Copyright Neal Joseph Loevinger 2023
Torah Portion: Beha’alotcha
לֹֽא־אוּכַ֤ל אָנֹכִי֙ לְבַדִּ֔י לָשֵׂ֖את אֶת־כׇּל־הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֑ה כִּ֥י כָבֵ֖ד מִמֶּֽנִּי׃
I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. (Bamidbar/Numbers 11:14)
Good afternoon! There are many rich stories, themes, and texts in this week’s Torah portion, but one stands out as eternally relevant, because it involves kvetching. The Israelites are on their long sojourn from Sinai to the Promised Land, and being sustained by the miraculous manna that appears every morning in precisely sufficient quantities, plus wells of water that appear as needed.
Apparently, that’s not enough for some of the travelers, the so called “riffraff” or “rabble-rousers” (see here) who provoked the rest of the Israelites to complain about the nice food they had back in Egypt (you know, when they were slaves.) Moshe hears the people weeping and moaning and kvetching, and complains to God that he, Moshe, can’t possibly provide meat to the people and can’t carry the burden of leadership alone. In fact, he’d rather die than bear this heavy burden by himself!
Ramban, AKA Nachmanides, has a beautiful interpretation of the verse quoted above. He points out that even if there were many other leaders of the people, the complainers would still come to Moshe to pray for them and try to solve their problem. (Raise your hand if you’ve ever gone right to the top of an organization with your complaints. I want to speak to a manager!) What a team of other leaders could do is ”speak to the hearts” of the complainers to try to get their anger to abate or subside. He also offers a second theory: if there were many leaders who had some share of Moshe’s prophesy, then the complainers would go to those other folks too in order to ask for prayers.
I like Ramban’s first interpretation, because it speaks to another eternal human truth: you can offer compassionate presence to another even if you can’t solve their material (or medical, or financial, or logistical, or emotional) problem. Maybe the compassionate presence is even more important than the presentational problem because people generally feel less afraid and anxious when they know they don’t have to go through a challenge alone. This isn’t just true of the complaining Israelites: God tells Moshe to appoint 70 elders so he, Moshe, wouldn’t have to bear his burden by himself. Perhaps they comforted Moshe as much as they comforted the people: a listening ear and an open heart can be transformative for anyone, from the greatest leader to the humblest among us.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary 