Bamidbar Chapter 11: The Trials in the Desert and the Crisis of Leadership

Introduction: The Series of Trials

Bamidbar chapter 11 very explicitly starts a series of what is called in the Mishnah tests or trials that the people, our forefathers, tried throughout the desert. And the word trials or testing is meant to say the times or the places and the ways in which they didn't trust the plan. They didn't trust.

In other words, we've read just a minute ago how there's a structure to the whole plan, right? There's the Leviim [Levites], there's the Kohanim [priests], the Chatzotzerot [trumpets] that are leading the people throughout their journey in the desert, throughout their making war and all the people around them and getting to the land of Israel, which is their goal, as it said, very explicitly in the previous chapter, that He will give it to us.

And now there's a list of what we call sometimes sins of the desert. They're really trials, trials where the people were not succeeding. They were not succeeding in taking this plan as it is, but they had many questions or many doubts on the plan. And these are doubts, not only doubts like intellectual doubts, but problems with the plan of the travel throughout the desert and this whole thing.

The Geographic Structure of the Trials

All these nisyonot [trials], all these so-called sins or problems that are discussed, all are associated with a place or almost all of them at least. In other words, this is all associated with the structure of there being a long travel throughout the desert, stopping in different places. And in many of the places, there were some issues rising up and some complaints, sometimes translated as complaints or testings or lack of trust of the people in the plan, in the leadership, in the leadership that is taking them throughout this desert, throughout this whole plan.

It's kind of interesting that some of those places in the desert have names. Of course, these are probably oases or places where it's feasible for people to stay, and people later need to travel to the desert and say, okay, this is called Tav'eira, because this is what happened there. But it's still interesting that there's like this naming of places in the desert, goes back to the logic of Sefer Bereishit, where many stories end with the name of a place because of something that happened to the Avot [forefathers] there or something like that. And here there's something similar, although the places are not really like places where people live, they're more like places of travel or something like stops in the desert.

Reframing the Question: Leadership, Not Just Faith

Here we start. And as we'll see, this is where I'm emphasizing the word leadership and the important part of the story, the main story of this chapter. This shows that sometimes it's framed, right? And we already discussed in Sefer Shemot how there's a short version of this whole story, of this whole, maybe not of the same stories, some people say it's the same story, some people say it's not, but for sure a short version of this concept, this problem of the travel throughout the desert and all the trials that there were in that. And over there, it's mostly framed and very explicitly framed as the people not trusting in God, not trusting in God, who is their leader.

Here we get a little bit more detail in that. And we see that there's mostly a question of the kind of leadership that is leading them. And we'll see later in this chapter, how this kind of complaints also changed the structure of their leadership, because there was some kind of leadership. And apparently that kind of leadership didn't actually work, or at least after the people complained, after the people tested it, they saw that it doesn't provide for them what they need. So there was a different model of leadership tried out.

In some sense, the whole story of Parashat Yitro seems to be very much connected to this. Of course, we even had Chayivei Chayil [men of valor] of Moshe a minute ago, seems to be connected with this story, the main story of this chapter, and so on. So it's a lot more complex.

Beyond Simple Faith and Doubt

We tend, we're sometimes taught to collapse this, maybe Sefer Shemot teaches us to collapse this into the question of, do we trust God, do we not trust God? But really trusting God means here, and always really, never means trusting God in the abstract sense, in the most general sense, it means trusting and accepting this specific kind of leadership, which is in the name of God, which is bringing down God's direction to us in the very specific ways.

And there are actually issues with such leaderships, as long as they're human leaderships, they are by humans and for humans, and they have to solve all kinds of human issues. And as we'll see, in some sense, even Hashem agrees and changes the model of leadership or the style of leadership for these purposes.

So that's the story. And that's why this is a lot more complex story than the simplification of it, the questions of faith and doubt and things like that.

