פירוש על במדבר 11:21

שש מאות אלף רגלי [THE PEOPLE AMONGST WHOM I AM ARE] SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND FOOTMEN — He was not particular to mention also the odd number — the remaining three thousand. But Rabbi Moses the Preacher explained that the number 600,000 is exact because only those who went forth from Egypt wept (since only they could have said, (v. 5) “We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt”, and they who left Egypt are described, as here, by the term רגלי added to the number 600,000; cf. Exodus 12:37).

שש מאות אלף רגלי, this will require a tremendous quantity of meat to satiate them.

ויאמר משה….הצאן ובקר ישחט, Moses said:…."Will flocks and herds be slaughtered, etc?" I find it incredible that Moses could have questioned G'd in such a manner, something that even a person of far lesser stature than Moses would not have dared. Some of our sages quoted in Sifri consider Moses' question as sinful, others understand Moses' question as querying why 600.000 Israelites should die eating meat. There are all kinds of homiletical answers. We must address the plain meaning of the words. Moreover, we must also understand why Moses repeated the words ואתה אמרת בשר אתן, "and You have said 'I will give meat;'" Besides, what did Moses mean about the flocks and herds? Surely the Israelites had sufficient flocks and herds with them to provide meat for thirty days! Did the Torah not make a point of saying in Exodus 12,38 that they took with them a large number of flocks and herds? Furthermore, why did Moses exaggerate so much when referring to: "all the fish in the ocean?" How could he speak about all the fish in the ocean being required to feed 600,000 people for thirty days when the entire population of the world is in the habit of eating fish all year round and the supply of fish is not exhausted?

'ויאמר משה: שש מאות אלף וגו, we need to understand Moses’ words in the same way as when he had told G’d that the people “could not ascend the mountain” in Exodus 19,23. Of course they could have, but it was forbidden which to Moses meant that “they could not.” ואכלו חודש ימים, and he was also concerned about G’d’s threat that the meat would become repulsive to the people. (verse 20) He asked that seeing that there were over 600.000 adult males plus numerous children and women, the livestock of the people could hardly be sufficient to sustain such an ambitious program? He was afraid that possibly G’d had in mind to kill many of the people so that it would be possible to feed the survivors on the meat of their herds and flocks so that G’d’s prediction would come true. Alternatively, G’d would have to perform miracles for these people to supply them with meat, something Moses felt that they had hardly deserved. [at any rate, Moses did not mean to imply doubt about G’d’s ability to make good on what He had said. Ed.]

Those who went out. (Nachalas Yaakov) However those born in the desert did not weep, because they could not say “we remember the fish which we ate in Egypt.” Even though it is written “Bnei Yisroel also wept” [which seemingly implies they all wept, nonetheless] Rashi still holds that those who were born in the desert did not weep.

VV. 21 u. 22. ויאמר משה וגו׳. Indem Gott Mosche Klage in der Dringlichkeit des Momentes nur mit dem Auftrage der Ältestenwahl begegnete und daran die Weisung knüpfte, dem Volke zu sagen, es solle morgen Befriedigung finden, durfte er wohl glauben, es solle die Bestellung der Ältesten selbst das Mittel zu dieser Befriedigung sein und ihm mit Beihülfe dieser neuen Kollegen die Speisung des Volkes obliegen; er durfte glauben, die Speisung des Volkes sollte das erste Geschäft sein, zu welchem die Siebzigmänner ihre Mitwirkung leihen sollten. Das Dringlichste des Momentes war ja die Befriedigung des Volkes, die von Mosche vermisste Mithilfe gehörte der Zukunft an, und wenn sie nicht selbst mit zur Befriedigung des Momentes gehörte, so wäre zuerst die Speisung und dann die Ältestenwahl zu erwarten gewesen. Es musste daher Mosche voraussetzen, dass die Speisung des Volkes ihm und den Ältesten in dem Bereiche der ihnen natürlich sich darbietenden Möglichkeit liegen solle, und daher seine staunende Frage: ואתה אמרת בשר אתן — !שש מאות וגו׳ ist nicht die direkte Anführung der Gottesrede, ל sondern die indirekte Angabe ihres Inhaltes. Du sagtest, ich solle usw. So: אלקים דבר בקדשו אעלזה אחלקה שכם Gott sprach in Seinem Heiligtum, ich solle fröhlich werden, solle Sichem verteilen (Ps.60, 8). — צאן — הצאן וגו׳ und בקר erfordern שחיטה, dem gegenüber für Fische die bloße אסיפה genügt (Chulin 27b).

