Timeless Torah

I’m no cartographer, but I figure I can read an ancient Biblical map as well as the next fellow. In fact, this past week I didn’t even need a map, and yet my sense of direction is such that I was able to I drive my family all the way from Florida to Montreal to New York and back home again. (It’s probably irrelevant to mention that I got lost in Montreal looking for the Synagogue where my niece was getting married...but after all, the cop did give me bad directions!)

Irrespective of this minor detail, I did manage to accumulate 3,600 miles in ten days, with more than 1,600 of those in just over 26 hours. Of course, we were well stocked for the journey as every Jewish family before a trip would be. (Surely it’s not important to dwell on the fact that I forgot to take all the pitas that were in the freezer, right?)

So there I was, hunched over the steering wheel and I could not help but compare our personal, family trip with the odyssey taken by our ancestors, the freed Hebrew slaves across the desert sands. Obviously, they were warm and we were cold. (By the way, did I forget to tell you that the heater on the van was broken and that the water jugs turned into blocks of ice and my children were frozen even though they were using socks for mittens?)

Other differences I thought of included; distance (according to my calculations, they travelled a mere 1000 miles in 40 years), morale (no one mutinied, rebelled or worshipped any Golden Calf along the way, even though I did mightily praise the hot cup of coffee I bought on the New Jersey Turnpike), and frost (ours were on the inside of our windows, theirs were on the morning manna).

Manna, as you well know, was that most miraculous and equally mysterious celestial food from heaven. Even it’s name reflects its unknown character, as in the verse, “Each man said to his friend, manna ! For they did not know what it was.” To which the commentaries explain that the word manna is a Hebrew-Egyptian form of the word “what.”

At first, the Torah only discusses the physical attributes of the manna : “It was like a thin frost on the ground.” It followed a cycle, “On the sixth day they gathered a double portion...but on the seventh day there will be none.”

Interestingly enough, in referring to the manna of Shabbos the Torah tells us, “The Israelites named it manna, and it tasted like a cake fried in honey.” Later on however in the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar), the manna’s taste is described as, “Dough kneaded with oil.”

The question raised by one of the preeminent Bible commentators of modern times, the Malbim (1809-1879) is simple: why wait to describe the manna’s taste until that first Shabbos? Why not describe this amazing food the very first day it arrived? Another query: when did it taste like sweetened honey cakes and when like oily dough? Finally, we turn from the food itself to its name. Before Shabbos the people asked, “what is it?” , while on Shabbos they named the miracle food, “It is Manna - what”. Thus we ask, why did the Jews wait until Shabbos to define the miraculous edible as the what food?

The Talmud states that the taste of the manna was integrally linked with the taster’s thoughts. If one thought of steak the manna tasted like steak: if one thought of borscht, the manna tasted like borscht. In fact, the Chofetz Chaim was once asked, “What happens if you think nothing?” He answered very profoundly: “If one thinks of nothing, then one tastes nothing!”

During the first week the Jews had the manna they did not realize its great potential, which is why it merely tasted like oily dough. They imagined that what they saw was what they got! But on Shabbos, a day filled with sweet relaxation, heavenly thoughts filled the minds of the nation. And those sweet thoughts produced sweet tastes!

That Shabbos our grandparents realized an important lesson. Life, like food, can be addressed as, “what is it?” (What kind of trip are we taking with no heater? What kind of food will we have to eat, now that Dad forgot the bread?) Or we may opt to look at life as one filled with exciting promise, unlooked for potential and a road waiting to be happily explored. In other words, life is a what!” What you put into it is exactly what you take out!

Life is an endless array of opportunities. We can approach them with an exclamation; What a chance to be with my family on an adventure I will never forget!!! Or we can start our day with a frown and an irritating question; What a day is it going to be cooped up with my family, hungry and cold??? I want thank my family for knowing the difference.