First Story: Tav'eira — The Anonymous Complaint

So today we'll read mostly two of these stories, or two parts of these stories. The first is Tav'eira, as it finishes, and that's why I said each one of these is associated with a place, many of these stories finish, and therefore the place was called such and such.

The Complaint and God's Response

The first thing is, the people were mitoninim [complaining], translated usually as complaining. And this is ra b'aznei Hashem [bad in the ears of Hashem], this was bad. So they were complaining, God heard it, Hashem heard their complaints, and he was upset, va'yichar apo [and His anger flared], he was angry, and therefore God's fire burned.

So that's the first response, and also like a very general kind of response, it doesn't give us, and this story probably is in this place in this book, because it's a very general story, doesn't give us details what their complaint was, doesn't give the details of what God's anger was, doesn't give details of what God's punishment or the expression of his anger was, which is really what anger is about. We heard that there was a fire, and the fire started burning at the edge of the camp, so maybe that's just literally what it was, but also fire can mean something very general, it can mean a thousand things, what did the fire start from, what exactly happened, did people die, what happened.

Moshe's Intervention

In any case, the people cried to Moshe, or they come with complaints to Moshe vayitz'ak [and they cried out], we read usually that vayitz'ak means something like having a legal complaint or summons, they're lodging complaints with Moshe, and Moshe vayitpalel [prayed], Moshe prays to Hashem, and the fire goes down.

So there's no teshuvah [repentance] here, very interesting, there's almost no teshuvah in any of the stories besides possibly the story of the Eigel [Golden Calf], and maybe the story of the Meraglim [Spies], but most of these stories and complaints, and most of Moshe's interventions before God, for the people, his point isn't we will stop sinning, his point is always a different thing.

So it says he prayed, and the fire goes down, the fire subsides, of course if you read Rashi and people like that, they'll tell you what the prayer was and what the question was, but it's not mentioned in the pesukim, all that's mentioned is this very anonymous, very sort of simple story.

The Naming of Tav'eira

And then this place is called [Tav'eira] because Tav'eira is from the language of fire, from burning, the fire of Hashem burned to them, this might be also the fire that we had before, the Eish Hashem [fire of Hashem], which is going to be in front of them or above them at night, might be the same fire which has burned them, so very similar to the story of Nadav and Avihu, and then we could think of what this mitoninim exactly means, but okay, that's this first story of Tav'eira.

And Moshe, for example, in the Sefer Devarim, has this very short passage of Tav'eira, Massah, Kivrot HaTa'avah, u'v'Massah u'v'Kivrot HaTa'avah makhisim et Hashem [and at Massah and at Kivrot HaTa'avah you angered Hashem], there were these three places and they knew Tav'eira is one of the places where the people angered God, we don't need a lot more.

Now we have the next one, Massah, of course, is the story which we'll have in Parashat Chukat, in some sense, already had in Parashat Beshalach.

Second Story: Kivrot HaTa'avah — The Complaint About the Manna

Now, what we have now is the next story, and the story which I've given the title Kivrot HaTa'avah, because this is the story based around this place called Kivrot HaTa'avah, but also a lot more complex story, this is really the story of, not the manna, right, the story of the giving of the manna, as already we had in Parashat Beshalach, but the reaction to the manna.

Complexifying the Manna Story

In Parashat Beshalach, we noticed that there's some complexity with the manna, the people were happy, they were not happy, there's some kind of testing with it, which was not clear, it seems to be all about the Shabbat and things like that. Here we learn that there's some more complaints about the manna, the manna was more problematic, right, again, the Sefer Bamidbar complexifying, problematizing, very simplistic things that we had in Sefer Shemot.

Sefer Shemot, the manna is just a great sign of God's providing for us, and so on. Here, suddenly, we see the people were not happy, and of course, it's presented as a problem, but then we see Hashem Himself agreeing, and of course, giving them meat is something that He explicitly gives them also in Sefer Shemot.

