Commento su Numeri 11:33

טרם יכרת Translate this as the Targum does: עד דלא פסק whilst it (the flesh, the supply of flesh) had not yet ceased. Another explanation is: one had not yet time to bite it through with his teeth before his soul departed (Sifrei Bamidbar 98).

הבשר עודנו בין שניהם, it had not yet even come to the stage when they would despise it and be revolted by it.

מכה רבה מאד, “a very great blow.” It was pestilence. We must ask why Moses did not pray to G’d to stop the plague as he had done at Taveyrah when G’d had sent fire? Perhaps he was ashamed seeing the sin was so great and the people’s faith so small, their guilt being their ingratitude. They had kept piling guilt upon guilt ever since they had moved from Sinai into the desert and had tried to induce physical desires in themselves. They had failed to learn the lesson from what had happened at Taveyrah where many of them had been burned to death. Moses was also ashamed so that he had been provoked into saying to G’d: “why have You done evil with Your servant?” (verse 11) He was afraid that if he started to pray he would give the attribute of Justice an opening against the people, seeing he had already noticed ויחר אף ה' מאד, “that G’d had become very angry” (verse 10).

Before it was finished. Meaning before it had been digested.

הבשר עודנו בין שניהם, “while the meat was still between their teeth, before it had been chewed, etc.;” to the question of why G–d waited this long before displaying His anger, the answer is that if He had reacted angrily sooner, the people would have interpreted His anger as proof that He was unable to meet their requests. Once He had proved that He could provide not only what they had asked for but more, He reacted with the anger that He had withheld up to then. We find an interesting verse in Psalms 78.31:ויהרוג במשמניהם, “He killed the healthy, fat ones among them.” The psalmist considers that the healthy young men amongst the people at that time, were more guilty than any other section of the people as they had lacked absolutely nothing, as testified to by their continued health and vitality even in the desert. The Torah describes some people dying while not even having swallowed the meat yet, others are described as eating from it for a whole month. How do we understand this? The moral level of different Israelites varied. The ones on the lowest level did not even get to swallow it, whereas those on higher levels died at a time appropriate to their respective moral standing.

הבשר עודנו בין שניהם, “while the meat was still between their teeth etc.;” the negative effect was delayed until the whole people had been provided with sufficient meat, so none would be able to say that they were only stricken because G-d was not able to provide sufficient meat for all of them.

טרם יכרת, the period of one month of which G’d had spoken had not yet elapsed;

ויך ה' בעם, the ones who had been in the forefront of expressing their lust in order to provoke G’d so that they were punished for their provocation. When G’d had said “they will eat from it for a month,” He had referred only to those members of the people who had cried (crocodile’s tears) without actually having experienced a craving for meat at all. The ones who had said: “why did we leave Egypt?” were the ones who were the first to be punished, even before the meat got into their gullets. The words of verse 20 והיה לכם לזרא were fulfilled by what happened to these people who had pretended by their crying that they felt an overpowering desire for meat.