פירוש על במדבר 11:6

אל המן עינינו OUR EYES ARE ON THIS MANNA (i. e. we see nothing but this manna) — “manna in the morning, manna in the evening!” (Sifrei Bamidbar 87)

נפשנו יבשה, “our life is parched;” Nachmanides describes the emotional state of the Israelites as having “died out,” due to the many different cravings they had been experiencing. Alternately, he writes, the meaning of the phrase could be that whereas natural foods provide the body with moisture, lubricating it, they did not experience such feelings when eating manna, but felt parched instead.

BUT NOW OUR SOUL IS DRIED AWAY. This means that because of their many desires their temperaments had become heated and then dried up, as Onkelos translates it [“but now our soul is lusting”]. Or it may be that [they meant that] our soul is dried away because there is nothing with which to moisten it, since food produces [essential] liquids in the body which satisfy the soul. And they said, we have nought save this manna ‘to look to,’ meaning that even the food [i.e., the manna] on which we live is not in our possession so that our soul can be nourished and satisfied with it; but we desire it and look to it [i.e., we are dependent upon it] at all times, in anticipation that it will come to us; thus we have nothing at all save our hope for the manna. They thus gave expression to the known proverb:¹⁶⁶Yoma 74 b. “One cannot compare a person who has bread in his basket with one who does not have bread in his basket.”¹⁶⁷For since the manna only came down in the quantity required for that day. and none was to be left for the following day (Exodus 16:19), and if it was left it rotted (ibid., Verse 20), they were therefore in constant worry for their next day’s food. Therefore Scripture tells how many qualities the manna had, stating that its taste was as the taste of a cake baked with oil,¹⁶⁸Verse 8. thus declaring that the souls of those who ate it did not dry up, for it [the manna] supplied the body with the [essential] liquids and kept it satisfied, and the souls of those who ate it were like a watered garden and like a spring of water.¹⁶⁹Isaiah 58:11.