פרשה: בשלח · עלייה: שישי (יסוד)

וידבר ה׳ אל משה לאמור. G'd told Moses to say: It is difficult to understand why the Torah writes לאמור in verse 11 when G'd had not yet completed the instructions He gave to Moses. The word לאמור in verse 12 would have been perfectly adequate.

We may have to explain this by remembering what we learned in Yuma 4 according to which one must not reveal anything one has been told by anyone unless given specific permission to do so. Accordingly, when G'd said: "I have heard, etc." these were G'd's words to Moses, and as such Moses would not have had permission to reveal them to anyone unless he was given permission to do so. The word לאמור in verse 11 was that permission. Permitting someone to reveal something does not mean a directive to do so. When G'd wanted to ensure that Moses used this permission to reveal his conversation with Him, G'd had to instruct him to do so. Hence we find in verse 12: דבר אליהם, "speak to them," that Moses was to relate those parts of the conversation between himself and G'd which had a direct bearing on the Israelites' activities. The first לאמור indicated merely permission to say something, whereas the לאמור in verse 12 introduces things Moses was obligated to communicate to the Israelites. This is also the reason there is a subtle change in the manner G'd speaks of the Israelites. Whereas prior to the instructions דבר אליהם, G'd spoke about the Israelites, from that moment on He addresses them (תאכלו not יאכלו) even while speaking through Moses. Moses was to first address the Israelites, i.e. דבר אליהם telling them what G'd had said to him, namely that He had heard the complaints of the Israelites. He was not to tell them the part about his being G'd's messenger. The second message Moses was to relate, the one introduced by the word לאמור, concerned the fact that the Israelites would eat meat on the evening of that day. The word לאמור was necessary although it followed דבר אליהם to ensure that Moses would tell the Israelites this in the name of G'd. The whole sequence then means: "tell the Israelites that I am telling them 'you will eat meat by evening.'" In this instance the word לאמור replaces the normal expression כה אמר השם. The concluding words of the verse: כי אני השם אלוקיכם, are justified then. Had it not been not for the word לאמור one could have assumed that Moses promised the meat on his own authority.

ויאמרו איש אל אחיו מן הוא, They said to one another it is manna, etc. We need to understand why this whole verse is necessary. Perhaps G'd caused them to say מן instead of מה, and this remained the name of this heavenly bread. This would correspond to a commentary on Psalms 46,9 in Berachot 7 where the word Shammot, desolation, is read instead as Shemot, names. According to the Talmud, G'd Himself named different phenomena in His world. The words כי לא ידעו, "for he (the people) did not know what it was," would be the reason why G'd had to supply the name. This may have been the reason the Israelites eventually lamented the nature of the manna. Perhaps the Israelites were very clever calling it מן as they realised (verse 31) that this word itself was something unusual and reflected the Spirit of G'd.

איש לפי אכלו, everyone according to his capacity to eat. This does not refer to the individual's eating capacity but to the number of people in his household. The reason the Torah speaks about a single individual's capacity to eat, i.e. אכלו is because the head of the household determines how many people depend on him. Nonetheless he could collect on behalf of people who though dwelling in his tent did not depend on him. You will find confirmation of this approach when you study the way the Torah describes who collected how much. In verse 17 we are told that each person had collected an amount corresponding to individual need, whereas in verse 16 we are told that after they measured what they had collected they found that each one had collected exactly one Omer per head. If that is all that mattered, why did the Torah have to add: "according to the number of persons in his tent?" Clearly, the Torah wanted to include persons in a tent for whose maintenance the head of the household was not responsible. You will find studying what the Talmud Yuma 75 has to say on the subject very illuminating.

ויאמר משה…אל יותר ממנו עד בקר, Moses said…not to leave over from it till the following morning. It is possible that Moses issued this directive on his own. He did so because he knew that G'd would provide daily rations. He interpreted G'd's intention as being that one day's food supply should not serve as preparation for the following day's needs. This may be why the Torah phrases Israel's disobedience as "they did not listen to Moses," instead of simply saying: "they left some over till the morning."

