Dedicated to the memory of Louis Levine, Baruch Aryeh ben Avraham Halevi, on his first Yahrzeit, 19th Sivan

 Man Can’t Live on Bread Alone

 In Parshat Behaalotcha, Bamidbar 11:4, B’nai Yisrael complain that the manna is not enough and that they also want meat. They continue (psukim 5-6) with the idea that they had it much better in Egypt: “We remember the fish which we ate in Egypt “chinam”, freely; the cucumbers, watermelons, leeks, onions and garlic. Now our bodies are withered, there is nothing at all but the manna before our eyes.”

God sent them the manna which according to Sifri could taste like almost anything, so what were B’nai Yisrael worrying about?

According to Ramban, B’nai Yisrael were upset that the manna was not in their control. The manna came down in the quantity required for that day and none was left for the following day. If the manna was left over, it rotted. They were therefore in constant worry for the next day’s food. As the expression goes “One cannot compare a person who has bread in his basket with one who does not have bread in his basket.” As slaves in Egypt, they got very little bread and water. However, they knew that they could always find fish on the banks of the Nile and they could take vegetables from the Egyptian’s gardens. In the desert all they had was the manna which made them totally dependent on God each day.

Sifri comments on the words “which we ate in Egypt freely”,to mean free of the mitzvoth. In Egypt, before the Torah was given, they could take the food without having to observe the mitzvoth. In Devarim 11:13-17 (the second paragraph of the Shema prayer) we learn that God supplies Israel with food only when they observe the mitzvoth.

In Devarim 8:1-3 we learn the importance of observing the mitzvoth : “All of the mitzvot which I command you on this day shall you observe to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which God swore to your fathers. You shall remember the way which God led you these forty years in the wilderness to humble you and to prove you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep the commandments or not. And he humbled you and suffered you to hunger and fed you with manna…that he might make you know that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God does one live”.

Ibn Ezra points out that we don’t live on bread alone, rather we live on the strength that God gives us through our observance of the mitzvoth. We saw this in the desert when B’nai Yisrael did not eat bread (they just ate the manna). Through their observance of the mitzvoth, they were able to live.