So, it seems like, again, we could debate if these are separate stories, or if these happened in different stages, but it doesn't matter. The idea is that what is presented there is something very simple and maybe a legitimate request of where, you know, they ask for manna, for food, and for bread, and for meat, and they received it. Here, we see that what they received wasn't really so good, and there was, like, these steps where they wanted more of that, and that that was involved in an entire revolution of the structure of leadership.

The Asafsuf — The Riffraff

So, let's read the story. And the story starts with asafsuf [the riffraff]. Asafsuf is something like the gatherers, but the not-correct gatherers, right? Edah [congregation] is the people that gather in the proper way, the legitimate representatives of the kahal [assembly], of the asifah [gathering], and asafsuf are something like, right, sometimes translated here, the riffraff, the people that are gathered, but gather not in a proper way, not in an organized way, they're not the legitimate representatives of the people.

Hit'avu ta'avah [they desired a desire], they have desired a desire, they received a desire, and then the Bnei Yisrael, in other words, all the people, not only the asafsuf, started to cry. So, it started, and this is, somehow, mirrors the previous story with the ketzeh machaneh [edge of the camp], the people in the ketzeh machaneh, or the asafsuf, not the center, not the, what's sometimes called the mainstream, are the ones, but they somehow infected the mainstream, the Bnei Yisrael, also with their complaints. So, it's not that they had a bad complaint, it's just, again, a starting complaint from them.

The Complaint: Nostalgia for Egypt

And they said, so this was their main complaint, mi ya'achileinu basar [who will give us meat to eat], we don't have meat to eat. And their complaint gets elaborated in this long soliloquy, where they say, we remember we had in Mitzrayim [Egypt] for free fish and all kinds of vegetables, apparently they're describing fish as plentiful, of course, in the Nile, as we've learned from the story of Makkat Dam [the plague of blood], and we have vegetables, many things that are growing, and now we have nothing, our souls, our bodies, our person is dry, there's nothing, we only have manna, that's all we're looking at.

The Narrator's Description of the Manna

And he tries to praise the manna, he tries to say the manna was good, but obviously we can see from their response that, yes, the manna was good, but it was still kind of limited. And the pasuk says, הַמָּן כִּזְרַע־גַּד הוּא [the manna is like a seed of gad, a kind of grain], that's what kind it was like, it's not like that it was watered, but it was like, and its color was the color of בְּדֹלַח [bedolach], so bedolach is some kind of precious stone, so it's a nice color.

And it describes how they prepared it: the people would spread around and gather it together and then grind it, or kind of beat it — not a grinding machine, but something that you use sometimes for spices and things like that — and they would cook it, and they would make out of it cookies or cakes, and it would taste like לְשַׁד הַשָּׁמֶן [leshad hashamen — an oil kind of pastry], apparently an oil kind of pastry, similar to what it says in Shemot, צַפִּיחִת בִּדְבַשׁ [tzapichit bidvash — honey cakes]. So somehow this manna was something that we would make flour and make some kind of cake or cookie or bread out of, that's what the manna was. Of course there's midrashic and very interesting descriptions of it, but it seems to have, the pesukim seem to very much describe it in a very explicit physical material way. And this manna was at night, when there was the dew coming at night, that's when the manna was coming on it. So that's the description of the manna.