Furthermore, why was it not sufficient to say: "they did not listen and left some over?" This would have told us that they did not listen to the one who had given the instructions. According to our interpretation the meaning of "and they did not listen" means the reason they ignored Moses' instructions was that they were clever enough to perceive that the instructions originated with Moses and not with G'd. This also explains the fact that Moses had introduced the instructions he gave concerning collecting the manna in verse 16 as being in the name of G'd. He had not done so previously. If the manna turned bad and sprouted worms this shows that G'd agreed with Moses' intiative.

It is also possible that every instruction Moses issued originated with G'd; seeing Moses had already introduced his directives concerning collection of the manna as instructions given to him by G'd, he did not see the need to re-emphasize this at every juncture. The Israelites misunderstood this, thinking Moses had acted on his own. They also did not know that instructions issued by a prophet are to be obeyed even if the prophet did not receive specific instructions concerning them from G'd.

וירם תולעים, it developed worms. The reason the Torah tells us about this prior to telling us that the left-over manna rotted is, that normally we find worms develop only in foods which are sweet whereas these do not rot and stink. Since we have been told that the normal taste of the manna was like that of wafers covered with honey, we would have expected it to develop worms but not to rot and to give off a foul odour. The Torah therefore tells us that not only did it develop worms but it also rotted and began to stink.

Verse 24 proves that our interpretation is correct, seeing that in that verse the absence of the foul odour is mentioned prior to the absence of worms. By reporting matters in that sequence the Torah tells us that even the worms which would normally develop did not develop overnight.

I have noted that the Mechilta does not explain things the way we do; perhaps the author felt that the development of the worms preceded the decomposure of the manna although usually decomposure is the cause of the worms emerging (even though sweet foods do not rot and create foul odours).

I believe it is likely that the Mechilta felt that the message of the Torah in relating these details was that worms by definition are the product of something which has gone rotten. Onkelos translates the word ויבאש as רע ביש, "bad and evil." Evil may be defined as the result of ignoring or violating the commandments of the Torah; a person who commits sins will eventually sprout worms. The mystical dimension of the existence of worms, i.e. parasites, is the sin committed by Adam when he ate from the tree of knowledge. It was an interaction of the fruit and the air (which he had polluted by his sin) which produced the first worm. All this is alluded to in the strangely worded וירם תולעים, "it raised worms," the cause being ויבאש, that something sinful had been committed with the manna. The Torah confirms this by its long-winded report in verse 24 where the Israelites are described as conforming with the instructions Moses had given concerning the treatment of the manna which had fallen on Friday. The thrust of that whole verse is to inform us that since no violation of the law had been committed there was no rotting and no worms were generated. When we are told in various stories in the Talmud that the bodies of certain righteous people did not produce worms after death, this merely confirms the nature and origin of worms. Compare Baba Metzia 84 about the single worm that grew out of the ear of Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. That single worm was attributed to a sin committed with that ear.

ויגידו למשה, they told Moses about it. This proves that Moses had not previously informed them of what G'd had said. It is hard to reconcile this with the well known prohibition for a prophet to suppress a prophecy that has been revealed to him (Sanhedrin 89). Moses' failure to inform the people seems especially peculiar seeing that by withholding such information he would prevent the performance of a מצוה. The author cites a variety of reasons why we cannot assume that Moses had forgotten to communicate part of G'd's instructions to the people.

