Torah Table Talk A New PaRDeS

Manna: Does God Test our Mettle?

Parshat Eikev, Deuteronomy 7:12 11:24
This weeks Torah Table Talk is dedicated by Dr. Edwin and Barbara Simon In honor of the ordination of their Grandson, Rabbi Moshe Gutstein
Parshat Eikev might be entitled Faith and Obedience. In his continuing monologue to the people of Israel, Moses speaks of the consequences of their actions; he reminds them of Gods goodness both in the wilderness and the promise of a good land; and he speaks of the challenges and obstacles to Israels faith during their forty year sojourn. He speaks of God testing Israel through hardship and hunger. We are left to wonder about the nature and the purpose of this test. Does God test us? And if God does test us, why is this necessary? One would presume that an all knowing God doesnt need to test us to know what we are going to do or not do. On the other hand, if human beings have free will, then maybe God cant ultimately know what choices we are going to make in our lives. I suspect all of us have faced situations in our lives when we felt we have been tested by adversity and hardship. Who hasnt asked, Why me? at some point or another in his or her life? This idea of God testing our mettle both comforts and troubles us. Unfortunately, the old adage that God does not test us with more than we can bear is just not true: as a rabbi I have witnessed too many people who have been broken by lifes adversities? What can we learn, then, from the verses below and the discussion of Gods trials? Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 16 Remember the long way that the Lord your God has made you travel these past forty years, that he might test you by hardship to learn what was in your hearts; whether you would keep His commandments or not. He subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the Lord decrees who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which you which your father had never known, in order to test you by hardship only to benefit you in the end Exodus 16:4 And the Lord said to Moses, I will rain down bread for you from the sky and the people shall go out and gather each day that days portion that I may thus test them, to see whether they will follow My instructions or not.

PaRDeS
1. Pshat Understanding the plain sense meaning of the text
That He might test you by hardships: Literally, that he might subject you to hardships so that He might test you. God made the Israelites hungry and then fed them manna (vv. 3, 16) by which He tested their obedience and trust (Exodus 16:4). (J. Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary, Deuteronomy) You shall remember all the ways that YHWH, your God, had you go these forty years in the wilderness in order to degrade you, to test you, to know what was in your heart: The sequence of verbs is powerful because of the way that they are used before this. The word to degrade is used to describe what the Egyptians did to the Israelites as slaves. (Exodus 1:11)It means to bring down, to humble, to lower someone. The difference is that the Egyptians do it to weaken the Israelites, whereas God does it to test their strength. The second word here, test is the word for what God does in commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:1) The result is that God says, Now I know that you fear God. (Genesis 22:12) And so the third word here, likewise, is know, conveying that the purpose of a divine test is to establish what is in a humans heart. Moses thus now tells the people the reason for the many tribulations that they experienced was to test them. We, the readers, were informed of this at the beginning of the account of the years in the wilderness, where testing is mentioned twice. (Ex 15:25, 16:4) but this is the first time that Moses reveals it to the people. (Richard Elliot Friedman, Commentary on the Torah) My Commentary: You will note that Friedmans translation of the verse above is different from the one in the box which is taken from the New Publications Society Translation. Translating Deuteronomy 8:2 is a bit of a challenge. Friedman points out that the verse contains three verbs in a row: anotekha (which can mean to cause hardship, to oppress or to degrade); nasotekha (to try or to test); and la-daat (to know or to experience). The question that all the commentaries wonder about is what is the relationship between these verbs? Does God test Israel with hardship or by degrading the nation, as Friedman suggests? What is the nature of the test: is it the obstacles that God places before the people in the wilderness, the challenge of living in the wilderness completely dependent on God, or is the

manna itself a kind of test? Israel is forced to eat a type of food that is completely different from the type of food with which they are familiar. This explanation makes sense in light of the statements we find elsewhere in which the people complain about eating manna all the time and the fact that they miss the good old days in Egypt when they had cucumbers and leeks to eat. This idea of testing particularly troubled the sages this is neither the first nor the last time that we find God testing Israel. One other note should be added here about the Pshat: Deuteronomy and Exodus offer different explanations for the nature of the test. In Exodus it appears that the test is to habituate the people to the observance of Gods laws while in Deuteronomy, it is related to faith. The manna because a test of Israels faith and a means of leading them to trust in God.