The Illegitimate Assembly: Each Family at Its Own Tent

And now we're back to the people's complaints, they're complaining about this. Now, just like we had before, Hashem hears, in His ears so to speak, hears the complaints and is upset. Here, earlier Moshe was not upset, Moshe was praying to Hashem that He should forgive the people, so to speak. Here, Moshe is hearing them, all their families, אִישׁ לְפֶתַח אָהֳלוֹ [ish le-petach ohalo — each man at the doorway of his tent], so again I think emphasizing that this is not a legitimate assembly, right? There's families gathering each at the doorway of their tent, of their place where they live, so this is like an illegitimate assembly, like a protest, unlike when there was a legitimate assembly that we learned earlier about the Pesach Sheni, they would come to the פֶּתַח אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד [Petach Ohel Moed — the entrance of the Tent of Meeting]. The petach is always the entry way into a city or into a house, at least in ancient times and maybe also now, or like the place where people assemble for meetings, for important things. And here, they're doing אִישׁ לְפֶתַח אָהֳלוֹ, each for his family, each for his space. As we discussed, these are the basic units of the society here, so they're doing it separately, each in their way, and Hashem is upset and Moshe is also, רַע בְּעֵינֵי מֹשֶׁה [ra b'einei Moshe — it was evil in Moshe's eyes].

The Inversion: Moshe Is Now Upset

This is an interesting inversion of the previous story, right? Over there was רַע בְּאָזְנֵי ה' [ra b'oznei Hashem — evil in God's ears], so oznei and einei might be similar, and Moshe was not upset, but here it's רַע בְּעֵינֵי מֹשֶׁה, and now, therefore, here's Moshe's response to this.

Moshe's Extreme Complaint to God

Moshe doesn't complain to the people, he complains to Hashem, he complains to Hashem about the people. Moshe goes to Hashem, and this is a recurring motif in Moshe, but this is I think the most extreme case of it, or one of the most extreme cases of it. Moshe comes to Hashem and he says, why do you hate me, why have you hurt me, why are you doing bad to your servant, did I not find favor in your eyes that you put all of this pressure, all of this obligation on me? Did I give birth to them, did I carry them in my womb, that you're telling me, you're asking me to carry them in my lap, on my body, as if, in the same way that a nurse carries her nursee, the person she nurses, and take them to the land that you promised, this is what you mean?

And in other words, Moshe is saying, yes, I've received this command, I received this command to take them to Eretz Yisrael, as a military leader, as a leader of adults, but these people are acting like children. Why do you want me to be their babysitter, this is what you want, am I their babysitter, am I their mother, am I their nurse?

And then he says, where do I have meat to give all these people, they're crying to me, give us meat? I got them in the desert, they should be happy that they're alive, that they got manna, like they're crying, they're just spoiled and crying for meat. I can't, Moshe says I can't, I can't carry this, I can't bear this burden, it's too heavy for me. Of course this is the exact language that Yitro told Moshe, it's too heavy for me, of course it's psychologically heavy.

And if this is what you want, and this is repeating what Moshe said, but in a more extreme sense, this is what you're doing to me, just kill me. You love me, I found favor in your eyes, I'd rather you kill me, than me have this evil happen to me, I'd rather be dead. So this is Moshe's most extreme sort of denial or refusal of carrying the burden of the people.

God's Response: Delegation of Authority to the Seventy Elders

And Moshe, and Hashem receives, unlike other places where Hashem says, no, I'll give you the power, and things like that, again, very similar to what happens in Parshat Yitro, Moshe, Hashem acquiesces to this request. He says, you're right, you can't carry them, let me give you some help, let me delegate for you.

And Hashem says to Moshe, get together for me 70 people, of the elders of the people, you know that these are their elders, these are their שֹׁטְרִים [shotrim — officers], these are the people that deal with them, that manage them. Take them to the Ohel Moed, again, to the legitimate meeting place, and make them stand, put them, present them, present them to me over there. I will come, I will speak to you, and I will give some of the spirit which is on you, and put it on them. In other words, your whole thing is that you speak with me, you have my spirit on you, spirit means my words, my direction, prophecy, let's spread it out, let's give it to these 70 people, they'll have some of it, and they'll carry the burden with you.

God's Angry Response: Meat Until They Vomit

Then you'll tell the people, prepare for tomorrow, you'll have meat, you cried, no problem, you'll have meat. And now, they get the meat in an angry way, right? Sometimes someone says to a child, you'll get your request but in an angry way. No problem, you said it's better, it was better in Egypt, you wanted meat, I'll give you meat. And not only one day, not two days, not five days, not ten days, not twenty days, a month straight you'll eat meat.