Actually, Moses did have good reason to act as he did. He made this plain when he said: "this is what G'd has said: 'tomorrow is a solemn day of rest for G'd;'" You will observe that Moses did not include the customary לאמור when he referred to what G'd had said. By omitting the word "to say," Moses hinted that G'd had not instructed him to communicate this commandment to the Israelites already earlier during the week. In view of what we have learned in Yuma 4 Moses was under obligation not to reveal any communication from G'd unless he had been given either permission to do so or he had been commanded to do so. In this instance G'd had done neither. We have discussed all this in our commentary on verse 11 of this chapter. The proof of the correctness of Moses' conduct is evident from verse 5 where G'd neither told him to tell the people nor permitted him to convey the information at that time. Moses had simply not been appointed as G'd's messenger concerning this detail of the Shabbat/manna legislation. This is why after the Israelites reported to him that a double measure of manna had fallen Moses merely acknowledged that he had known about this all along. He implied that G'd had sealed his lips in this regard.

We now have to analyse who gave Moses permission to reveal even at this stage that G'd had already told him about all this previously.

I believe that Moses was clever enough to figure out why G'd had not wanted him to tell the people about this at the time. He reasoned that G'd wanted to implant faith in the people that the whole Sabbath legislation was fair and justified. If they would experience the way G'd provided for them on the Sabbath by an event orchestrated by G'd Himself, as opposed to a message relayed by a prophet, the psychological effect would be so much greater. They had to be surprised to find provision for the Sabbath already on Friday. If G'd would command them not to commit certain types of work on the Sabbath after He had already made the performance of such work unnecessary, it would be easy to accept the restrictions which are part of the Sabbath. This why Shemot Rabbah 25,11 considers that observance of the Sabbath is equivalent to observing all the commandments. It was a commandment the Israelites embraced wholeheartedly after seeing that it was really a gift from G'd to them. Had Moses told the people that no manna would fall on the Sabbath and as a result the people would have tried to collect more than the usual amount on Friday, they would not have considered the fact that they came home with twice the usual amount as a miracle. By not telling them in advance, the people collected what they thought was the normal amount. When they came home and measured it and found that it was twice the usual amount they realised that G'd had performed a miracle for them and the Sabbath assumed great significance.

Should you argue that in the end Moses did issue instructions to the people not to collect more than the regular amount, this was only in order to keep them aware of the miracle that G'd provided on Fridays for the needs of the Sabbath. A miracle did not need to be performed in order to demonstrate that Moses' conduct had been justified.

Furthermore, even if G'd had informed the Israelites through Moses of the commandments for Sabbath well in advance, there would still have remained room for error. We have learned in Menachot 65 that when Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai had dealings with the heretic sect of Bayssus and he challenged them for proof of their contention that the festival of Shavuot must occur on a Sunday, one of their elders claimed that seeing that Moses loved the Jewish people and he was aware that the holiday of Shavuot is only one day, he determined that it should occur on Sunday in order for the Jews to enjoy two successive days of rest. Tossaphot on that folio comment as follows: "he (Moses) ruled that this should be so, and G'd agreed with him." This proves that there are people who believe that even though a halachic ruling originated with Moses, G'd had to give His consent to such a ruling.

You might still ask why Moses had to tell the Israelites all this at this stage. Surely the miracle they had just witnessed would have convinced them that the Sabbath legislation had originated with G'd? The fact is that once the Israelites noticed that no manna fell on the Sabbath they might have concluded that the whole manna supply had come to an end. Moses therefore had to explain to them that the only reason there was no manna on the Sabbath was because G'd had said so; there was no other reason. This would be proved to the people conclusively as soon as the manna began to descend again on the day after that Sabbath. Moses had to tell the people things that he normally should not have revealed in order to prevent them from going to collect manna on the Sabbath. Moses did not tell the people explicitly not to go out and collect manna. He only told them that they would not find any manna in the field if they went to collect it.

