[Avodah] variations on six themes, Shmos and Bamidbar

[T613K at aol.com]

There's a cluster of themes that come together in Sefer Shmos and again in  
Sefer Bamidbar.  It struck me last year when I was reviewing the parshios  
in Bamidbar and I made a mental note to look at it more closely when it came 
 around again in Sefer Shmos, and here we are.  I'll list the common  
elements of the cluster and then go into them a little bit, and I hope the  
members of this august body will have some insights into why these elements come  
together now and then again.
 
The elements are 1. yearning for the food in Egypt    2.  man  (mannah)   
3. slav (pheasants)  4. Moshe's  father-in-law    5.  Moshe's wife      6.  
Moshe's burden is too great and others are appointed to lighten his  load .
 
The above list is the order in which the elements appear in Sefer  Shmos.  
 
 
In Sefer Bamidbar  (P' Beha'aloscha) the order is 
1.  Moshe's father-in-law   2. yearning for the food in  Egypt      3. the 
mannah     4.  Moshe's burden shared  5.  slav  6.  Moshe's  wife.
 
 
Now to get a little bit more specific -- compare and contrast.  
 
=> 1.  P' Beshalach 15:3 -- the B'Y complain, "If only we had died  in 
Egypt where we sat on the fleshpots and ate bread to satiety."   This happened 
on the fifteenth day of the second month (Iyar) of  their FIRST year, just 
two months after they left  Egypt.
 
=> 2 and 3:  P' Beshalach -- Hashem tells Moshe he is going to rain  bread 
from heaven and also says (16:12) "In the evening you will eat meat and in  
the morning you will be satisfied with bread" and then He brings first the 
slav  (16:13) and then the mannah (16:13 ff.)  No anger or punishment is  
associated with the slav and B'Y seem to eat it only that one time, that  one 
evening, before they ever have any mannah.  The mannah can be baked or  
cooked (16:23).  It is round like a coriander seed, it is white, and it  tastes 
like a wafer (tzapichas) in honey (16:31).
 
Then there are a couple of other things -- the lack of water, Moshe hitting 
 the rock, Amalek attacking them at Rephidim.  Then
 
=> 4. Beginning of P' Yisro -- Moshe's father-in-law, the minister  of 
Midian, comes to the desert.  His name is Yisro.  He brings with  him
=> 5. Moshe's wife, Tzipporah (and their two sons).
 
He rejoices at the wonderful things that have happened to B'Y, he is  
treated with great honor, and he notices 
 
=> 6. that Moshe is overburdened with people coming to him all day long  
with questions and problems and court cases.  He suggests a solution,  namely, 
that leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and  
leaders of tens be appointed to share the burden. (18:21-22).  Moshe takes  his 
advice, and Yisro goes home.  The next thing that happens is that in  the 
third month after leaving Egypt, B'Y travel from Rephidim to Midbar Sinai  
(Shmos 19:1-2).
 
Rashi puts the story of Yisro as taking place a few months later, right  
after Yom Kippur, but a straightforward reading puts it in the second month  
after they leave Egypt, before Matan Torah.
 
 
*************
 
OK now on over to Sefer Bamidbar, P' Beha'aloscha.
 
In the SECOND year, in the second month, on the 20th day of the month  -- 
exactly one year after the above events -- B'Y left Midbar Sinai and traveled 
 to Midbar Paran (Bamidbar 10:11-12).  All of a sudden,
 
=> 1.  Moshe said to his father-in-law, "We are now traveling  to the land 
that Hashem promised us, come with us."  His father-in-law is  still a 
Midianite but now he is named Chovav.  ((10:29)    (Yes, yes, I know that Rashi 
says he had seven different names, but I'm  just looking at the plain pesukim 
right now.)   Chovav answers, "No,  I'm going home" and Moshe again says, 
"Stay with us" and the upshot is not  stated -- did he leave or did he stay?  
One big question of course is, if  he left a year ago how come he is back 
now??  Where did he come from all of  a sudden?  He never left?  (But the 
pasuk in Shmos states plainly  that he left.)   He left and came back?  He now 
left again or now  he stayed....?  
 
=> 2.  The people yearn for Egypt but now it's not so much the B'Y  as the 
"Asafsuf" (= the erav rav?) complaining, "Who will feed us meat?  We  
remember the fish we ate in Egypt, the cucumbers and watermelons and onions and  
garlic.   We have nothing to eat except this infernal mannah, we are  sick of 
mannah!"  (11:1-6)
 
=> 3.  The mannah is round like coriander seeds, its color is like  
bedolach, it can be ground or pounded, it can be cooked or made into cakes, and  it 
tastes like dough (leshad?) in oil.  (11:7)
 
=> 4.  Moshe says, "How am I supposed to feed all these  people?!  The 
burden is just too much for me!"  and Hashem says, "Take  seventy elders and I 
will give them some of  your spirit and they will  share your burden." 
(11:11-17)
 
=> 5.  "You are going to eat meat all right!  Until it comes  out of your 
noses!"  Thirty days straight of slav!  So much slav  arrived carried on the 
wind that it was piled two amos high (three feet high?)  but people choked 
on it and died while eating it.   This is not like  the gentle, unremarkable 
one-time slav of P' Beshalach, this is a plague of  slav, Hashem is very 
angry.  (Bamidbar  11:18-22 and 11:31-35).   (In between Hashem telling Moshe 
He is going to bring slav, and the actual  arrival of the slav, there's a 
section interposed about Eldad and Medad  prophesying in the camp.   That's 
really connected to the seventy  zekenim appointed to ease Moshe's burden.)
 
=> 6.  Moshe's wife.  She is an isha Kushis and something  about her upsets 
Miriam and Aharon.(12:1)
 
Well, that's it, folks.  All very curious.
 
**********
 
Needless to say, I am not interested in any Wellhausian type speculations  
about variations of the same story.  But I do wonder why these elements  
come together, in the first year and again in the second year after Yetzias  
Mitzrayim?  
 
It may be that some things happened only once -- e.g., Yisro/Chovav may  
have visited only once, and the conversation recorded in Bamidbar may simply 
be  an elaboration of the conversation that happened in S' Shmos.  
 
Other things almost certainly are recorded out of order, ein mukdam  
ume'uchar and all that.  Other things must have happened twice, e.g., the  slav.  
Other things that seem related are actually totally different  things, e.g., 
Moshe being burdened with having to judge all the people who  wanted  to 
learn Torah and get halachic decisions, vs Moshe being burdened  by having to 
provide sustenance to a nation of chronic grumblers.  The  solutions were 
different, one suggested by Yisro (leaders of thousands etc) the  other 
dictated by Hashem (70 elders).   
 
But it seems like there is a network of themes that the Torah means to  
connect.
 
Food, pheasant, father-in-law, burdens of Moshe.....
 
Speaking of food, there are cooking shows where contestants are given a  
basket of ingredients and have to come up with a tasty dish, and the best one  
wins.  So I have given you a basket of six ingredients -- see what you can  
make of it.  Thank you.
 
 

--Toby Katz
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