Dear Friends,
We’ve heard it before: “Be careful what you wish for!” It may happen, and it may backfire.
Some may apply this aphorism to sports, or to politics, or to the weather. In any event, this witticism often proves to be an ex post facto truism.
So, too, in the Torah. The Israelites were in the desert, journeying for decades, and they readily tired of eating the nondescript manna which nightly descended from the heavens. So, they complained to Moses that they wanted more substantial food; they craved meat. Moses reported their grousing to God, and after some back-and-forth, God delivered.
“A wind from the Eternal started up, swept quail from the sea and strewed them over the camp… some two cubits deep. The people set to gathering quail all that day and night… The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed, when the anger of the Eternal blazed forth against the people and the Eternal struck the people with a very severe plague.” (Numbers 11:31-33)
This was a classic case of “Be careful what you wish for!” Wanting meat, the people were inundated, and their quiescent gluttony emerged such that they brought a plague upon themselves.
Such is the wisdom of unwisely succumbing to our yearnings. Elsewhere, in the Ten Commandments, we are admonished, “Do not covet!” There, the text seems to imply that we should not wish for that which our neighbor possesses. In today’s text, we are warned not to wish for that which we do not have. It may boomerang.
In the Talmud, the sages ask, “Who is wise?” Their answer: “One who can foresee the eventual results of one’s actions.” Hence, we teach our toddlers not to touch the stove; they cannot yet foresee the danger in such an action, but we can.
So, too, is the wisdom in restraining our hankering. Amid a drought, all one wants is rain. Yet, if it comes as a torrent, it does more harm than good. The US President may wish to demonstrate military might; it might reflect not as showing strength, but as overbearing, imbalanced and imprudent, let alone, un-American.
Aristotle, and later Maimonides, each preached the sagacity of seeking the Golden Mean—the balance in life which sustains us physically, intellectually and emotionally. They did not advocate dispassionate passivity, but rather maintaining a healthy and judicious perspicacity.
Ultimately, they would concur: “Be careful what you wish for!”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
We’ve heard it before: “Be careful what you wish for!” It may happen, and it may backfire.
Some may apply this aphorism to sports, or to politics, or to the weather. In any event, this witticism often proves to be an ex post facto truism.
So, too, in the Torah. The Israelites were in the desert, journeying for decades, and they readily tired of eating the nondescript manna which nightly descended from the heavens. So, they complained to Moses that they wanted more substantial food; they craved meat. Moses reported their grousing to God, and after some back-and-forth, God delivered.
“A wind from the Eternal started up, swept quail from the sea and strewed them over the camp… some two cubits deep. The people set to gathering quail all that day and night… The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed, when the anger of the Eternal blazed forth against the people and the Eternal struck the people with a very severe plague.” (Numbers 11:31-33)
This was a classic case of “Be careful what you wish for!” Wanting meat, the people were inundated, and their quiescent gluttony emerged such that they brought a plague upon themselves.
Such is the wisdom of unwisely succumbing to our yearnings. Elsewhere, in the Ten Commandments, we are admonished, “Do not covet!” There, the text seems to imply that we should not wish for that which our neighbor possesses. In today’s text, we are warned not to wish for that which we do not have. It may boomerang.
In the Talmud, the sages ask, “Who is wise?” Their answer: “One who can foresee the eventual results of one’s actions.” Hence, we teach our toddlers not to touch the stove; they cannot yet foresee the danger in such an action, but we can.
So, too, is the wisdom in restraining our hankering. Amid a drought, all one wants is rain. Yet, if it comes as a torrent, it does more harm than good. The US President may wish to demonstrate military might; it might reflect not as showing strength, but as overbearing, imbalanced and imprudent, let alone, un-American.
Aristotle, and later Maimonides, each preached the sagacity of seeking the Golden Mean—the balance in life which sustains us physically, intellectually and emotionally. They did not advocate dispassionate passivity, but rather maintaining a healthy and judicious perspicacity.
Ultimately, they would concur: “Be careful what you wish for!”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
