(The following is based on shiurim from Rav Yisroel Brog, and Rav Yissochar Frand)
The pasuk tells us that after Aharon died, the people lodged a complaint against Hakodosh Boruch Hu. They said they were tired of the circuitous route that they were taking, ותקצר נפש העם בדרך, they were fed up with the difficulties of traveling around for many days and וידבר העם באלקים ובמשה, and they began to speak against Hashem and Moshe, למה העליתנו ממצרים, why did You take us out of Mitzrayim, למות במדבר , to die in the midbar, אין לחם ואין מים, there's no bread and there's no water (Bamidbar 21:4-5).
I have a simple question. There was no bread? What do you mean? Mon fell every single day! Water? What do you mean there was no water? There was water from a rock. There was a rock that traveled along with them and all you had to do was put a stick on the rock and the water came right to your door. There was plenty of water!
Rabbeinu Bachaye explains (Bamdibar 21:5) that the nature of their complaint was that their existence was not normal, or natural. They said, “We don't have bread like all the other nations have bread. We don't have water like everybody else has water. All the umos ha’olam [nations of the world] have all their needs provided whether they are tzaddikim or reshaim. They have bread. They have water. But we don’t get our food delivered like everyone else. We don't get a week’s worth of food at once like everybody else does; it comes one day at a time. And for everyone else, water is free. But for us, when Miriam died, the water stopped. Everything is dependent on reward and punishment, sechar v’onesh. Why can't we just be like every other nation?!”
People don't like to be subjected, to be tied to rewards and punishment. You like to go into your closet and take out some clothes, and not only if you're a good boy will the clothes come off the hanger. And if you're not a good boy, the hanger gets stuck and the shirt gets stuck to the hanger. They didn't like that. And they started to say, ונפשנו קצה, very strong language. We are disgusted, בלחם הקלק, with this bread that's just light and insatiable. It doesn't satiate us. It's also the same thing every day. If you weren't a tzaddik, the mon wouldn't fall next to your door. You had to go looking for it. And there is a very strange thing with this kind of food - it's a food after which you never go to the bathroom! It was amazing. If you ate mon, it was entered into the system, but didn’t leave. So, they said, “Did you ever hear of a food that goes in and doesn't have to come out? That's not natural! That means somewhere in our bodies our food is putrefying. It's rotting. That’s not good.” It was a gevaldige nes [unbelievable miracle], but they looked at things in a very negative manner.
Repeating The Same Mistakes
Now, we must read these pasukim because, sadly, there are many people today who are repeating the same mistakes. There are many people who view the life of shomrei Torah u’mitzvos as a harsh life. It's a type of life where you can't just come in and grab a piece of bread and chew on it. A non-Jew goes into a store, sees a piece of bread. He grabs a piece and puts it in his mouth. With us, we have to wash. We have to have a towel. We have to have a keili [utensil]. We have to have enough water. We can't just do mayim achronim. We have to make a berachah, al netilas yodayim. Our hands have to be dry, etc.
If you ever have a ba'al teshuvah come to your house, it's very interesting to see this dynamic, and their initial reaction. You have to know how to deal with the guy in the right way. So, a fellow comes to your table. He sees the table is set beautifully. He sees little rolls next to each person’s place. His mouth starts to salivate. The first thing he says to himself is: “Let me taste a piece of this,” and he puts his hand on the bread. You say to him, “Whoa! One second. You have to wash first.” He’s already getting confused. “My hands are clean. I just washed,” he tells you. “Oh, no, no, you've got to wash for bread.” Okay, so he rolls his eyes. Okay, I’ve got to wash for bread. Then, you can't talk. Shhhhh! After he washes, he starts to talk right away. “Can we eat now?” he asks. And everybody goes, “Shhhh!” Then you tell him to wipe his hands really well because his hands are half wet, so now, he can't eat the bread until his hands are dry. Next, he's got to sit down and wait for everybody else. He's looking around trying to figure out what’s going on, “What are they waiting for already?” And then somebody makes a berachah and they say, “Nu nu, okay now.” So, he starts to talk again. “Mmmm,” he says, “this is good,” as soon as he puts it in his mouth. Everybody says, “Shhhh! No, wait, wait, wait. You've got to swallow your food first before you can talk.” He goes, “Listen, I'm going to swallow it soon. Don't worry about it.” You tell him, “No, you've got to swallow it first.” The guy says, “What else do I have to do?!” Now, the guy obviously doesn’t see any beauty in any of this, because he lacks understanding. People develop negative attitudes, and they don't see the fact that we're royalty, the fact that Klal Yisroel are bnei melachim [sons of kings].
Royalty Lives Differently
Do you know royal dinner etiquette?
Traditionally, cutlery is held with the knife in the right hand, and the fork in the left, the index finger goes down the fork, stopping before the bridge. For knives, the index finger also extends down the knife, stopping where the blade and handle meet.
Never let silverware squeak against your plate.
Always drink from the same spot on your cup. Hold the teacup pinching your thumb and index finger between the handle.
