When we were children, certain things that our parents said used to
frustrate us to no end. Remember
that? We vowed that, when we grew up and
had children of our own, we would take a different approach. Remember that??! I remember the first time I caught myself
responding to my son’s “Why do I have to do that?” I responded with those immortal words: “Because I’m your father and I say so.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth,
and as soon as my son turned away frustrated, I reflected. Oy!
I’ve become my father! That
was a discomforting thought for a moment.
But then I realised that accepting your parents’ word is part of growing
up. Even when it isn’t what you,
the child, want to hear. Accepting that
the answer isn’t always the one you want to hear, is part of growing up…part of
life. Another part of life, is finding
as parents that our own parents weren’t as ‘bad’ as we’d thought them to be,
back when. So, even if it is at first
disconcerting, we end up in effect ‘becoming’ our parents in significant ways.
There is one expression I heard often from my
mother as a child, which I think I’ve managed to avoid saying to my
children. Sometimes my mother would
refuse me something and I would argue with her over it. If it was something I wanted to eat, and she
finally gave in and let me have it, she would often exclaim: “You can have it, until it’s coming out of
your ears!” Even then, I knew she
didn’t mean that literally. Rather, she
was expressing her frustration that I’d persisted in my whining until she could
take it no longer and gave in. Like many
children, I learned exactly how long my mother would hold out. I could calculate exactly how long I would
have to keep up the nagging until I would get my way.
So why have I
avoided using this expression when giving in to my children? Maybe because I’ve been a more difficult
customer than my mother.
So what’s the point
of “coming out of your ears?” Mum would make
me eat or drink whatever it was, until I could stand it no longer. Coming out of your ears meant having
so much of it, that I became sick of it. The things my mother would make me partake
until they were “coming out of my ears” were things that were not intrinsically
bad. They were things that, in
moderation, are not harmful. But which,
in excess, are not very good.
In this week’s Torah
portion, we find an example of this kind of whining, nagging behaviour. It isn’t by children, but by the Israelites
in the desert. And we find an example of
God, very parent-like, decreeing that His people will have that, which they
desire, until they can stand it no longer.
He doesn’t use the expression “out of their ears,” but a close
relative: “out of their noses.”
The people are in
the throes of one of their periodic tantrums against the manna they’ve been
eating. During the sojourn in the
wilderness, the people are not in the same place long enough to plant,
cultivate, and harvest a crop. There’s
apparently no significant forage in the wilderness. They are droving their livestock. But the Torah does not tell us why they did
not eat of their flocks and herds along the way. It only tells us that they did eat
manna, a white flaky substance, which they gathered and made into cakes that
they fried and ate. Manna represents a
Divine gift. It is a food that is there
for the gathering, with little effort, in abundance, and it is nutritionally
complete. But the Israelites are not
satisfied. They want variety. Moreover, they want meat!!!
So they
complain. They nag. Finally, God relents. And He relents as a parent might to a nagging
child. He decrees that the Israelites
shall have meat. And they shall eat it
every day for a full month. Until – the
Torah tells us literally – “it is coming out of [their] noses and making [them]
nauseous!”
I guess there are
two lessons to be learnt from this reading.
First, some things are good – or at least, not harmful – in moderation
but definitely not good in excess.
Meat is one of those, although vegetarians might disagree. But most of us don’t think of meat as
intrinsically harmful. It provides
essential protein in our diet. Red meat
in particular, gives us iron. It does
not contain carbohydrate. On the other
hand, meat in excess is not good for us.
It is more difficult than other foods, to digest. It puts more fat in our circulatory systems.
Although for this purpose some meats are worse offenders than others. For most of us, eating meat in moderation is
not a bad thing. But if we eat and eat
and eat meat, we will feel negative effects.
Like when we
indulge at a churrascaria, a Brazilian-style barbeque where the meat is
brought to the table until you tell the wait-staff to stop. At such restaurants, one has a tendency to
eat too much meat. Or maybe you’ve
driven across north Texas on Interstate 40 and stopped at The Big Texan, a
steakhouse restaurant in Amarillo that advertises a 72 ounce steak – free if
you can finish it! That’s 2,041
grams! No wonder they can make that
offer; I’m guessing that few customers can actually finish it. If you can’t finish it, you have to pay $ 72
– a dollar per ounce. As many times as
I’ve passed the place, I’ve never stopped; I can’t imagine getting back in the
car and continuing the drive after even trying to consume over two kilos of
steak.
But perhaps the more
important lesson from this reading, is the nature of human desire. We need to learn that the desires of our
hearts can be left unfulfilled – or gratification can be delayed – and it will
not harm us. For most of us, our parents
served as the messengers of this lesson.
For that, we probably resented them…and unfairly so. For the Israelites in the wilderness in this
narrative of the Torah, it was God Himself who was the messenger.
Some adults have had
to re-learn the lesson. I’ve met adults
who act quite child-like in their pursuit of their desires. This, even when such pursuit is at the
expense of more important things. When
we are so hell-bent to get what we want, when we want it, we adults often lack
someone to dispense that which we desire until it’s coming out of our
noses. Instead, we pursue it to the
point where that pursuit causes us, and those closest to us, harm. Sometimes grievous harm. And that’s unfortunate – because it’s
unnecessary. Shabbat shalom.
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