אכלהו היום כי שבת היום, "eat it to-day for to-day is a Sabbath, etc." Why did Moses have to command the people to eat the manna? Perhaps this was because he had previously told them to leave aside what was left to keep it till the following morning. He had not spelled out to them that they not only could keep it but were also allowed to eat it. Although we do not have Moses on record as having forbidden the consumption of any left-over manna on other days, it seems evident from the verses about the way to treat the manna on the Sabbath that he must have forbidden the left-overs. Perhaps the prohibition of such left-overs stems from the same consideration as the prohibition to consume meat from sacrificial offerings after the time limit allocated to such a sacrifice has expired. Compare Chulin 114 where our sages state that "anything which I have declared as rejected by Me, you must not eat." Moses' emphasis on "eat it to-day," clearly indicates that it was not to be eaten after to-day. Moses added the words "for to-day is a Sabbath," in order that the Israelites should not form the impression that the prohibition to eat yesterday's manna on the morrow also applied to the Sabbath.

The last words in the verse may also be understood as the rationale for the people not being able to find manna in the field on that day. In other words: "the reason you will not find manna in the field to-morrow is that to-morrow is a Sabbath for G'd." We may have an allusion here to what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said in the Zohar second part page 88: "The food supply for the six weekdays descends from the celestial spheres on the Sabbath; this supply then descends further on a daily basis." Moses only excluded the manna from being found on the Sabbath in our world, i.e. בשדה, in the celestial world it could be found on the Sabbath.

ששת ימים תלקטהו, "During six days you will collect it, etc." This is meant as a warning not to go out on the Sabbath in order to collect manna; the meaning of the words לא יהיה בו, refers to the activity of collection. Moses had already announced that there would not be any manna when He said: "you will not find it in the field." This is the reason that G'd became so angry (verse 28) asking "how long will you refuse to observe My commandments?" He referred to the people violating a negative commandment. Where else do we find that G'd had forbidden the attempt to collect manna on the Sabbath if not in verse 25? If you were to assume that the prohibition was to be derived from verse 26, this is hardly possible seeing that our verse speaks only about what to do, not about what not to do. At best it would be considered as לאו הבא מכלל עשה, a negative commandment which is a corollary of a positive commandment (Pessachim 41). It would not be justifiable to refer to a violation of such a commandment with the words "you have refused, etc."

ולא מצאו, and they did not find any. The Torah means that these people would have collected it if they had found some.

עד אנה מאנתם, "how long are you going to refuse?" Since I have have explained (verse 22) that Moses did not commit a mistake by not telling the people earlier about the Sabbath restrictions, why did G'd include him in the people whom He accused of repeatedly refusing to keep His commandments? Our sages in Baba Kama 92 cite a proverb according to which "the good suffer with the bad." This statement seems to confirm that the fact that Moses did not tell the Israelites about the Sabbath restrictions earlier was not something which caused the Israelites to commit a sin. Nonetheless I believe G'd would not have included Moses in His accusation unless He had some complaint against Moses himself. I have taken a look at verse 29 where Moses tells the people that G'd has given them the Sabbath as a gift, and that this was the reason He provided a double portion of manna on Friday. This is also why they should stay at home on the Sabbath. The question we must answer is when did G'd inform Moses of the rules laid down in that verse? If G'd told Moses about all this after He had asked: "how long will you refuse, etc.?" then the problem is why did G'd not tell Moses sooner to inform Israel of these restrictions on the Sabbath? If G'd told Moses already several days earlier, how is it that Moses did not inform the people sooner?