So remember that in this time, and the way the Torah presents it, meat is not something you eat every day, meat is a very celebratory thing, right? You have korbanot that are basically about eating meat in the correct way, it's a zevach, it's a whole situation. Someone eating meat every day is like, nowadays we would say we're used to eating meat every day, sometimes we would say like, I'll give you chocolate, you'll eat it for breakfast, and for lunch, and for supper, the ice cream, that's what you wanted, you wanted ice cream, you're not happy I'm taking you to the land of Israel, and you're crying that you don't have your candies? No problem, I'll give you ten thousand candies, until you throw up from it.

That's what it says, until it would go out of your noses, it's another way, you'll vomit, or you'll throw up, that's, I think vomit sometimes comes out of your nose, and it will be strange, it will be horrible to you. This is all because you have forsaken, you have been מָאַס [ma'as — rejected], Hashem, which is with you, and you've cried from saying, why did we go out of Egypt? So that's Hashem's response.

Moshe's Continued Skepticism About the Meat

And now Moshe still seems to not be happy, this is very interesting. So Hashem seems to say to Moshe, no problem, you'll get 70 helpers, and then somehow we'll give them as much meat as they want. And then Moshe says, what do you mean? Okay, the helpers I get, but the meat, where am I going to get them from? There's 600,000 foot-goers here, you can tell me I'm giving them meat for a month? So Hashem is like making the request harder, like my meat for one day is enough. What am I going to slaughter for them, all the cattle, all the sheep, is it going to be enough? I'm going to gather for them all the fish in the sea, is it going to be enough? It's not enough, it's not possible to supply people like this with meat every day.

God's Rebuke: "God's Hand Is Not Short"

And here Hashem tells Moshe, don't worry, God's hand is not short, God can do that, you will see if this will happen. In other words, more things are possible on heaven and earth than as imagined in your philosophy, things are possible. So for your complaint that you can't do it yourself, that was a legitimate complaint, but you think that it's not possible to get the meat? For God it's possible.

The Execution: The Spirit Descends on the Seventy Elders

And that's what happens, and then Moshe follows, Moshe follows through, he goes out, he speaks, tells the people what God said, he gets together 70 people, God comes down in his cloud, he speaks to Moshe, and וַיָּאצֶל [vayatzal — and He delegated], this is of course an interesting verb, we get the word atzilut from it, somehow he transmits from the spirit which is on Moshe and it goes on the 70 people, the 70 elders, and they have the ruach rest on them, and they prophesy.

The Eldad and Meidad Episode: Prophecy Outside the Camp

Now there's another interesting side note in the story, again connected very much with the question of Moshe's leadership and also of his succession, which is starting to become an issue with Moshe getting old, and to a big extent the end of Sefer Bamidbar, also the end of Sefer Devarim, or maybe the whole Sefer Devarim is concerned with the question of Moshe's succession.

So now we see a story, there were two people, so there were these 70 people again, gathered to the correct meeting place, don't go in these protest areas, you're going to come here, it's going to be a managed, this is also a way of managing their position, if we give every elder his honor, his due respect, and then they'll all be part of the program, and otherwise they each go, אִישׁ לְפֶתַח אָהֳלוֹ, and they start being seditious, and creating rebellions, and things like that.

So now, it seems like two people are still out of the program, there's two people still in the camp, they didn't come to the Petach Ohel Moed, they're called Eldad and Meidad, and they've also received the spirit, they were written in the paper, in this, in whatever way, in other words they were the people, they're part of the people that were sort of invited to this thing, but they didn't go, וְלֹא יָצְאוּ הָאֹהֱלָה [v'lo yatz'u ha-Ohela — and they did not go out to the Tent], so this is almost an explicit rebellion. Of course, interesting.

