The start of soccer's World Cup and this week's parsha of Beha'alot'cha - is there a connection between the two? Of course! This sedra is known as the mitlon'nim ("complainers"), and we Jews, alas, are world champions in the art of complaining (e.g., "Such poor food - and such small portions, too!")
But seriously, just what did we have to complain about? I mean, our food fell from Heaven, the cloud protected us, Moshe taught us, our clothes grew with us, etc. So why kvetch?
We turned up our noses at the mahn (manna) and we said, "We remember the fish we freely ate in Egypt...." What are we, seafood lovers all of a sudden? And is Egypt famous for its fish? And how does this jive with the commentary that our real complaint was about the restrictive sexual parameters on who was or was not permitted to us?
Another puzzler is those upside-down letters nun in the sedra. What's that all about - problems with the printer?
The Kli Yakar tries to make some sense of this all. He says the real issue in our sedra is the challenge of balancing passion and principle. On the one hand, we definitely need passion in our lives, as it provides drive, energy and enthusiasm - all qualities vital to the human condition.
On the other hand, our passions, left unchecked and unchallenged, can be the single greatest source of our sins. The incident of the quails - when we ate to excess in obsessive, wild abandon - and the sedra's closing episode, wherein Miriam and Aharon, unable to control their impulse, speak out against Moshe, demonstrate passion's dual-edged sword. It must be carefully controlled.
At the root of the peoples' inner restlessness, say our sages, is the structure of family purity and the restrictions on marriage that now applied to B'nei Yisrael. No longer could they co-habit with just anyone, in or out of marriage. ln a veiled code, this is the meaning of, "We remember the daga [fish]..." as in "v'yidgu larov" ["you shall multiply greatly"] - fish is a metaphor for procreation.
The letters nun are upside-down, I suggest, because nun stands for nashim (women), and the laws regarding our connection to them had been turned "upside-down".
The mahn always looked the same, so we got bored with it and craved meat. Life in the desert was tedious and so we turned to gossiping about others, speaking lashon hara. The challenge of life, even when it turns mundane, is not to numb our passions, but rather to express them in a holy way.
But seriously, just what did we have to complain about? I mean, our food fell from Heaven, the cloud protected us, Moshe taught us, our clothes grew with us, etc. So why kvetch?
We turned up our noses at the mahn (manna) and we said, "We remember the fish we freely ate in Egypt...." What are we, seafood lovers all of a sudden? And is Egypt famous for its fish? And how does this jive with the commentary that our real complaint was about the restrictive sexual parameters on who was or was not permitted to us?
Another puzzler is those upside-down letters nun in the sedra. What's that all about - problems with the printer?
The Kli Yakar tries to make some sense of this all. He says the real issue in our sedra is the challenge of balancing passion and principle. On the one hand, we definitely need passion in our lives, as it provides drive, energy and enthusiasm - all qualities vital to the human condition.
On the other hand, our passions, left unchecked and unchallenged, can be the single greatest source of our sins. The incident of the quails - when we ate to excess in obsessive, wild abandon - and the sedra's closing episode, wherein Miriam and Aharon, unable to control their impulse, speak out against Moshe, demonstrate passion's dual-edged sword. It must be carefully controlled.
At the root of the peoples' inner restlessness, say our sages, is the structure of family purity and the restrictions on marriage that now applied to B'nei Yisrael. No longer could they co-habit with just anyone, in or out of marriage. ln a veiled code, this is the meaning of, "We remember the daga [fish]..." as in "v'yidgu larov" ["you shall multiply greatly"] - fish is a metaphor for procreation.
The letters nun are upside-down, I suggest, because nun stands for nashim (women), and the laws regarding our connection to them had been turned "upside-down".
The mahn always looked the same, so we got bored with it and craved meat. Life in the desert was tedious and so we turned to gossiping about others, speaking lashon hara. The challenge of life, even when it turns mundane, is not to numb our passions, but rather to express them in a holy way.