“YOU WILL EAT THE MANN WHICH YOU AND YOUR FATHERS NEVER TASTED” (Devarim8:3). Many things have been revealed to Avraham, our forefather, about the future. “I will make you into a great nation”, G-d proclaimed. Indeed, from his genealogy sprouted out the chosen people, the Jews. Avraham was the first Jew and G-d mapped out the blueprint for the future generations. However, there is one bit of information that was not revealed to our great forefather, Avraham. If Avraham googled MANN, the heavenly food, nothing would come up but a Jamaican calling his fellow. MANN was given to the Jews while they were in the desert. Whatever one desired, the MANN would taste like that food. Steak, spaghetti, pastrami on rye and even osh palow, the Jews would enjoy through tasting the MANN. So, if it was so special, why wasn’t it revealed to Avraham? Rav Henoch Leibowitz z’l answers, if it was revealed to Avraham, then, when G-d would offer it to the Israelites in the desert years later, the Jews would have replied “Nah, we ate this already in Egypt and rejected it. We shared this MANN with the Egyptians”. Just like the Jews were mistaken, where their recollection of events were not very accurate, when they complained to Moshe “you brought us here to the desert to die with no food. We ate fish in Egypt and it was so good..bla bla bla.” They never ate fish in Egypt. The Egyptians didn’t give them straw for work, why would they give them fish?” Rashi, the mainstream commentary in the Torah, was in wonderment; he couldn’t believe the audacity of their complaint. If G-d would have revealed to Avraham about the MANN, then years later, the Jews in the desert would have been familiar with the concept and passed it over as nothing special, “We ate it already in Egypt”. Why would they say they ate MANN in Egypt when they didn’t? Were they lying because they didn’t want to accept G-d’s kindness?
Apparently, they really thought they ate MANN in Egypt. How could they make such a mistake? They were considered one of the smartest generations in the history of the world. Rav Henoch teaches us a startling concept in human nature. If the Israelites, who were still in Egypt, would have heard that they would be eating MANN in the future, in the desert, they would have experienced such pleasure from imagining and dreaming of what it would be like, because the nature of man is to have pleasure now for something he knows he will get later. Therefore since they were getting the MANN – imaginary pleasure – through their longing desires and hope, there was that mistaken strong possibility after many years that they would believe they actually really did eat it in Egypt. We learn that when the mind projects strong hope, many years later, the memory of hope which one projected might translate as something that actually happened. How scary is that? This is the reason the MANN wasn’t disclosed to Avraham because his descendants would have rejected something really special. The mind is a very tricky component and one has to differentiate between strong hope, desire, and accuracy of what actually happened. |
Tag Archive for R’ Henoch Leibowitz
The Danger of Hope and its Desires
The Danger of Hope and its Desires
| “YOU WILL EAT THE MANN WHICH YOU AND YOUR FATHERS NEVER TASTED” (Devarim8:3). Many things have been revealed to Avraham, our forefather, about the future. “I will make you into a great nation”, G-d proclaimed. Indeed, from his genealogy sprouted out the chosen people, the Jews. Avraham was the first Jew and G-d mapped out the blueprint for the future generations. However, there is one bit of information that was not revealed to our great forefather, Avraham. If Avraham googled MANN, the heavenly food, nothing would come up but a Jamaican calling his fellow. MANN was given to the Jews while they were in the desert. Whatever one desired, the MANN would taste like that food. Steak, spaghetti, pastrami on rye and even osh palow, the Jews would enjoy through tasting the MANN. So, if it was so special, why wasn’t it revealed to Avraham?
Rav Henoch Leibowitz z’l answers, if it was revealed to Avraham, then, when G-d would offer it to the Israelites in the desert years later, the Jews would have replied “Nah, we ate this already in Egypt and rejected it. We shared this MANN with the Egyptians”. Just like the Jews were mistaken, where their recollection of events were not very accurate, when they complained to Moshe “you brought us here to the desert to die with no food. We ate fish in Egypt and it was so good..bla bla bla.” They never ate fish in Egypt. The Egyptians didn’t give them straw for work, why would they give them fish?” Rashi, the mainstream commentary in the Torah, was in wonderment; he couldn’t believe the audacity of their complaint. If G-d would have revealed to Avraham about the MANN, then years later, the Jews in the desert would have been familiar with the concept and passed it over as nothing special, “We ate it already in Egypt”. Why would they say they ate MANN in Egypt when they didn’t? Were they lying because they didn’t want to accept G-d’s kindness? Apparently, they really thought they ate MANN in Egypt. How could they make such a mistake? They were considered one of the smartest generations in the history of the world. Rav Henoch teaches us a startling concept in human nature. If the Israelites, who were still in Egypt, would have heard that they would be eating MANN in the future, in the desert, they would have experienced such pleasure from imagining and dreaming of what it would be like, because the nature of man is to have pleasure now for something he knows he will get later. Therefore since they were getting the MANN – imaginary pleasure – through their longing desires and hope, there was that mistaken strong possibility after many years that they would believe they actually really did eat it in Egypt. We learn that when the mind projects strong hope, many years later, the memory of hope which one projected might translate as something that actually happened. How scary is that? This is the reason the MANN wasn’t disclosed to Avraham because his descendants would have rejected something really special. The mind is a very tricky component and one has to differentiate between strong hope, desire, and accuracy of what actually happened. |