Commento su Numeri 11:13

מאין לי בשר?, Clearly, they know very well that I do not have any meat to give them; if so when they cry and demand “give us meat,” they as much accuse me of being able to provide them with meat but denying them their desire! This is only a crude attempt to find out if my actions as their leader have indeed been prompted by my carrying out Your command! What can I attain from You on their behalf?

V. 13. מאין לי בשר וגו׳: Sie wissen sehr wohl, dass sie damit etwas von mir fordern, dessen Befriedigung völlig außer dem Bereiche meiner Macht liegt. Und da bei der völlig zureichenden und Befriedigung, gewährenden Nahrung, die sie im Manna genießen, es etwas auch Entbehrliches und Überflüssiges ist, was sie fordern, heißt diese Forderung nichts als schikanierendes Quälen des Mannes, in welchem sie den Leiter ihres Geschickes erblicken, und der, wenn er der rechte gewesen wäre, längst diejenige Achtung und Liebe bei ihnen erworben hätte, welche solche schikanöse Gelüste nicht hätten aufkommen lassen.

!תנו לנו בשר, “give us meat!” Their request was inappropriate, seeing that one of the qualities of the manna was that it assumed the taste of whatever the person consuming it wished it to taste like. We know this from Psalms 106,15: ויתן להם שאלתם, בשר., “He gave them whatever they had asked for.” The people had meat from sheep and oxen, as they had taken herds with them from Egypt, as stated Exodus 12,38: “and a mixed multitude went up with them, as well as very much livestock, both flocks and herds.” If you were to say that they had consumed all these herds and flocks in the desert, we have a verse in Numbers 32,1 according to which the tribes of Reuven and Gad had a surfeit of flocks and cattle. Seeing that this was so prompted Rabbi Shmuel to state that what they really lusted for were the women that had now become forbidden for them as wives, (sexual partners) since these laws had been promulgated. If they were described as lusting for “meat,” this shows how they saw in marital unions primarily the element of sexual unions. (Compare Talmud, tractate Yuma folio 75, as well as Bamidbar Rabbah 15, section 24). The Midrash there quotes Psalms 78,27: וימטר עליהם כעפר שאר, וכחול ימים עוף כנף, “He made it rain upon them meat like dust, winged birds like the sands of the sea. Whenever the word שאר appears in the Torah, it is a euphemism for the sexual aspect of marriage, as we know from Leviticus 18,6: איש איש אל כך שאר בשרו לא תקרבו לגלות ערוה, “none of you must approach sexually any kin of his,” The Midrash reinforces its interpretation by pointing out that the Torah, apparently gratuitously, added that the people cried למשפחותם, “on account of their families,” i.e. family members now out of bounds for them for the purpose of sexual union. (Compare Talmud, tractate Shabbat folio 130). It was this that caused Hashem’s anger in verse 10, and Moses” displeasure. At that time Moses said to Hashem that up until that time he had the seventy elders who had been appointed already when he made ready to ascend Mount Sinai for the first time, as we know from Exodus 24,9, where Nadav and Avihu had been named as his assistants as well as seventy unnamed elders. Now, he said, there was no one left that he could call on to assist him. This is why he exclaimed: “I alone am unable to continue to carry this burden!” Nonetheless we are bound to ask what had happened to the seventy elders mentioned in Exodus chapter 24. We must conclude that they had been amongst the people who had been described as murmurers in verse one of our chapter where many people had died by heavenly fire as stated. We had read there in verse four that not only the mixed multitude of Egyptians who had joined the bandwagon of the Jewish people at the Exodus, but also בני ישראל, always an expression describing the elite of the Jewish people, had been included amongst those who had died then. There is a dispute amongst the sages if the people there described as אספסף, had been part of the mixed multitude or had been these seventy elders. According to one view the expression בקצה המחנה, normally translated as “at the outer edge of the camp,” had in fact been the elders whom at this point the Torah referred to euphemistically. Actually, they had been guilty of death by heavenly fire already from the event described in Exodus chapter 24. They too had been guilty of disrespect when experiencing a vision of the Divine glory, not only Nadav and Avihu, who had been named there. (Exodus 24,11) At the time, i.e. the revelation at Mount Sinai and the joyful atmosphere prevailing then, G–d did not wish to disturb these festivities by killing them. We find an allusion to this episode in Psalms 106,18: ותבער אש בעדתם, “fire consumed their congregation.” The expression עדה, “congregation,” is always reserved for describing the highest court of seventy. Compare Numbers15,24: ואם מעיני העדה נעשתה לשגגה, “and if an error was committed because the true situation had been hidden from the eyes of the עדה, i.e. the highest court, Sanhedrin. (Compare Bamidbar Rabbah 15,24)

Eben weil die Forderung etwas ganz Entbehrliches und Überflüssiges betraf, konnte auch weder das Volk noch Mosche erwarten, dass Gott sie auf wundervolle Weise gewähren würde.