Parashat B'haalot'cha

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat B’haalot’cha the Israelites, still wandering in the desert, become weary of travel and grow bored with their homogeneous diet of the desert food, manna. And, they start to complain:

The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!’ (Numbers 11:4-6).

I call this part of Numbers the counter-narrative and delight in its inclusion in Torah each year. That’s right, this week we are given access to the on-the-ground reality of wandering. Torah does not romanticize life, nor does it not paint rosy pictures of our ancestors’ relationship with God. Rather, it teaches us that life is often messy and includes disappointments, great and small. This week’s Torah portion show us that just as our ancestors’ relationships with God could grow strained and become tinged with doubt or anger, so too might our relationships with God feel challenging.

In almost every Jewish prayer, we thank God for delivering us from Egypt. In this week’s Torah portion, our ancestors glorify the conditions of slavery and complain to God for freeing them. But, even this is considered Torah. Torah preserves these disrespectful, hurtful insults hurled at God by the people. I believe these statements are to be read as both a reminder and as a comfort.

Reminder: Just as it is our right to praise God, so too is it our right to become angry with God. While the example in this week’s Torah portion may seem mundane (a spicier diet), it is connected with the realities of the Israelites’ condition. Our ancestors were disappointed, they were scared, they were tired, and they felt that God and life had dealt harshly with them. Indeed, this week’s Torah portion is a reminder that we all feel like complaining or crying out at times. It is also a reminder that God is present to hear our cries.

Comfort: Our tradition doesn’t paint a perfect picture either of God or of us. In this way, we can take comfort knowing that Judaism has always made room for our full selves. We are comforted this week knowing that there is space in our community for us at our best and at our worst.

On this Shabbat, let us find the strength to both praise God and cry out to God. Let us remember that we can pour out our full selves to the divine and know that we will be heard. And, let us take comfort in knowing that our tradition never expects us to be “perfect,” but mirrors to us our full selves.