2. Remez Allusions: Finding meanings hidden in the text

Know that the aim and meaning of all trials mentioned in the Torah is to let people know what they ought to do or what they must believe. Accordingly, the notion of a trial consists, as it were, of a certain act being done, the purpose being not the accomplishment of that particular act, but the latters being a model to be imitated and followed. Thus, the interpretation of, To know whether you do love, (Deut.13:4) is not: in order that God should know that, for God already knew this; but the meaning resembles that of its dictum, To know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you, (Ex. 31:13) the meaning of which is: in order that the religious communities may know. As for what is said in Scripture concerning manna: who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which you which your father had never known, in order to test you by hardship only to benefit you in the end, suggests that God sometimes makes an individual suffer in order to make his reward greater. But this is not the truth of the matter. For the dictum has two meanings: One is the notion concerning manna expressed earlier: in order that it should be known whether being devoted to God does or does not suffice as far as food is concerned and gives relief from fatigue and weariness. Nasotekha (to test you) also means to accustom you.It is as if God first accustomed you to misery in the desert in order to make your wellbeing greater once you entered the land. And second, it is known that but for their misery and weariness in the wilderness they would not have been able to conquer the land and to fight. Moses Maimonides, (The Guide of the Perplexed 3:24) That I may put them to the test whether they will walk in My way or not (Exodus 16:4): To see if they will heed the commandments connected with Shabbat, that they should not leave (manna) over until the following day, and not go out and gather (manna) on Shabbat. (Rashis Commentary) That I may thus test test them, to see whether they will follow My instructions or not (Exodus 16:4): (Rashi) is not correct! Rather, the test is: God fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your father had never known, in order to test you by hardship only to benefit you in the end. (Deut 8:16) The situation in which the Israelites were placed regarding the manna represented a trial since they entered a desert without food of any sort and with no way out. They were totally dependent on the daily portion of manna which rained down. Despite this, they followed God into a place without food, as it is written, Remember the long way which the Lord your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years (Deut. 8:2) He might have led them through an inhabited route but rather God chose to lead them, through the great and terrible wilderness with fiery serpents and scorpions. In this way there would only be food for them from heaven provided daily. He chose however to confront them with this trial in order to test them and to benefit them in the end. I have already explained the matter of testing above regarding the verse, And God tested Abraham. (Genesis 22:1). (Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman; Rambans Commentary on Exodus 16:4) My Commentary: We find a fascinating discussion among medieval commentators and thinkers regarding the idea of God testing Israel. Maimonides, the supreme rationalist argues that God has no reason to test Israel since God is all knowing and must by definition know what we are going to do before we do it. What, then, is the purpose of Gods test? The Rambam offers a general explanation for testing and then applies his answer to this particular situation. Gods tests are always for our benefit and not for Gods benefit. By testing us, God creates a template of behavior through which we can model our lives. In the case of the manna, then, by forcing us to live with hardship in the wilderness God increased our strength and prepared us for the coming conquest of the land of Canaan. Rambam rejects what appears to be the obvious and literal meaning of the verse: that through the test, God makes us worthy of reward and goodness. While we might question his interpretation of scripture, there is a great deal of truth in what Maimonides is suggesting. Lifes adversities, in retrospect, can strengthen us and give us the mettle to deal with new challenges. And sometimes facing darkness can become the inspiration for learning about faith. Rashi offers a different interpretation of Gods test. Basing his explanation on Exodus rather than the verses in Deuteronomy, he suggests that the test was not the manna but the discipline of collecting the manna each day and learning to refrain from collecting it on Shabbat. The test was meant to teach the people of Israel obedience to God even before they stood at Sinai, they were already practicing the discipline of living by Gods laws. Finally

Ramban (Not to be confused with Rambam who lived earlier), rejects both of these interpretations. For him the manna and the sojourn in the wilderness was truly a test of Israels faith: to go off into the wilderness where they would have no food, to live with deprivation and hardship not only taught faith but tested Israels faith as well. For Ramban, as long as Israel was free, they would have to prove their faith.

3. Din Law: Applying the text to life

Rabbi Simon ben Yohai was asked by his disciples: Why did not the manna come down unto Israel once annually? He replied: I shall give a parable: This may be compared to a mortal king who had one son, whom he provided with maintenance once a year, so that he would visit his father once a year only. Thereupon he provided for his maintenance every day, so that he called on him every day. The same occurred with Israel. One who had four or five children would worry, saying: Perhaps no manna will come down tomorrow, and all will die of hunger. Thus they found it necessary to turn their attention to their Father in Heaven. Another interpretation: (God provided manna daily so that they could) eat it while it was yet warm. Another interpretation: (God provided manna daily) because of the burden of the way. (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 76a) Subjected you tohunger and then gave you manna: By being placed in a position of absolute reliance on the Almighty for their daily sustenance, they would become habituated to trust in Him and their faith in God would become part of their nature. (Moses Mendelssohn, Biur) My Commentary: Mendelssohn and the Midrash above offer a different take on Gods test. The purpose of the test was education. It taught the people not only to live by Gods law but to trust Gods presence as well. By living in dependence on God each day, faith became part of their nature.

4. Sod The Meaning and Mystery of Faith

Contemporary Jews are particularly troubled by theodicy: why bad things happen to good people and why life is filled with adversity and pain. While our ancestors were not above asking these questions, I suspect that adversity and tragedy were much more a part of their lives than it is of ours. We live with the illusion of comfort and self sufficiency. When things dont turn out the way we expect we wonder why. Why is God doing this to me? Consider just one example of this: infant mortality. The death of an infant is a relatively rare incident in most of our lives today: as a result, when it occurs, we tend to grieve more deeply than people who lived in past generations. In many of the older Jewish cemeteries in New York there are entire section set aside for infants and young children who died prematurely. The idea of God testing us with hardship, even degrading us did not cause the same type of trouble for our ancestors as it does for us. However one chose to imagine God, testing became a source of strength and personal growth. Because we tend to live comfortable, affluent lives, I suspect we are soft. The challenge we face, however we imagine God, is to understand that God is present both in comfort and adversity, in darkness and in light. This is what we say each morning in the Shacharit service: God creates light and darkness, God creates peace and all things. Faith is learning that whatever we face in life is really part of Gods plan for us.

Questions to Ponder
1. How did God test Israel in the wilderness? Why do you think God tested the people of Israel? 2. The word test is used in the story of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, which we read on Rosh Hashanah. What is the connection between Gods testing of Abraham, and the testing of Israel in the wilderness? 3. Is it possible for you to see God in adversity and times of darkness in your life? If so, how would you address God at such times? Dear Reader: Would you consider becoming a sponsor for TTT for a week, a month, for a whole book of the Torah or for an entire year? Weekly sponsorships are $54. Dedications can be made in memory of loved ones or in honor of special occasions on the week of your choice. All donations will be used to support the Oceanside Jewish Center, my congregational sponsor. For more information or if you would like to join Torah Table Talk, please write to [email protected]. If you would like to subscribe to TTT please send an e-mail to [email protected]. To remove your address from this list, send a blank email to [email protected]. To download TTT you need Adobe Acrobat Reader; http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep 2.html Rabbi Mark Greenspan

All it takes to study Torah is an open heart, a curious mind and a desire to grow a Jewish soul.
Copyright 2011 Rabbi Mark B Greenspan