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Parshat B'ha'alotcha
2004
Meat and Whine
In this week's portion, Baahaloticha, the Torah relates:
"Those traveling with the Jewish people (in the desert) had a desire, and the Jewish people also cried out and said, "Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for free…and now our souls are dry because all we have is this manna"…God became angry and this was also bad in Moses' eyes. And Moses said to God why have you done evil to your servant (me) to put the burden of this whole people upon me. Did I give birth to this nation, that you say to me carry them in your bosom like the one who is nursing carries her child? I am not able to carry them alone…if this is how it will be please kill me now (Numbers chap. 11)"
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Compare the preceding paragraph with Moses' response to God after God has told Moses that He is going to destroy the Jewish people for worshiping the golden calf in Exodus:
"Moses responded to God, 'this people has done a great sin and made for themselves a god of gold, tolerate their sin, for if you will not (forgive them), then erase me from your book which have written.' (Exodus 32:31-32)"
Why does Moses so defend the Jewish people after they worship the golden calf and now, when they are whining for meat, instead of asking God for forgiveness for the people or chastising them directly Moses is willing to just give up on the whole program?
Is there any theological difference between making a golden calf and crying for meat?
A Word
This is a people that experienced God's direct influence in their lives at the Red Sea and at Mount Sinai. In fact the Rabbis tell us that every Jew had such a powerful prophetic revelation at the splitting of the Red Sea, it was more than any Jewish profit. So why do they worship the golden calf? I think their desire for the golden calf emerged precisely from their spiritual self. They were a young people, an immature slave nation who needed a concrete relationship to God. The only way they knew to do this was through an image. But their essential desire when they made the calf was for the Spirit. In contrast the word used here in our parsha is "hitavu taavah", they desired a desire, or they "desired desire". This was not about a people desiring the spiritual and not knowing how to relate to an infinite God. This is about a people so sunk into their own selves that the only thing they can relate is their own lust. They lust for lust itself…for their selfish selves. When the Jews worshiped the golden calf it showed they had deep spiritual potential (though it may have been misdirected), now though perhaps Moses is not so sure this is even the right people to be God's nation. Perhaps, thinks Moses, they don't really have the inner spiritual spark. For us too, sometimes it is not that we have no spiritual desire though it may feel that way, it's just that we like the Jews who worship the golden calf, need to find the outlet that will inspire us.
Prepared by Rabbi Hyim Shafner, St. Louis Hillel at Washington University.
Learn More
Additional commentaries and text studies on B'ha'alotcha at MyJewishLearning.com.
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