Parashat Bəha’alotəkha: תַּאֲוָה | ta’avah
The Israelites want choice, agency over the intimate matter of their diet; monotonous manna is not enough. Think about how management reacts when workers ask for an improvement in the condition of their work: Who doesn’t know the clichés of that outrage? We pay them more than enough to live on; they should be grateful to have such a good job in this economy! How can they ask for more when others don’t even have this? Instead of giving them a raise or more time off, let’s just throw a pizza party in the break room
What did the manna that the Israelites ate in the wilderness taste like? The sages have some thoughts. Going off a verse in this week’s parashah that uses a word that sounds like shad in describing the taste of manna, Yoma 75a records: אָמַר רַבִּי אֲבָהוּ מָה שַׁד זֶה תִּינוֹק טוֹעֵם בָּהּ כַּמָּה טְעָמִים אַף הַמָּן כׇּל זְמַן שֶׁיִּשְׂרָאֵל אוֹכְלִין אוֹתוֹ מוֹצְאִין בּוֹ כַּמָּה טְעָמִים׃ אִיכָּא דְּאָמְרִי לְשֵׁד מַמָּשׁ מָה שֵׁד זֶה מִתְהַפֵּךְ לְכַמָּה גְּווֹנִין אַף הַמָּן מִתְהַפֵּךְ לְכַמָּה טְעָמִים׃ | Amar Rabi Avahu mah shad zeh tinoq to’eim bah kamah tə’amim af haman kol zəman sheYisra’eil okhəlin oto motzə’in bo kamah tə’amim. Ika də’aməri ləsheid mamash mah sheid zeh mithapeikh ləkhamah gəvonin af haman mithapeikh ləkhamah tə’amim. | “Rabbi Avahu said: What’s [the point of writing] shad | “breast”? This [means it’s like] what a newborn tastes [ie milk from a breast] — so many are its tastes! And it’s the same with the manna: Every time Yisra’eil ate it, they found so many tastes in it. There are some who say [shad] is really sheid. What’s [the point of writing] sheid | “demon”? This [means it’s like how a demon] changes into so many guises. And it’s the same with the manna: It changes into so many tastes!”
We might not find these puns totally compelling, but the broad point is clear: The manna didn’t have just one taste, instead it changed taste all the time. This is an idea that shows up elsewhere in rabbinic thought, with some sages suggesting that the change was driven by preference; the manna tasted like whatever food each Israelite most wanted to eat in that moment.
And yet we also know that, in some fundamental way, the manna was unsatisfying in the long run. We know that, in fact, from this very parashah, where the Israelites — the text attributes this complaint to הָאסַפְסֻף | hasafsuf | “the riffraff” (Bəmidbar 11:4), but the whole community was at Sinai; they all accepted the Covenant; they’re all Jews — crave a profound תַּאֲוָה | ta’avah | “craving” (Bəmidbar 11:4). They want meat. They want the food they knew in Mitzráyim. They want cucumbers, melons, garlic, onions, leeks. They’re sick and tired of having nothing but manna to eat, and they’re going to make their dissatisfaction known.
Is this really so surprising? Diet may change the taste of breast milk, but at the end of the day, it’s still milk. A demon may take many guises, but it remains a demon at the end of the day. (And, indeed, the text of Yoma 75a doesn’t hide this: Gəvonin are colors, surfaces, outer layers — the underlying substance remains unchanged.) The manna may have taken on many tastes, but it was still manna, ultimately. It gave a simulacrum of different foods, but not the foods themselves.
Even if the simulacrum were perfect — if it matched the texture, aroma, mouthfeel, everything in exact detail — this dissatisfaction would still be understandable. There is satisfaction in making choices about your own life, even predictable, unsurprising choices. There is satisfaction, even, in making wrong choices, choices that don’t work out, choices that don’t give you exactly what you want. It’s not enough for the manna to taste like whatever I would have chosen if I never actually get to make a choice about what I eat. It robs me of agency, of some small degree of personhood, to have every menu for every meal chosen for me by G-d, even if the resulting meal is, in itself, satisfying. People across time and space have fought bitterly to determine the courses of their own lives; it is unsustainable to live solely by another’s whims. The choices we make may be mistaken; the choosing is not. The choosing is the entire point.
And it’s choosing that the Israelites are after. Ta’avah is an ambivalent word. It can mean a craving for good things as well as a craving for bad. And it can also encompass the fact of desire, the choice of it — not just a feeling of desire but a goal that is chosen.
G-d is, predictably, furious about all this. After a complicated digression involving prophesying elders, G-d sends quail for the Israelites to eat, and promptly starts killing them mid-bite. We don’t get a precise number for the dead, but it’s enough to rename the entire place after the incident.
The Israelites are often painted as ungrateful here. G-d has given them enough to live on in a barren place, and instead of returning thanks, the people kvetch and ask for more, for different, for, arguably, inferior stuff. This is, essentially, G-d’s perspective. But there are other perspectives here, too.
G-d has seen to the Israelites’ bare survival, but hasn’t seen to their thriving. G-d has given them enough to not literally die, but hasn’t bothered to set the conditions for a fulfilled life. The Israelites want choice, agency over the intimate matter of their diet; monotonous manna is not enough. Think about how management reacts when workers ask for an improvement in the condition of their work: Who doesn’t know the clichés of that outrage? We pay them more than enough to live on; they should be grateful to have such a good job in this economy! How can they ask for more when others don’t even have this? Instead of giving them a raise or more time off, let’s just throw a pizza party in the break room. How dare the Israelites want things, when G-d has done so much for them already!
And yet they do dare, and so should we. The powerful have deigned to let us survive, dependent on them, without giving up any of their power? Ta’avah! We want an end to bosses, to despots, to authoritarians of all stripes. There is some degree of abundance and luxury in our lives at the expense of profound lack for others? Ta’avah! We want a world where everyone shares in its riches, where everyone has a right to beautiful, radiant things! Political conditions are shit, so pragmatism suggests we should limit our goals to immediately achievable deck-chair rearrangements? Ta’avah! We will dream big! We will aim for the moon! We will name the world we want, non the worlds we’re offered, because we know a world unnamed, undreamed, unimagined cannot be planned for, chased after, built.
We know better is possible. We feel it in our bones. We crave it. Ta’avah!
[This has been an installment of one-word Torah. You can read the full series here.]