'ויאמר משה שש מאות אלף וגו, “Moses said: six hundred thousand (men plus their families You will provide with meat?)” Many people are appalled at how Moses apparently questioned G–d’s ability to provide the people with such an amount of meat. This is why hagaon ha-rav Nissim suggests the following interpretation of this verse. Moses asked that while he was well aware of G–d’s ability to provide a quantity of meat to last the people for 30 days, but that seeing this meat was not provided by G–d as a gift but in order to make the meat something that revolted them, what was the point in letting so much meat rot, after a day or two, seeing they had no means to keep it edible? Not only that, but how could they collect all that meat in the single day that it materialized for them? Moses drew a comparison when he spoke about the fish in the ocean, saying that even if all of them could be trapped in a single net, no one could remove sufficient fish from that net in a single day to last the nation for thirty days.

'ויאמר משה: שש מאות אלף רגלי וגו, “Moses said: there are six hundred adult infantry soldiers, etc.” Moses is overwhelmed by the intended undertaking of G-d to supply such a vast number of human beings suddenly with meat to which they had absolutely no claim, by his appointing seventy elders to help him govern such a nation. He cannot understand why, on the one hand, G-d had told him to appoint for himself 70 people to help him govern such a stiffnecked people, and on the other hand, reward them by performing such a miracle for them at the same time. He is under the mistaken impression that these seventy men should act as the slaughterers for such a large number of people. How could even seventy slaughterers supply meat for about three million people?

ואתה אמרת בשר אתן להם ואכלו חודש ימים, if so, this will amount to a huge amount, as also described in Psalms 78,27 וימטר עליהם כעפר שאר וכחול ימים עוף כנף, “He rained meat on the like dust, winged birds like the sand of the sea.”

There may be two different approaches to explaining our verses according to the פשט, the plain meaning of the text. When G'd told Moses first that He would give the children of Israel meat to eat without specifying how much and for how long, Moses assumed that G'd spoke about one single category of meat. This is why he pointed out that there were 600,000 and that it was likely that in order to satisfy the people's craving there had to be more than one species of meat seeing each one of the Israelites craved for something different such as fowl, venison, fish, etc. Moses therefore queried: "and You have said: 'I will give meat,' i.e. only one category of meat?" He queried what kind of meat G'd planned to provide, if flocks, herds or fish? When Moses referred to fish, he did not refer to the total number of fish in the ocean but to all the varieties of fish in the ocean. The words ומצא להם, mean "could enough varieties be found to satisfy all the different tastes the Israelites craved to experience. He suggested that if G'd were to provide flocks and herds, they would claim they wanted gazelles and deer. If G'd were to provide those, they would claim that they wanted fowl. Moses mentioned only the two extremes, i.e. flocks and herds, and he spoke of fish to symbolise the various kinds of meat between herds and flocks. The words "all the fish in the sea" refer to the total number of varieties of fish. Basically, Moses certainly did not question G'd's ability but he mentioned the enormous effort G'd would have to make to satisfy these people's cravings. Had G'd been more specific saying He would provide the various kinds of meat there are, Moses would not have wondered about anything at all. We may assume that Moses' main purpose in raising objections was to prevent the Israelites' wish being granted so that they would not die as a result of having their wish granted.

The second approach is based on Berachot 58 where we are told that G'd does not perform a miracle in order to deceive the "beneficiaries" of that miracle. [I have my doubt that this is a correct interpretation of that statement in the Talmud. Ed.] Seeing that G'd had said that the meat would become זרא, loathsome to the Israelites, Rashi explains that the word means also חרב, sword, in some language, i.e. that the reference is not to the meat that G'd would provide but to meat the Israelites had in their possession at that time. In that event we can understand Moses wondering if the Israelites had a sufficient supply of animals to provide a continuous meat diet for thirty days. G'd replied that בשר אתן להם, that He Himself would give them permission to eat the herds they had brought out of Egypt. Apparently, up until that moment the Israelites had not been allowed to slaughter their animals for anything other than sacrificial meat. When Moses spoke about the fish of the ocean, he referred to the fish in the brook which was the באר של מרים, the well which travelled with the people. Moses calculated that the amount of fish in that brook was not even sufficient to provide the nation with fish for a single day, much less for thirty days. We have already mentioned that Moses did not think that G'd would perform a miracle in order to deceive people and to have them perish as a result of that miracle, so that he did not think G'd would miraculously increase the number of fish. Considering all this, Moses' surprise was certainly legitimate and does not constitute a lack of faith in G'd's ability to provide.