What do you enjoy celebrating?
Your birthday, a wedding, passing an exam, getting the job you always wanted?
We like celebrating things that make us feel positive – especially me, I know how to
“partay”.
And you know it’s pretty much the same rule in the Jewish tradition – we find that the
holidays we celebrate are things that make us feel positive – whether its national
freedom on Passover, redemption on Purim or military victory on Hanukah.
But there’s this one holiday we get to every year – Shavuot – zooming into the moment
when we were given the Torah – the book of Laws for the Jewish people to abide by
- and, quite frankly, I don’t want to be the party pooper or anything – but a celebration
of law doesn’t exactly make me say “woo – partay!”.
I mean come on – rules, obligations, the tax code, courtrooms, lawyers – have you
ever seen someone jumping for joy when they see their lawyer – unless they’re a Jewish
mother and its their son.
So why is there a Jewish festival dedicated to celebrate the giving of law?
What’s even stranger is that just a few weeks prior to Shavuot we were celebrating
Passover – which marks our freedom – but what’s the use in freedom from one set of
laws under Pharaoh when just a few weeks later we get another set of laws from another master?
Now yes I know these laws are from God and yes maybe they’re not quite as restrictive
or painful as the laws in Egypt – but still – they’re laws – lots of them – am
I really meant to get excited by this?
Am I sounding like a heretic yet?
An answer to our question was drawn to my attention by Rabbi David Fohrman - noted in
his excellent video series on Shavuot – a link to which can be found in the video description.
He suggested looking at the period after the Jews left Egypt and before they received their
laws at Mount Sinai.
It’s just after the Jews have crossed through the split sea and they have ran out of their
matza and they’re desperately hungry.
So God says something rather strange.
“I shall rain for them bread from the sky and the people will go out and collect it,
each day’s portion on that day...”
- He’s going to give the Jews Manna from heaven - Ok, pretty cool, thank you God.
And then God gives a reason why He’s going to do this.
Now if you were God - what would you make as your reason?
I dunno – the people are hungry, I want to feed them.
Right?
But here’s what He actually says is His reason – I’m giving them Manna – “so
that I may test them, to see whether they will follow My Torah, My Laws, or not...”
– the manna is going to be some sort of test to see whether the Jews could keep the
laws of the Torah.
Ok so two questions here.
1) how would this test us to see if we could keep the Torah and 2) I don’t know about
you but doesn’t the whole idea of the manna being a “test” sort of take away from
the warm and cuddly feeling you get about this gift from above?
Raining bread from the sky - that seems like a beautiful act of care.
Testing people to see how good they are at keeping laws – not so much.
What kind of a test was it?
Not all tests are the same.
Some tests are designed, like an SAT, for the teacher to assess the student.
But other tests are actually designed for the student - to help the person confronting
it learn something transformational about themselves.
And according to the Torah commentaries, the word the Torah uses for “test” – “nisayon”
- in this instance implies just that.
Maybe the Manna was designed to help US understand something profound.
So what exactly did the manna laws consist of.
Well there were three rules - 1.
Only take an omer’s worth of manna every day per person - (an Omer is a Biblical measurement
[of weight?]).
2.
Don’t leave any manna over til the morning.
And 3.
No collecting manna on Saturdays – Saturday was going to be designated as the Sabbath,
and manna-collecting is entirely off-limits that day.
Instead, you get a double portion each Friday.
Ok – great – pretty simple – but what’s the big idea?
Well you know what’s interesting about these laws – they all have a very special quality
– they are self-reinforcing laws – you cannot NOT keep them – let me explain.
Rule 1 – you should take an omer’s worth of manna each day – what if some collected
more than that?
The Torah says people would come home, check their bags, and miraculously they had the
same amount as everyone else.
Rule 2 – don’t try to save any manna overnight for tomorrow – what happened if people tried
to do it – the manna became infested with worms and stank.
Law 3 – no collecting manna on the Sabbath – well what if you tried to – yep you
guessed it – there simply was no manna outside available for collection that day.
A double portion fell on Friday which would be enough for 2 days.
So actually – when it came to all 3 rules of the Manna – it didn’t even matter whether
you wanted to keep the rules or not – ultimately the would be self-reinforcing – you cannot
violate them – even if you try!
You know what it’s like?
It’s like law on bicycle training wheels – you might be scared you’re going to
fall, but even if you lose your balance, you can’t fall – because Dad put on those
training wheels.
The laws of the manna was like law on training wheels.
God says – keep these laws and then eventually we’ll get to Sinai where you can experience
law “for real”.
But why were these ‘training wheel’ laws even necessary?
And what did these particular laws help us understand?
The child is scared he’s going to fall off the bike.
What would we have been anxious about when it came to receiving laws?
Why did we need those ‘training wheels’?
What was the deep fear inside of us that these ‘training wheel’ laws were addressing?
Well maybe there was something about laws that we had every right to be scared of.
What deep fear inside of us were the laws of the manna confronting?
Well the laws of the manna have very interesting hints to an earlier episode in Exodos story
- when Moses appears before Pharaoh and asks on behalf of the Jews for a few days off from
work so they can go to the desert to worship God.
Pharaoh responds brazenly saying that not only will he not give them time off, but he
doubles down – No more shall his slaves be given straw to make bricks -instead they’ll
have to collect straw – and “I will demand no fewer bricks”.
And not only that, but Pharaoh gets rid of the Jews days off.
And of course the Jews were unable to produce the same amount of bricks each day – and
the Egyptian taskmasters would taunt the slaves, whipping them and screaming – “Why didn’t
you fill your quota of bricks as you did yesterday?!”