I believe that here we have touched on the point where Moses erred. He thought that G'd's failure to tell him: "tell the Israelites, etc.," was reason enough for him to confirm only that part of G'd's revelation to him which the people had already found out. Thus, when the people told him their surprise at finding a double portion of manna on Friday (verse 22), Moses only confirmed the fact that he had known about this (verse 23). He did not add that the fact that a double portion of manna had fallen on that day meant that they were not to go out in search of it on the Sabbath. He was therefore indirectly responsible for some of the people going out in search of manna on the Sabbath. These people were not bent on violating G'd's commandment. They felt that since they had not been told specifically that it was forbidden to go out of the camp in search of manna (or anything else for that matter), they did not commit a wrong. As far as they were concerned the prohibition only took effect when Moses told them in verse 29 that leaving the camp on the Sabbath was forbidden. It was only after Moses' announcement that the people "rested on the seventh day" as reported in verse 30. We now understand why G'd had not exempted Moses from the accusation of: "how long are you going to refuse to observe My commandments, etc.?" As soon as Moses heard G'd's accusation and he realised that G'd had included him in it, he immediately proceeded to tell the people about the regulations pertaining to the Sabbath. All of these were the natural corollary of when G'd had told him in verse 5 "they shall prepare whatever they will bring (into the camp). I do not believe that Moses' omission constituted enough of an error for G'd to have included him in such a serious accusation as "how long will you refuse to observe My commandments?" After all, Moses had not been commanded to inform the people of these regulations. While it is true that Moses should have extrapolated from what G'd had told him and should have warned the people of what they were not to do, failure to extrapolate was certainly not something punishable. This explains then why the sages in Baba Kama felt called upon to describe Moses' inclusion in G'd's complaint as merely due to the fact that "the good suffer with the bad."

מצותי ותורותי, "My commandments and My laws." What did G'd mean when He used the plural? We find that the Israelites violated two commandments. 1) G'd told them not to leave any of the manna for the following day. Some people defied this commandment. 2) G'd told them not to go out and collect on the Sabbath. Some people went out in order to collect. As to the expression ותורותי, this too referred to two separate instructions. 1) G'd had instructed them to collect 1 Omer per member of each household, whereas the people collected more (tried to). On the Sabbath some people demonstrated that the fact G'd had already given them a double ration on Friday was not enough for them; they went out in search of more on the morrow. Had they found some they would have wound up with more than 1 Omer per head per day. 2) They did not believe G'd who had said that there would not be any manna on the Sabbath but they went out to collect, etc. There is no greater sin than not to believe either in G'd or in Moses His servant.

ראו כי ה׳ נתן לכם השבת, "See that the Lord has given you the Sabbath, etc." I have already explained that Moses felt that he did not have to spell out this commandment for the people as they had witnessed what happened and surely could draw the right conclusions therefrom. Seeing that G'd personally had revealed this commandment to them, he felt that they had absorbed it with the most potent of their senses, the sense of sight. When he said to the people: "let no one leave his place (of abode), he merely explained that the reason that G'd had not made any manna fall on that day was to save the people the bother to go and pick it up.

ויאמר משה זה הדבר אשר צוה השם, Moses said: "This is the thing which G'd has commanded, etc." Why did the Torah have to write the word דבר, thing? Furthermore, to whom did Moses address this commandment? If he addressed it to Aaron, why is it not part of verse 33 where Moses commands Aaron to fill a bottle with manna? There seems to be a duplication here.

I believe we must understand Moses' intention as follows. "This is the thing that G'd commanded: 'fill one Omer of it.'" G'd did not say who was supposed to take the Omer of manna and fill it. G'd did not even say in which manner this Omer of manna should be taken, neither did He specify where it was to be deposited. All that emanated from G'd's mouth were the words: "fill an Omer of it." When Moses spoke to Aaron on the subject he used his own intelligence to guide him. The word למשמרת can have two meanings. We have a rule that when a word is capable of being interpreted in two ways we give equal weight to either possibility; as a result, any action that has to be undertaken in response to a commandment which is ambiguous has to satisfy the requirements of either interpretation because we are not competent to exclude either interpretation. In this instance the two possible meanings of the words are: A) to safeguard the manna which has been set aside from becoming ritually defiled; B) to safeguard it against anyone stealing it or otherwise misappropriating it. Moses secured it against possible theft by decreeing that the bottle of manna should be stored in the Holy Tabernacle; after all this was the place where other nationally important properties such as the tablets with the Ten Commandments as well as the original Torah scroll would be being kept. It was clear to Moses that the place to keep something that G'd wanted the people to see after many generations was the Temple or its equivalent. You will find later on that G'd also instructed the staff of Aaron which had flowered to be preserved in the Holy Tabernacle. The censers of the 250 men who had sided with Korach in his uprising were also kept within the precincts of the Holy Tabernacle as covers for the altar (compare Numbers 17,25, and 17,3-4). The Mechilta on our verse speculates on the material that the bottle was made of and concludes it was of a transparent nature, i.e. silica- based earthenware. When such a container made of earthenware has a tight-fitting lid, its contents are not subject to ritual impurity. When G'd had spoken about the function of the manna in the bottle being למשמרת, Moses understood this word to possess both meanings. The reason Aaron was to take the bottle and fill it was because he was a Priest who perfomed the service in the Holy Tabernacle. He would also ensure that this bottle and its contents would remain ritually pure.

