Pensée juive sur Les Nombres 11:1

Some problems tin the text of our Parshah. 1) When the Torah writes (Numbers 11, 1) "The people were as if complaining, wicked in the eyes of the Lord," what was it that G'd had heard? Why is it not spelled out? When the Jewish people are described as "crying again" in verse four, when was the first time they had cried? 2) How could the people say "who will feed me meat?," when they had enjoyed a regular diet of fowl, quail, since the second month they had been in the desert? How could Moses therefore appear to question G'ds ability to provide meat for the whole nation? 3) Why did Moses not relay the people's request to G'd as had been his custom? 4) If Moses simply wanted to reduce the burden of leadership from himself, why did the elders have to be assembled prior to the provision of meat? 5) The Torah seems extraordinarily long winded when describing how long the meat supply would last, i.e. "not one day, not two days etc. etc.." Why? 6) Moses' question "are You going to provide meat for six hundred thousand foot soldiers that I find myself amongst," seems peculiar? 7) Why did G'd supply this meat?

But “the nobles of the Children of Israel” were impetuous, and allowed their thoughts to go unrestrained: what they perceived was but imperfect. Therefore it is said of them, “And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet,” etc. (Exod. 24:10); and not merely, “and they saw the God of Israel”; the purpose of the whole passage is to criticize their act of seeing and not to describe it. They are blamed for the nature of their perception, which was to a certain extent corporeal—a result which necessarily followed, from the fact that they ventured too far before being perfectly prepared. They deserved to perish, but at the intercession of Moses this fate was averted by God for the time. They were afterwards burnt at Taberah, except Nadab and Abihu, who were burnt in the Tabernacle of the congregation, according to what is stated by authentic tradition. (Midr. Rabba ad locum.)

One, attributes which denote physical form such as in the verse "So G-d created man in His own image, in the image of G-d, He created man" (Gen. 1:27), "for G-d made man in His image" (Gen. 9:6), "by the word of G-d" (Numbers 9:18), "I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens" (Isaiah 45:12), "in the ears of G-d" (Numbers 11:1), "under His feet" (Ex. 24:10), "the arm of G-d" (Isaiah 51:9), "who has not taken My soul in vain" (Ps. 24:4), "in the eyes of G-d" (Gen. 6:8), "G-d said in His heart" (Gen. 8:21), and other similar verses regarding physical limbs.