A Taste of Shabbos – Parashat Beshalach

A staple of a Shabbat meal is Challah, preferably two whole, covered loaves, but where does that tradition come from? Most people know about the dramatic climax of the Exodus – the splitting of the sea. But really the continuing aftermath is more impressive. For forty years in the desert the Israelites subsisted on a miracle bread that fell from heaven each day except for Shabbat, when two measures descended on Friday. The Torah relates that there was a layer of dew under the Manna, and one on top, hence the custom of covering the Challah. There are several other parallels depicted by the sages, between the Manna and the nature of Shabbos itself. Let’s look at some of them.

A prominent one is – just as the Manna was said to taste whatever food the person had in mind, so too there is a special flavor called Shabbat that is not present during the weekdays. One of my favorite Manna teachings is the following: Even though the Manna could taste whatever a person wanted, the taste was limited to the prior experience of the eater. What if a person was a ‘poor eater?’ In other words, whatever the reason, not everyone had similar gustatory experiences. Why was this? Why would G-d bring about miracles for no reason? One response comes from several rabbis: How were the Israelites able to do the significant mitzvah of Tzedakah in the desert? By each person sharing their personal description of a particular food with someone who didn’t have that literal familiarity of that food. Now if we can expand that idea to a non-physical phenomenon, this could have practical relevance. Perhaps it means that we are meant to share not just our food and possessions with others, but also our unique experiences and the wisdom we have accrued in our lives with those who can benefit from our sharing.

Another miraculous aspect of the Manna was that when it fell before each person’s tent, it differentiated in the distance to the tent. As the sages put it, for the righteous it landed right near their tents, and for those not so righteous, it would land further from them. In a similar way, the righteous would not have to work hard to prepare it; it would be ‘pre-packaged.’ What is the message here? It seems to be that life is easiest for the righteous. But our life experience suggests the opposite! As in the famous question of Moshe to G-d: ‘Why is the way of the righteous to suffer and the wicked to prosper?’ However, if we think more deeply, so much of how we feel about what’s missing or present in our lives, depends not just on our objective and quantitative possessions but on the quality of our attitudes and perceptions. There is a famous story about the Tzadik Reb Zushia: Once the holy Maggid sent two of his most prominent disciples to R. Zushia to ask him about how the Talmud says that a person should consider something bad, equal to when something good happens. When they came to the humble hovel of R. Zushia, he said there seemed to be a mistake coming to him because he never had a bad experience in his life.

It is said that even the nature and appearance of a person may be transformed on Shabbos. There is a teaching from R. Mendel of Rimanov, when regarding Manna, the Israelites asked ‘Mahn Hu?’ what is it, they were also asking, ‘What is He?’ In other words, the Mahn had so changed the consumer, that he was at first unrecognizable. Imagine if we could truly feel different every Shabbat!

There are many more details about the miraculous nature of the Manna, details of course that are not visibly present in our times, but the most remarkable aspect to me seems to be the power of kavana, intention, in manifesting various forms of the Manna. This is what perhaps we can most relate to about the idea that even though we don’t work on Shabbos, our sustenance is actually blessed by our faith. Also linguistically, the Hebrew word Mahn is also at the root of EMUNah, the Hebrew word for faith.

All these associations take us to the teachings that Shabbos is parallel to the Mahn: 1-How we prepare for it makes a difference, 2- we don’t work for our livelihood on Shabbat, but Shabbat is the source of our livelihood, 3- We ourselves and others around us are ‘different’ on Shabbos. 4- the taste itself is dependent on the intention and consciousness we bring to the food. As an elderly survivor of the Gulag put it, ‘when I was in the camps, I had trouble finding a Talit to wear, but my sincerity was easy to invoke. When I came to a place of material comfort, a tallit was easily accessible but the sincerity? That was another story.’ When we strive to tap into the essence of Shabbat, may we, with due diligence, at least have a taste of both the external and the internal aspects of the holiness of Shabbos!