When a member of the Royal Family is finished eating, they place their cutlery together. If you imagine the plate as a clock face and the cutlery as the hands of the clock, when finished eating in Britain, the cutlery is positioned at 6:30 with the tines of the fork facing upwards.
The cutlery is placed together in such a finished position to alert the staff (and other diners) that you have finished so they can clear your plate without having to ask whether you are finished or not.”
When dining with Her (or His) Majesty, no one should begin until the Queen (or King) begins eating; similarly, when the Queen’s cutlery goes into the finished (6:30) position everyone else should follow suit— regardless of whether there is food left on their own plates.
Of course, there is also a whole protocol for how to use a napkin. For larger napkins, members of the Royal Family will place their napkins on their lap shortly after taking their seats, folding it in half with the crease facing away from them. When they are finished eating and leaving the table, the napkin is placed in a neat heap on the left-hand side of the setting.
With formal dining, conversation flows to each person’s left and right— rarely ever across the dining table.
We are royalty. We are not beheimos [animals]. That’s what all the rules are about.
And Hashem Did Miracles for Us
You’re right. Their situation in the midbar was not regular. It wasn’t normal. But they got so fed up with this that they came and said, “We're mamash disgusted with this unnatural lifestyle.”
So, what happened? Hashem sent fiery snakes. They started to bite. And then what happened? Moshe Rabbeinu put up this pole. On top of the pole he made a copper snake and he told everybody to look at the copper snake and get healed.
The remedy for snakebites was to look at a snake!? This has to be the most peculiar anti-venom serum ever created! Just look at the snake and you will be cured.
In fact, the international symbol of medicine has become the caduceus, a staff with two snakes wrapped around it. The source for that is this Biblical passage – the cure was the snakes. What is the message here? The plague is strange and the cure for the plague is even stranger.
The Gemara in Yoma (76a) says that the talmidim of Rabi Shimon bar Yochai asked him, “Why did the mon not descend for Klal Yisroel once a year (in a quantity enough to last them for a whole year)?” Rabi Shimon bar Yochai answered them with a parable to a king who had an only son. He provided his son with his needs of sustenance once a year, for the whole year. Therefore, the son only came to see the king once a year, when he needed money.
You send your son off to Yeshiva. You give him a credit card to use for expenses. This way he can buy toothpaste and pay for any other miscellaneous expenses. When does the father hear from the son? Maybe never. When the father sees that the son has overdrawn the credit card, then the son hears from the father!
The Gemara says that when the king gave his son enough money for a whole year, he heard from him once a year. Therefore, the king changed his method of financing his son. He provided for his daily needs, one day at a time. This way the king heard from his son every day.
So too it was with Bnei Yisroel. Every single day people would worry – how am I going to feed my family? Every day they were afraid – maybe the mon will not fall tomorrow and my entire family will be wiped out in famine. The result was that everyone had their hearts focused on their Father in Heaven. The mon came from heaven,
so they needed to daven every day: “Master of the Universe, give us food.” That is why the mon came down every day.
What does this have to do with snakes? The Sefas Emes says that Hashem cursed the Snake – “You shall eat dust all the days of your life.” The world asks – what kind of curse is that? Dirt is available ubiquitously. The Snake will never worry about the source of his next meal. However, the curse is that the Ribbono Shel Olam is, in effect, saying to the Snake: “Here is your sustenance. Do not bother me again. I do not want to see you ever again.”
The contact that every other living creature needs to have with its Creator does not apply to the Snake. This is not a blessing. It is a curse.
This is why Hashem gave mon every single day. He wanted Kal Yisroel to realize that we are dependent on Him. That is precisely why they did not like the mon. Human beings do not like to feel their dependence. We like to delude ourselves and think we are independent. That is why they kept on complaining about the mon. The Ribbono Shel Olam had this calculation – you should know that you are dependent on Me. The people resented that. They did not want to admit this fact.
Now the punishment they received makes sense. The punishment came from snakes because the people were acting like snakes – they did not want to be dependent on Divine handouts. That was the fate of the Snake. The Ribbono Shel Olam was sending them a message: Snakes. You want to be like the primordial Snake? Then the snakes will bite you. Do you know what the cure for this is? “You shall stare at the copper snake and be cured.”
The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah (29a) comments that it was not a matter simply of looking at the snakes – because snakes cannot cure. The idea was that they put the snake on a high place and raised it on a flagpole. When they lifted their eyes towards their Father in Heaven, they were cured. The cure was in looking upwards and figuring out from where their Help came from, and upon whom they were dependent.
That was the aveirah [sin]. The aveirah was saying, “I want to be independent. I do not want to realize my dependence on the Ribbono Shel Olam.” The punishment was: You are acting like snakes – you will get bitten by snakes! The cure came when Klal Yisroel cast their gaze up toward Heaven. This is a lesson that is as important today as it was then. We think that with all our wisdom, we can go and we can come, and we can invent and we can function independently. We dare not say, “It is my strength and the power of my hand which has made for me all this valor.” (Devorim 8:17) We need to integrate the lesson of the snakes into our daily lives. We need Hashem for every step and breath we take. (R’ Eliezer Parkoff, Weekly Chizuk)
