Dear Friends,
“Waste not, want not.”
“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”
”You can always go back for seconds.”
“There are children starving in India.”
These were among my late mother’s most common pronouncements, reserved for my brother, sister and me at the dinner table. Their common message was clear: do not waste. Only later did I understand that they originated not in 1960’s suburban America, but in Depression and World War II home-front mentality, in which my mother was raised.
My mother would have resonated with the description in this week’s Torah portion of the daily collection of manna in the wilderness. The Israelites scavenged for the seed-like stuff which God dropped overnight from the heavens, and which would sustain the hungry Hebrews for forty years of wandering. They were cautioned to only gather what they and their household could eat that day, and not to horde any of the manna until the morning. It would rot.
However, the text records, “But they paid no attention to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it became infested with maggots and stank. And Moses was angry with them.” [Exodus 16:20]
Why was Moses angry with the Israelites?
Most simply, his ire could be due to their disobedience. After all, Moses had just come to the desert with these recently-freed slaves, and he was trying to develop order and deference from the crowd. He could have felt personally spurned.
Or, Moses’ anger could be that the people had not trusted God, which could jeopardize Moses’ position with God. Indeed, later in our chapter when the Israelites foraged for manna on Shabbat, God remonstrated Moses on account of the Israelites’ defiant noncompliance.
Each of these could be worthy justification for Moses’ anger at the wasted manna. Yet, I choose to subscribe to my mom’s code. She would claim that Moses was upset at the wasted food. Wasting, in her eyes, was nearly a violation of sanctity. Admittedly, her ethos evolved during periods of national stricture, when not wasting was sacrosanct.
Thus, the food in the ancient desert, or the broccoli on my plate, could be described as manifestations of Divine providence. To waste either was to demean and desecrate the gift of the Creator. And, that gift cannot be replaced.
To me, today’s resurgent sensitivity to environmental protections and global warming hearkens back to the same teaching. Wasting is simply a tragic loss of irreplaceable natural resources –be it a majestic tree, an ancient glacier, or a sprig of broccoli.
Thanks Mom. Thanks Moses.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
“Waste not, want not.”
“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”
”You can always go back for seconds.”
“There are children starving in India.”
These were among my late mother’s most common pronouncements, reserved for my brother, sister and me at the dinner table. Their common message was clear: do not waste. Only later did I understand that they originated not in 1960’s suburban America, but in Depression and World War II home-front mentality, in which my mother was raised.
My mother would have resonated with the description in this week’s Torah portion of the daily collection of manna in the wilderness. The Israelites scavenged for the seed-like stuff which God dropped overnight from the heavens, and which would sustain the hungry Hebrews for forty years of wandering. They were cautioned to only gather what they and their household could eat that day, and not to horde any of the manna until the morning. It would rot.
However, the text records, “But they paid no attention to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it became infested with maggots and stank. And Moses was angry with them.” [Exodus 16:20]
Why was Moses angry with the Israelites?
Most simply, his ire could be due to their disobedience. After all, Moses had just come to the desert with these recently-freed slaves, and he was trying to develop order and deference from the crowd. He could have felt personally spurned.
Or, Moses’ anger could be that the people had not trusted God, which could jeopardize Moses’ position with God. Indeed, later in our chapter when the Israelites foraged for manna on Shabbat, God remonstrated Moses on account of the Israelites’ defiant noncompliance.
Each of these could be worthy justification for Moses’ anger at the wasted manna. Yet, I choose to subscribe to my mom’s code. She would claim that Moses was upset at the wasted food. Wasting, in her eyes, was nearly a violation of sanctity. Admittedly, her ethos evolved during periods of national stricture, when not wasting was sacrosanct.
Thus, the food in the ancient desert, or the broccoli on my plate, could be described as manifestations of Divine providence. To waste either was to demean and desecrate the gift of the Creator. And, that gift cannot be replaced.
To me, today’s resurgent sensitivity to environmental protections and global warming hearkens back to the same teaching. Wasting is simply a tragic loss of irreplaceable natural resources –be it a majestic tree, an ancient glacier, or a sprig of broccoli.
Thanks Mom. Thanks Moses.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
