“Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh”  Parashat Beha’alotecha 5785

While the Torah is eternal, we must always remain cognizant that it was given at a certain time to certain people who possessed certain sensibilities and social norms. This point is exemplified in an essay written by Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch[1] that we discussed last week. Rabbi Rabinovitch asserts that certain laws in the Torah were given for the express purpose of not being kept. For example, Rabbi Rabinovitch discusses the laws of slavery in the context of the Torah’s role in the evolution of moral values. He explains that the Torah’s laws regarding slavery were given as minimal standards for a society that was not yet ready to abolish slavery entirely. Over time, these laws served as a catalyst for the eventual evolution from slavery to freedom. Rabbi Rabinovitch asserts that the Torah’s ultimate goal is to guide humanity towards higher moral and spiritual ideals, including the eventual abolition of slavery. Consequently, when the 21^st century Jew studies the laws of slavery as they appear in the Torah, they might appear anachronistic – purposely anachronistic.

With this preface in hand, we turn to a comment made by Rashi[2] on a verse in the Portion of Beha’alotecha that was definitely not made with the 21^st century Jew in mind, especially, the 21^st century woman. The Jewish People begin to grumble. They are sick and tired of eating manna. They want to go back to the good old days in Egypt when they had real food. Moshe hears their complaints and he is devastated. He tells G-d [Bemidbar 11:11-15]: “Why have You treated Your servant so badly? Why have I not found favour in Your eyes that You place the burden of this entire people upon me? Did I conceive this entire people? Did I give birth to them, that You say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as the nurse carries the suckling,’ to the land You promised their forefathers? Where can I get meat to give all these people? … If this is the way You (At) treat me, please kill me!” It is in the last verse where Rashi drops his bomb. The Hebrew language differentiates between the male singular “you” – “ata” – and the female singular “you” – ‘at”. Yet, when Moshe tells G-d “If this is the way You treat me”, he uses the female “At” rather than the male “Ata”. Rashi comments that this mismatch teaches that “Moshe’s strength became weak like a woman’s”. Most of Rashi’s super-commentators[3] interpret Moshe’s words not as referring to G-d in the feminine, but, rather, as saying, “If You [G-d] turn me into a woman (‘at’ oseh [oti]…)” Moshe’s subjects had worn him down so badly that he could no longer call himself a “real man”. Given today’s gender equality, Rashi’s comment goes over like a lead balloon.

I suggest that if we open the aperture a bit wider and look at Rashi’s comment in the context of Moshe’s entire diatribe, things become more sensible. Moshe asks G-d, “Did I conceive this entire people? Did I give birth to them, that You say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as the nurse (omein) carries the suckling’”. Moshe is complaining that he is being tasked to play the role of a parent, but from the wording, it is not clear which parent: the mother or the father. Moshe’s referral to conception and birth sounds like he is a mother-figure. On the other hand, this clashes with the second half of the verse. If he were a mother-figure, he should have said “Carry them in your bosom as the mother carries the suckling”. The word “nurse” – “omein” – seems to be referring to a male. A similar example is found in the Book of Esther [2:7]: “[Mordechai] had brought up (omein) Hadassah, that is Esther”. So what was Moshe – a mother-figure, a father-figure, or perhaps both?

The medieval commentators offer disparate ways ahead. The Ibn Ezra[4] explains that when Moshe mentions “conception”, he is a mother-figure, and when he refers to “birthing”, he is a father-figure. The Ramban[5] brings the explanation of the Ibn Ezra but he prefers the “simple explanation” in which the entire first part of the verse – both conception and birth –  is a figurative reference to the mother. He uses the masculine word omein since he is speaking of himself as a nursing-father – he was definitely not an omenet (a nursing-mother).

Rabbi Jacob Tzvi Mecklenburg[6], writing in “HaKetav veha’Kabala”, spurns this mother-father duality. When Moshe complains to G-d that he has neither conceived nor birthed the Jewish People, it is because as a male, he is physically incapable of doing so. He is not able to treat them in the way a mother treats her child whom she has conceived and given birth. A mother is prepared by nature to fulfill her child’s desire at any time, to suckle him with her comfort and milk and to stop his crying. Moshe tells G-d, “You should be treating me as a nursing-father (omein), carrying his child on his shoulders, and not as a nursing-mother (omenet) because when the nursing-mother carries the baby, when it cries she will appease it by giving it milk from the breast, but this nurse is the father, leaving no one who can appease the baby”.

Over the past year and a half, thank G-d, three of my daughters and my daughter-in-law have given birth. One of the questions I often ask their husbands is how many times a night they wake up because the baby is crying. Other than changing the baby’s diaper and bringing him to his mother, there is little a father can do to help out. The baby is hungry and only a mother can give it the nourishment that it needs. But sometimes nourishment is not enough. Sometimes, the baby will not return to sleep, no matter how much milk he drinks. Sometimes, all he wants to do is to nurse. And nurse. And nurse some more. This is terribly aggravating and tiring for the mother. When I see one of my daughters walking around like a zombie while her husband is ready to go out for a night on the town, it is clear who changed a diaper and went back to bed and who spent the night nursing the baby.

The Jewish People who are grumbling to Moshe were that baby. They complain that their food supply was inadequate. Really? The manna fell outside their front door every morning, it tasted great, and it was completely absorbed into the body. And yet here they are, begging to return to backbreaking Egyptian bondage so that they could eat [Bemidbar 11:5] fish, leeks and garlic. They do not want nourishment; they want to nurse. And nurse. And nurse some more. And Moshe has nothing left to give them.

This explanation shines light on G-d’s response to the grumbling. He does not say, “Oh, they want some real food? I’ll give them all the fish, leeks and onions they desire.” Because this is not what the people want. They want to nurse. They want a mother. And so G-d’s solution is the same solution that many a mother has reached after too many sleepless nights: The baby must be weaned. G-d commands Moshe to choose seventy elders [Bemidbar 11:16-17] “I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and place it upon them; they shall share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone”. Moshe gathers together the seventy elders and G-d grants them the power of prophecy, preparing them to serve alongside Moshe. Except that they never do that. After the seventy elders are appointed, they simply disappear. They are never mentioned again in the Torah. And that’s fine because they had served their purpose. Our personal experience has shown that if the father, and not the mother, repeatedly comes into the crying child’s room, the child will eventually fall asleep. When he becomes aware that there is someone out there who loves him and who is watching over him, then nursing for the sake of nursing is no longer necessary. When they understood that they were the beneficiaries of G-d’s infinite love and protection, those grumbling children were ready to continue their journey to “the land G-d had promised their forefathers”.

Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5785

Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devorah bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Esther bat Hila, and Meir ben Drora.

[1] Rabbi Rabinowitz was the Dean (Rosh Yeshiva) at the prestigious Yeshivat Birkat Moshe in Ma’aleh Adumim. He was the Rosh Yeshiva of our two sons.

[2] Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known by his acronym “Rashi,” was the most eminent of the medieval commentators. He lived in northern France in the 11^th century.

[3] Spoecifically, the Gur Aryeh and Rav Eliyahu Mizrachi.

[4] Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, usually referred to as “The Ibn Ezra,” lived in Cordoba, Spain, at the turn of the 12^th century.

[5] Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, known by his acronym “Ramban”, lived in Spain and Israel in the 13^th century.

[6] Rabbi Mecklenburg lived in Germany in the 19^th century.