When I was a child I would often cry on the first day of school. It wasn’t because I hated school or didn’t like my teachers. It wasn’t because I was upset about the classmates assigned to my class that year. I cried because of nostalgia for the prior school year. The experience of returning to school after summer vacation made it clear to me that I was not returning to the comfort and familiarity of, let’s say my fourth grade classroom, but was embarking on something new and it would be some time before I felt similarly at home and comfortable.
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. Wistful memories of the past can move us to tears and can motivate us to recreate and reclaim aspects of the past. The grass is always greener, in the lawns of our memories. As an emotion, nostalgia is very human and morally neutral. But because it can be so powerful, there is a risk inherent in nostalgic looks to the past. Powerful emotions can cloud our moral judgement and that is precisely what happened in a disturbing and confusing episode in Parashat Ba’alotcha.
Parashat Baha’alotcha is a turning point in Sefer BaMidbar. Up until Chapter 10, everything is going well. The first ten chapters of Sefer Bamidbar tie up loose ends left over from Sefer Vayikra and provide all of the last details for the “operating manual” for the mishkan. As the Israelites take their leave of the Wilderness of Sinai after two years encamped there, they are just weeks away from entering Eretz Yisrael and Moshe’s excitement as he tried to convince his father in law to join them on this journey is palpable.
“We are setting out נֹסְעִ֣ים ׀ אֲנַ֗חְנוּ for the place of which the LORD has said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will be generous with you; for the LORD has promised to be generous to Israel.”
But Moshe’s offer is refused: “I will not go,” he replied to him, “but will return to my native land.”
Moshe’s father in law may have been prescient. He made it back to his native land a long time before the Israelite’s would ever reach their own.
And then, just like that, everything stops going well. The people complain, they are punished, they complain again, Moshe complains, God intervenes, and by the time we reach next week’s parashah, an entire generation is condemned to die in the wilderness after the Sin of the Spies.
Nostalgia, shorn of any moral direction, is a toxic ingredient when things stop going well.
וְהָֽאסַפְסֻף֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּקִרְבּ֔וֹ הִתְאַוּ֖וּ תַּאֲוָ֑ה וַיָּשֻׁ֣בוּ וַיִּבְכּ֗וּ גַּ֚ם בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ מִ֥י יַאֲכִלֵ֖נוּ בָּשָֽׂר׃
The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat!
They continue:
זָכַ֙רְנוּ֙ אֶת־הַדָּגָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־נֹאכַ֥ל בְּמִצְרַ֖יִם חִנָּ֑ם אֵ֣ת הַקִּשֻּׁאִ֗ים וְאֵת֙ הָֽאֲבַטִּחִ֔ים וְאֶת־הֶחָצִ֥יר וְאֶת־הַבְּצָלִ֖ים וְאֶת־הַשּׁוּמִֽים׃
We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
This is a wild and incomprehensible complaint. If they want meat, why do they then reminisce about fish, cucumbers and garlic? And in what way could it possibly be accurate for them to claim that in Egypt they were fed fish אֲשֶׁר־נֹאכַ֥ל בְּמִצְרַ֖יִם חִנָּ֑ם which were given to them “for free” in Egypt? The Egyptians didn’t provide straw for making bricks, do you think they gave out free fish to their slaves?
Rashi asks this question:
אִ”תֹּ שֶׁמִּצְרִיִּים נוֹתְנִים לָהֶם דָּגִים חִנָּם, וַהֲלֹא כְּבָר נֶאֱמַר “וְתֶבֶן לֹא יִנָּתֵן לָכֶם” (שמות ה’), אִם תֶּבֶן לֹא הָיוּ נוֹתְנִין לָהֶם חִנָּם, דָּגִים הָיוּ נוֹתְנִין לָהֶם חִנָּם
And Rashi answers:
וּמַהוּ אוֹמֵר חִנָּם, חִנָּם מִן הַמִּצְוֹת
The fish that the Israelites ate in Egypt were free of mitzvot. We were nostalgic for a carefree life where we could eat and work and not have to worry about any responsibilities beyond ourselves. That too is a kind of nostalgia. It is not uncommon to feel nostalgia for a time when we were too young to be burdened with heavy responsibilities. It’s natural and it’s human to think back with fondness to a simpler time of life. But it’s wrong to yearn for existence without moral accountability. The prime of life cannot be a stage of life in which we were too young to be accountable to others and unable to make a positive difference in the world.
A few verses later, when the Torah describes this spirit of complaint and rebelion spreading among the Israelite camp, an unexpected word is used:
וַיִּשְׁמַ֨ע מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶת־הָעָ֗ם בֹּכֶה֙ לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֔יו
“Moshe heard the people crying by family” but the Torah’s phrase בֹּכֶה֙ לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֔יו can also be translated to mean that Moshe heard the people crying for their families. What does that mean? Here too Rashi explains this complaint and rebellion as being a yearning for freedom from moral constraints. What does בֹּכֶה֙ לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֔יו mean? It means they were crying over “matters of the family” they were crying because of the Torah’s prohibitions against incest.
In the “good old days” Rashi tells us, sexual abuse within families was rampant, nobody knew enough to intervene or protect against it, and that carefree existence where we didn’t have to worry about the hidden victims and secret perpertrators in our own families, is something to miss. Indeed, it’s so much easier and simpler not to know and not to feel a responsibility to care about such unpleasant things. Even today, the most common reaction to a shocking accusation against a respected communal figure is to be concerned for his reputation, for his family, for his career and the good that he does and to wish that his victim would just go away.
Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, Netziv, understands this episode in an entirely different way. The Israelites did not miss Egyptian cuisine, rather they resented eating mannah because eating mannah, which could not be stored and which descended by miracle from Heaven each day, reminded them of their utter dependence on God. In truth, they, like each one of us, is entirely dependent on God for each day we are alive. But we like to ignore that dependence. According to Netziv, we were nostalgic for an imaginary power which we never truly possessed.
Memory occupies a central location in the religious experience of a Jew. But memory always has a moral purpose. We must, the Torah tells us, time and time again, remember that we were slaves in Egypt. Not to look back fondly on a life with no moral responsibility. But to be inspired and enabled to care for the strangers in our midst. We don’t recall our history of persecution to remember to “look out for number one” but instead in order to create a Jewish community and a Jewish society in which there is justice for everyone and everyone is protected from the sorts of victimization that we experienced in Egypt.
The nostalgia of our ancestors in Parashat Baha’alotcha was not just another dessert complaint and it was not just a rebellion. It was a betrayal of the very function of memory. Their memories inspired them to want less responsibility and to want fewer obligations to others. They yearned for a return of the illusion of power and independence that was impossible while living in God’s shadow.
Jewish memory has a moral valence and is always deployed for a positive purpose. When we express nostalgia, for example, think of the verse and the prayer, “Hadesh Yameinu k’Kedem, renew our days as of old,” we do so to yearn for a time of greater responsibility and greater mitzvah observance. That nostalgia and that yearning can propel for a brighter future in which the past is a source of inspiration rather than a distraction or temptation.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 