Eldad and Medad: Prophecy Outside the System

So now, it seems like two people are still out of the program. There's two people still in the camp. They didn't come to the Ohel Moed [Tent of Meeting]. They're called Eldad and Medad. And they've also received the Spirit. They were written in the paper in this, in whatever way — in other words, they were the people, they're part of the people that were sort of invited to this thing. But they didn't go — V'lo Yatzu HaOhelah [and they did not go out to the Tent]. So this is almost an explicit rebellion.

Of course, interestingly, while they're doing this rebellion, they received their prophecy. So they must have been worthy of something. And like when Hashem gave the prophecy to the 70 elders, it got to them also because they're one of them. They're part of the, they're on the list. But they're prophesying in the camp, not part of the system, not being in the organized structure under Moshe.

Yehoshua's Reaction and Moshe's Response

And therefore, HaNa'ar [the young man/servant] — some young person, Na'ar is always a young person, but also someone who is a servant, someone who's helping — runs to Moshe and tells him this. And therefore, Yehoshua bin Nun, Moshe's official Gabbai [assistant], Mibechurav [from his chosen ones] — again, we remember Bachalanei Anashim [chosen men] — his chosen, Moshe's chosen next leader, successor. He explicitly chose him already in the Milchamah Amalek [war with Amalek] we saw and by the story of the [Golden Calf] to be his representative, right? And [Yehoshua] says, destroy these people, look at them, they're rebellious.

And Moshe, Moshe very interestingly responds, what do you want from me? This is what I asked for. Are you being jealous for me? Are you being mad for me? Don't I want — who? I wish all of God's people will be prophets and God will give His spirit on them. Of course, this is a very beautiful middah [character trait] of Moshe Rabbeinu where he's like, I don't want to keep prophecy for myself, I want everyone to have it.

But it's really a continuation also in the context of the story of what he said. This whole thing of giving 70 people prophecy was a response to Moshe saying, I can't do it myself. So Moshe is telling Yehoshua, so there's two more people, so they're not entirely apart, let them take care of themselves, let them help me, I'm giving up, I can't do all of this myself. And that's the story.

The Return to Camp and the Arrival of the Quail

And therefore Moshe and the 70 people go back to the — they also have Moshe — they go back and they gather in the correct way, not in a subversive way, they gather back to the camp.

And the promised meat also comes. There's a wind and there's slav [quail], which is a pheasant, I think, kind of bird. Sometimes there's in the desert or close to the desert, there's these huge migrations of them. So that's the kind of background for this. And they spread out to get around the camp, like as a way, spread out so large, a way of a day from each way, an amount of space that a person walks a day, right? You measure space with time. And two amot [cubits] above the ground, so tons of slav, a huge thing of slav here.

And the people stand up and they go all day and all night and the next day, they gather the slav. The smallest one had 10 piles or 10 groups, like 10 groups we had in Mitzrayim [Egypt]. And they spread it out around the machaneh [camp], to salt it, to preserve it, and something like that.

The Plague at Kivrot HaTa'avah

And this caused some problems. Well, the meat was still between the teeth, so they're still enjoying it. And Af Hashem Charah Bahem [God's anger burned against them], God's anger. Af Hashem usually means a famine or not a famine, some kind of plague. In other words, and we could also imagine that this plague, you know, we eat too much meat and some of it was contaminated or something, we got some bird flu, and we're contaminated and a great Makah [blow/strike], a great hitting, or how do you translate Makah in a clear way, the great blow, or always means the people dying or getting sick, what happened to the people.

And this is why this place was called Kivrot HaTa'avah [the graves of craving], so the graves of the Ta'avah, the graves of the people who had a Ta'avah [craving] — in other words, these people that died from eating too much slav or from whatever plague came along with it.

Transition to Chatzeirot

And then, that's the end of this station, of this place where they rested. Afterwards, they traveled to Chatzeirot [Hazeroth], and they're in Chatzeirot, and they will have more stories of problems with the leadership.