veritable sea of poultry, the people do not get much of an opportunity to satiate their craving for meat. The Torah tells us that “[t]he meat was still between their teeth, nor yet chewed, when the anger of the LORD blazed forth against the people and the LORD struck the people with a very severe plague,” (Bamidbar 11:33).
This narrative is a condemnation of the desire of the Israelites to eat meat. While it is possible that the punishment targets the complaining rather than the desire itself, the very next pasuk suggests that the problem was the hunger itself:
וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־שֵׁם־הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא קִבְרוֹת הַתַּאֲוָה כִּי־שָׁם קָבְרוּ אֶת־הָעָם הַמִּתְאַוִּים׃
That place was named Kivrot-hataavah, because the people who had the craving were buried there.
The place is named not for the complainers, but for the “mitavim,” the “desiring ones.” This story suggests that some part of the desire — or the desire itself — for foods other than the manna, with tastes and textures that the Jews in the desert could no longer experience, was transgressive. Yes, the content of the complaint itself expresses a longing to return to Egypt, and yes, the people overburden Moshe with it. But at its core, the outcry and the punishment are about the desire to taste food, to chew things with broader textures, other than the manna which the chapter tells us was ground into meal and boiled or made into cakes, and which “tasted like rich cream,” (Bamidbar 11:8).
This desire itself for diversity of flavors and textures is implicitly acknowledged as legitimate by the Rabbinic tradition. Rashi, quoting the Sifrei, tells us that
וטחנו ברחים וגו'. לֹא יָרַד בָּרֵחַיִם וְלֹא בַקְּדֵרָה וְלֹא בַמְּדוֹכָה, אֶלָּא מִשְׁתַּנֶּה הָיָה טַעֲמוֹ לַנִּטְחָנִין וְלַנְּדוֹכִין וְלַמְבֻשָּׁלִין
“[and the people would] grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes” (11:8): [In reality, the manna] never went into a mill, nor a pot, nor a mortar, but its taste changed [according to one’s desire], into that of ground or pounded or cooked grain.
Rashi’s reference is to a Sifrei that teaches that the flavor and texture of the manna would change to whatever the eater craved at that moment. This lineage of ideas suggests that to the authors of the Sifrei and to Rashi, the idea that the manna actually was a similar taste and texture for all forty years the Israelites spent in the desert was intolerable.
Rashi and the Sifrei attempt to make the Jews’ complaint less potent: if the manna did indeed vary in taste and texture, then the Israelites are simply whining when they cry out for the crunch of cucumbers and the pungency of garlic. But in neutralizing the force of this outcry, Rashi and the Sifrei implicitly lend legitimacy to the complainers: it is indeed unacceptable for Am Yisrael to have to eat the same food for the full duration of their desert wanderings!
The parsha itself, though, is not as sympathetic. The “desiring ones” meet their deaths. This desire, in the face of daily, Godly sustenance is illegitimate. The delights of a ripe melon or a sauteeing onion may be pleasurable, but ought a person ask for such things when God is feeding her Godself?
Elsewhere, too, the parsha navigates the complexities of physical desire. As Beha’alotcha draws to a close, we find Miriam and Aharon talking about their brother Moshe behind his back.
וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה עַל־אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח כִּי־אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית לָקָח׃
Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: “He married a Cushite woman!”
וַיֹּאמְרוּ הֲרַק אַךְ־בְּמֹשֶׁה דִּבֶּר יְהֹוָה הֲלֹא גַּם־בָּנוּ דִבֵּר וַיִּשְׁמַע יְהֹוָה׃
They said, “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” The LORD heard it.
(Bamidbar 12:1-2)
God chastises Aharon and Miriam for speaking against Moshe, and Miriam is punished with tzaraat. But what exactly was the negative content of their speech?
Dr. Michal Raucher, writing for JTS, summarizes the two primary approaches to this question: “Many interpreters have considered Miriam’s wrongdoing in two ways,” she says, “either she is guilty of racism towards Tziporah [Moshe’s wife], or God scolds her for the presumption that she and Aaron are prophets just as important as Moses.”
Raucher then presents a third option for Miriam’s (and Aharon’s) conversation.
Rashi, however, suggests an alternative interpretation to Miriam’s statements about Tziporah and Moses...Rashi presents us with a more positive view of Miriam. Instead of focusing on the word “Cushite” in those verses, he looks at the word “married.” Rashi insists that everyone thought highly of Tziporah, but that Moses no longer spent time with her—or perhaps had even divorced her. Miriam and Aaron, then, were concerned about Moses’s decision to separate from a wonderful human being like Tziporah.