We may also follow a different approach. When Moses first heard the prophecy about the bottle of manna to be preserved for future generations, he arranged to tell the Israelites all this in its proper sequence. He then found himself unable to determine who should fill the bottle and where it was to be stored. In fact he did not know how to carry out this commandment. He then received further detailed instructions from G'd so that all his doubts were resolved. This is the reason that we find at the end of the paragraph (verse 34) that Moses did as G'd had commanded and that as a result Aaron placed the bottle in front of the Holy Ark. The reason the Torah states this detail is to tell us that Moses did not arrange the details on his own, but that just as the detail about where the bottle was to be placed had been communicated by G'd, so the other details which G'd is not on record as having spelled out were also communicated to Moses by G'd Himself.

If we follow our first approach then the words כאשר צוה ה׳ אל משה mean that G'd considered whatever Moses decided on his own as if He Himself had directed Moses to do it.

למשמרת לדרתיכם, "to be preserved throughout your generations." The reason the Torah speaks of the plural is that this bottle of manna would be featured twice in the future; once during the lifetime of the prophet Jeremiah, and in the still more distant future according to Mechilta 21 and Tanchuma 3 on our verse. Jeremiah used the bottle to answer the Jews who claimed that they could not devote time to Torah study as they would not then have time to earn their livelihood. He reminded them that those who study Torah would have their needs taken care of by G'd just as He had done when the Israelites were in th desert. The same would hold true in messianic times. This bottle of manna is reputed to be one of three items which the prophet Elijah will restore to the Israelites prior to the arrival of the Messiah.

את המן אכלו ארבעים שנה, they ate the manna for forty years. There is a good reason why the Torah refers twice to the Israelites eating manna for forty years. Once the people entered the Holy Land they ate manna which had been stored in their vessels, whereas up to the time they crossed the river Jordan they ate manna which had come from heaven on that same day. We have no difficulty in understanding that the longer something of celestial origin remains in our atmosphere, our domain, the more terrestrial it became in nature. The Torah therefore was forced to mention that the manna which the Israelites ate in the desert was in a class by itself. In Kidushin 38 the Talmud asks: "how can the Torah speak about the Israelites eating manna for forty years? They did not receive the first portion of manna until 30 days after the Exodus! The answer given is that their cakes (the unleavened bread they took out of Egypt) tasted like manna.

It has occurred to me that there must be a reason why the Torah describes the eating of the first manna as אכלו את המן, whereas the second eating is described in the reverse order, i.e. את המן אכלו. I suggest that when the Torah emphasises the length of time the Israelites ate the manna, i.e. forty years, the emphasis is on the taste, i.e. the eating. Hence the Torah first mentions the word אכלו. When the Torah wishes to describe the precise time frame during which the manna fell it places the word המן in front of the word אכלו, seeing that the Israelites consumed "canned manna" for some time afterwards. It emerges that they did not eat "first rate" manna either during the first 30 days after the Exodus or during the thirty odd days after Moses' death.