* Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
In this week’s Torah potion, it is not pleasant to see how the part of the nation bitterly complains and even expresses a desire to return to Egypt.
Miracles demonstrating God’s loving, protective presence surround them and yet, after spending 210 years in Egypt, it appears that Israel leaving Egypt does not mean Egypt has left Israel.
“The riffraff that was among them lusted with strong cravings,” the Torah reads, “and even the children of Israel wept and said: ‘We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt free of charge, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic’... Moses heard the people weeping with their families, each one at the entrance to his tent. The Lord became very angry, and Moshe considered it evil.”
Longing for watermelon instead of showing gratitude for liberation from slavery? These are stories we might have preferred to censor, or at least edit a little. But the Torah hides nothing. On the contrary, God places stories of our weaknesses and waywardness in the Torah so that we can study and learn from them. With the help of our sages, we contemplate the causes of our sins so we do not repeat them.
We may stray from holiness in our own lives too. The question is whether we despair and get stuck or learn from our misguided behavior and move forward.
If we see our undesirable behavior as a warning sign that we have deviated from the proper path, we can rectify such behavior by being extra careful in how we act in the future. Just like the children of Israel who respond to this gloomy episode by getting back on the road to the Promised Land, we too can get back to fulfilling our destiny, especially now, when the Promised Land is once again our home.