...Tziporah shared with Miriam (perhaps indirectly, according to Rashi) that she had not been intimate with Moses for quite some time because of Moses’s commitments to God. Miriam...said, in essence, “Moses is married! He has obligations to his wife and he’s neglecting them.” In this light, when Miriam asserts that God has also spoken through her, she might be saying, “I, too, am a prophet, and I don’t neglect my spousal commitments merely because God speaks to me” (cf Rashi on 12:2).
...It seems that Miriam is concerned that Moses’s religious commitments are taking precedence over his marital commitments in a way that is damaging his relationship with his wife.
Raucher suggests that Miriam is righteously raising Moshe’s separation from Tzipporah out of concern for their relationship. In her read, Moshe has withdrawn from Tzipporah — potentially out of concerns for ritual purity — as a consequence of his closer relationship with God. Put differently, Moshe has set aside physical desire for his wife in order to prioritize prophesying.
Miriam and Aharon are chastised for their conversation, and Miriam is punished. But per Raucher, what is under the surface in this interaction is the correct relationship of physical desire and the sacred. For Moshe, the two cannot coexist; he can be a leader and a prophet or he can be close with his partner. Just as with the manna, there can be a relationship with the Divine or there can be an embrace of embodied wants.
But within Beha’alotcha we also see another way that desire can interact with the sacred. Earlier in the parsha, before either the complaints about food or Miriam and Aharon’s conversation, the Israelites offer the Korban Pesach, the paschal sacrifice. But there is a group of men who is impure from corpse-impurity and therefore are disqualified from bringing the sacrifice. They approach Moshe and Aharon with their own kind of complaint:
וַיֹּאמְרוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים הָהֵמָּה אֵלָיו אֲנַחְנוּ טְמֵאִים לְנֶפֶשׁ אָדָם לָמָּה נִגָּרַע לְבִלְתִּי הַקְרִיב אֶת־קׇרְבַּן יְהֹוָה בְּמֹעֲדוֹ בְּתוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
Those men said to them, “Unclean though we are by reason of a corpse, why must we be excluded from presenting the LORD’s offering at its set time with the rest of the Israelites?”
(Bamidbar 9:7)
Moshe does not know how to respond to this challenge, and he turns to ask God what these men ought to do. But God does not offer simply a local solution: God gives a full set of instructions for a make-up Korban Pesach, the Pesach Sheni, to be offered a month later than the original Korban Pesach by those who are impure in Nisan or on a long trip when it ought to be offered.
This request is honored by Moshe and by God. Unlike the outcry for meat and for leeks, this is interpreted as holy desire. The cry of “lama nigra,” “why should we be excluded,” is resonant for so many of us who have found ourselves on the outside of religious community and ritual.
But the desire here need not be read as only for inclusion. The Korban Pesach is a sacrifice which is eaten. Amidst the possible monotony of the manna, this is also a request for meat.
This outcry, though, pairs closeness with God and participation in ritual, with physical desire. Unlike for Moshe, and for those who simply long for different foods, those who seek a second opportunity for the Korban Pesach don’t treat desire and holiness as at odds. They are one and the same.
Pesach Sheni teaches us that we do not have to choose between pleasure and the sacred. Desire need not be something we withdraw from in order to have space for holiness, and craving physical enjoyment is not inherently something worthy of condemnation from God. But even more so, pleasure can intersect with the holy. Worship can also meet our physical hunger.
adrienne maree brown, in Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good* writes that “true pleasure—joy, happiness, and satisfaction—has been the force that helps us move beyond the constant struggle, that helps us live and generate futures beyond this dystopic present, futures worthy of our miraculous lives.”
This pleasure can also help us reach out to God, and generate these futures theologically as well as materially. We need the lessons of the Korban Pesach: God wants us to eat and to be satisfied as part of our avodah.
* Everyone please read this book ASAP.
P.S. I’m sorry to have missed writing about last week’s parsha, it was Shavuot and then I was traveling! Please imagine I said something interesting about the sotah.
Avigayil, excuse the cliche, but these divrei torah are always a breath of fresh air in my inbox and i so look forward to reading them each week. thank you!!!!!!!
I just want to say this one really hit home this week. My oldest child is being diagnosed with an obscure auto-immune disorder and a diet prohibiting the Top 6 allergens is recommended: No dairy (not just lactose) no wheat (not just gluten) no eggs no soy no tree nuts no peanuts no fish or shellfish. It is good to know that complaining about what we eat, a very human feeling, is worth including in the Torah, and that even the Rabbis acknowledge that cravings for what we want are valid and do not make us bad people, even if we and HaShem try and hold ourselves to a higher standard. Thank you