Shabbat Shirah
Beshalah
Exodus 13:17-17:16
Judges 4:4-5:31
In this week’s reading, we find the first of the many occasions on which our ancestors complain about the quality of the catering they encounter as they travel in the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land. At Marah, in the wilderness of Shur, they complain that the water is not fit to drink (Exodus 15:22-25).
They repeat this motif throughout their travels. At the entrance to the wilderness of Sin, they complain about the lack of food (Exodus 16:2-3). At Masah and Meribah in Refidim, they complain about the scarcity of water (Exodus 17:2-4).
At Kivrot HaTaavah, they complain because they have no meat to eat and they remember the delicacies of Egypt, superior to the manna that they eat in the desert (Numbers 11:4-7). At Meribah, in Kadesh, the people again complain because they cannot find water (Numbers 20:2-5). Along the bypass around the land of Edom, they complain about both the food they have — they find manna too light — and the water they lack (Numbers 21:4-5).
These stories fall into a pattern: When the people find the food or water unsatisfactory, they complain about, or to, Moses. He usually cries out for divine assistance. Most of the time, the food or water arrives, sometimes accompanied by a drastic punishment.
In the not-atypical incident at Kivrot HaTaavah, the people weep, “Who will feed us meat?” They follow up this lament with a vivid description of the delicacies they enjoyed in slavery: “We remember the fish that we would eat in Egypt for free, the gourds, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now our soul is dried, there is nothing, only the manna to look at” (Numbers 11:4-7).
Moses, overwhelmed by this request, prays for death so that he can get release from the intolerable burden of caring for these insatiable people. God answers, giving Moses political assistance, and promising the people ample meat. This swift response appears generous: Whole flocks of quail fly down around the camp, easily providing the people with a monthlong feast of meat. But then God strikes the gorging revelers with a terrible plague; they die with the meat still between their teeth (Numbers 11:11-32).
Contrast that with the first such incident, beside the undrinkable, bitter waters of Marah. There, the people ask Moses, “What shall we drink?” Moses cries out to God, who shows him a kind of wood that he can use to sweeten the water (Exodus 15:23-24). Nothing more. No punishment.
What explains why the complaints at Kivrot HaTaavah lead to such dreadful punishment while those at Marah lead to simple satisfaction? I think we can locate several key differences:
The people cannot endure the situation at Marah: No one can live without drinking. They most certainly can endure the situation at Kivrot HaTaavah: People can live without meat, and without delicacies.
Their cry for help at Marah, somewhat blunt, contains no exaggeration: “What shall we drink?” At Kivrot HaTaavah, by contrast, they work themselves into an overblown sense of deprivation: “There is nothing, only the manna to look at.” They call this manna, which sustains their lives, “nothing.” They claim that this diet dries up their souls.
In Marah, the people complain to Moses, their leader, who has the responsibility of bringing them safely through the desert. In Kivrot HaTaavah, they weep “family by family, each one at the opening of his tent” (Numbers 11:9). They do not complain to Moses; he has to overhear their crying.
At this point I feel ready to state a theory for evaluating complaints, based on these two contrasting stories. Destructive complaints begin with trivial causes, gain expression in dramatic language and get addressed to people who bear no responsibility for the problem and cannot help with the solution. Constructive complaints begin with serious causes, gain expression in plain language and get addressed to people who bear responsibility for the problem and can help with the solution.
May we restrict ourselves to constructive complaints, which help us solve our problems.