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<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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 .</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The above list is the order in which the elements appear in Sefer
Shmos. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In Sefer Bamidbar (P' Beha'aloscha) the order is </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Now to get a little bit more specific -- compare and contrast. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Then there are a couple of other things -- the lack of water, Moshe hitting
the rock, Amalek attacking them at Rephidim. Then</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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</DIV>
<DIV>=> 5. Moshe's wife, Tzipporah (and their two sons).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>He rejoices at the wonderful things that have happened to B'Y, he is
treated with great honor, and he notices </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>*************</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>OK now on over to Sefer Bamidbar, P' Beha'aloscha.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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....? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 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.)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>=> 6. Moshe's wife. She is an isha Kushis and something
about her upsets Miriam and Aharon.(12:1)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Well, that's it, folks. All very curious.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>**********</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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). </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But it seems like there is a network of themes that the Torah means to
connect.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Food, pheasant, father-in-law, burdens of Moshe.....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><B>--Toby Katz<BR>==========<BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"></B>--------------------</FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>