And the Jews went desperately to Pharaoh to explain that his demands were impossible – and
Pharaoh basically said “you’re lazy, get out of my sight.”
It’s the most dehumanizing response – completely ignoring the concerns of the Jews and pretty
much saying to them – I’m not interested in the needs of you Jews – you’re absolutely
nothing.
You won’t even get heard.
You’re just numbers in Pharaoh’s excel spreadsheet, producing a certain amount of
GDP per year.
And Pharaoh’s decree broke us in another way too.
Because what happens when we’re all out there in the fields and Pharaoh says you have
to gather your own straw and come up with the same daily quota of bricks?
If you’re strong you might find a way to avoid the lash – you’ll gather your own
pile, and fend off anyone who tries to take from you.
But if you’re weak – you’re out of luck.
You won’t collect enough straw and you’ll get beaten.
The straw becomes a scarce resource.
And this leads to internal conflict – brother fighting against brother for the precious
straw.
Any sense of Jewish brotherhood dissolves.
And the warm tasty bread that the Egyptians provided for us was deceptive – yes it fed
us, it kept us going, but all while Pharaoh’s laws were dehumanizing us, and tearing us
apart from one another.
Yes Pharaoh gave us bread to keep our bodies alive – but his laws would destroy our humanity,
our dignity.
So… isn’t it starting to become clear – given our experience with bread given
from a master that is only designed to break us down - how could we possibly accept bread
and laws from another master without feeling afraid of what’s in store?
You know the moment when the Jewish people asked for bread God responds by saying a bizarre
thing – “By nightfall, you will know that God has taken you out of Egypt… when you
see that God has heard your complaints against Him” – these are the Jews who saw the
10 plagues and the sea split – only now once they have been given manna will they
know God has taken them out of Egypt.
I mean, forgive me, but if they don’t realise by now that they have been taken out of Egypt
then I don’t know how the descendants of this people ended up taking 20% of all Nobel
prizes.
What does it mean “now you will know God has taken you out of Egypt”?
The answer is that through the Manna God was helping the Jews leave behind the trauma of
their experience in Egypt.
Yes they knew they had left Egypt, but had Egypt left them?
In Egypt they lodged a rational complaint to Pharaoh – “we can’t cope with the
workload” – a totally reasonable complaint - and Pharaoh responds by completely ignoring
them – it didn’t matter how politely phrased their question was – they were flat-out
ignored.
But this time God demonstrates something remarkable to them – He – the one who took them out
of Egypt – would be their new Master – a Master in Heaven – and despite God’s infinite
power, He does something their master in Egypt never did.
He listens.
He listens to the vulnerable, the helpless former slaves.
And he pays attention to their complaints even when, this time, they are not actually
phrased so politely.
When you experience that – well – then you’ll know you’re not in Egypt anymore.
By temporarily keeping us from food and encouraging us to ask the one Above for help, God was
redeeming our trauma of having a cruel master.
He was showing that it’s possible to have a Master that actually listens, that actually
cares.
And what about the laws of the manna?
In Egypt, with Pharaoh - we had bricks to make, laws to obey and bread to sustain us.
In the desert, with God – we also had laws to obey, and bread to sustain us – but there’s
one crucial difference – there’s no bricks to make.
In Egypt, Pharaoh only gave us bread in order that we continue to obey him and keep churning
out those bricks for him – we were merely a tool for him to grow the national economy.
But God has no need for bricks.
He gave us bread purely…for us – no bricks required.
And those laws – they weren’t for God – they were for us – to teach us that
our new Master is very different to our previous one.
What did Pharaoh’s laws take away from us?
Something so precious – time.
Our workload was doubled and our day off denied.
But this time God insists that we do one thing non-negotiable – rest.
Every seven days you don’t go into the field to do any collecting – the gift of the Sabbath
would forever echo Pharaoh’s denial of rest.
“I’m not giving you a choice”, says God, “you must rest”.
This reinforcing law would push us to take time to just breath, time to just be alive,
to be human.
We would know God as the Master who gave us rest, who insisted we rest – purely for
our benefit, not God’s.
And these laws would also ensure we establish a society based on kindness and brotherhood
– not a survival of the fittest, jungle culture.
Pharaoh says “no more straw, no less bricks” – creating fear and tension among one another.
But God uses Pharaoh’s “no more, no less” idea to promote the exact opposite.
No matter what you collect from the field, you will all have the same amount when you
return home.
“Don’t try to take more than everyone else – you can’t even keep it overnight.
You just have to count on me, your Master in Heaven, to provide this gift for you every
day – you can have faith in me – there will be enough for everyone”.
And God gives double as much too – not double as much work – but double as much Manna
on Friday – so we can rest on the Sabbath.
It became clear to the Jews quite quickly, that all these laws that God gave us with
the manna were clearly for our benefit – they were our training wheels.
They were there to teach us something seemingly counterintuitive – something that we needed
to understand before we reached Mount Sinai – that there can be a Master above that
isn’t motivated by self-interest – but rather by pure love.
A Master who creates Laws for us to keep purely for our benefit alone.
A Master that wants us to rest.
A Master that wants all our needs taken care of.
A Master that wants us to look after each other – to provide for the weak, not just
the strong.
These lessons of the Manna were designed to teach us lessons long after the miracle ceased
to be.
And because of this – the nation of Israel would learn to celebrate its laws.
And yes – we would even have a holiday to celebrate it.
Because laws aren’t necessarily designed to constrain us.
God’s law is designed to enable us to be the best person we can be.
I'm Ollie Anisfeld and you're watching J-TV.