Along with the joy of teaching high school students comes the drudgery of marking tests – reading answers to the same questions over and over. While one might on occasion see a fascinating, perhaps most original answer, by and large, I think I speak for almost all teachers when I say I much prefer teaching. For better or worse, in our educational system tests are necessary in order to give marks or shall we say to properly evaluate the knowledge of our students.
Ideally, tests serve a second even more important function – at least from an educational point of view. They cause students to review, to better learn the material and organize their thoughts. A good test will help students actualize their potential. The Ramban (Breisheet 22:1) explains that such is the nature of G-d’s tests. They are not meant so that G-d can “grade us” but rather to bring to the surface the ability that lay latent within us. (Yes, teachers are carrying out G-d’s work).
The Jewish people, recently liberated from Egypt, had crossed the Red Sea while their Egyptian pursuers drowned therein. Finally they were on their way to Israel, free from their former taskmasters. Yet all was not rosy. The desert is not an easy place to traverse and the Jewish people yearned for the security and sustenance of Egypt. Slavery can be easier than freedom.
“Would we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Shemot 16:3). While this may seem like a lack of faith in G-d, especially considering the many miraculous events they have witnessed, G-d does not get angry at them. How different might we act wandering in a desert with no food? To expect recently released slaves not to complain would be folly. One might even argue that G-d purposely orchestrated a tough situation so that the Jews would complain and so that He could “test” them.
“And the Lord said to Moshe, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will follow My teachings or not’” (Shemot 16:4).
What exactly the nature of the test is we are not told and that is precisely the point. What aspects one needs to strengthen are different from person to person and generation to generation. For the Jews in the desert there is much that the heavenly bread teaches. For hundreds of years the Jewish people had the basics of life provided to them by their Egyptians masters and hence saw them as the providers of life. It is for this reason we hear over and over the desire to return to Egypt where “they sat by the fleshpots”. Surely that is more reliable than looking for food in the desert. As the founding generation of the Jewish people it was crucial that they realize that one is totally dependent on G-d for one’s sustenance.
In order to change their very natural and normal mindset, G-d let the Jewish people almost starve in the desert, depriving them first of water and then of food. They would need to see that G-d can and will provide for them. But one-time events – no matter how amazing – have little long-term impact. One may be moved for a day or two but then its back to our regular routine, It is the day to day that makes a mark upon us.
For 40 long years each and every day (except Shabbat[1]) the Jewish people would collect their daily food internalizing that it is G-d who is our Provider and Sustainer. Yet they could only collect what was needed for that day – any leftovers would spoil. One was to look heavenward[2] for one’s sustenance. And once a week no manna would fall further “testing” the people so that they realize that one dare not just assume that our sustenance will always be there. G-d can take away just as easily as He can provide.
Eventually bread would no longer fall from heaven. “And the children of Israel ate the manna for forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they did eat the manna, until they came to the borders of the land of Canaan” (Shemot 16:35). The placement of this verse here is quite baffling. Why is it important to know, at this point in the story – long before the sin of the spies – that the Jews ate the manna for 40 years until they arrived in Israel. The Torah could have – and seemingly should have – left out this verse and we would know such when they actually did arrive in Israel. “And the manna ceased on the morrow when they ate of the corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna anymore; but they did eat of the produce of the land of Canaan that year (Yehoshua 5:12).
Apparently, this too is part of the test of the manna – the much harder part. In the Land of Israel manna would no longer fall from heaven. The people would need to plow and plant and harvest and thresh – they would have to work hard for their sustenance. And when that sustenance came one could feel rewarded for one’s hard work. With the produce dependant on the work of the farmer one is wont to say, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth” (Devarim 8:17). Especially when we enter the Land of Israel we must “be very careful lest we forget the Lord your G-d…who fed you manna in the wilderness.”
The test of the manna is to realize that even when we work hard and are successful that ultimately it is G-d who is our Provider and it is G-d who decides if we will in fact be successful. For every “successful” person there are many others who work just as hard yet are not blessed with equal success.
We must live our lives in the natural world and are actually forbidden to rely on G-d to provide for any of our needs. “Ein somchim al hanes, we must not rely on miracles” (Pesachim 64b), our Sages declare. And unlike the Jews in the desert we are to save for another day. Yet at the same time we must acknowledge that “our manna” still comes from heaven.
This is a very difficult test. But G-d has faith that we can rise to the occasion and pass with flying colours.
[1] It is worth noting that the laws of the manna are the first time the Jewish people are introduced to the concept of Shabbat – having not witnessed G-d resting on the seventh day of creation. The first lesson of Shabbat is to have faith that one’s needs can be met even if one does not work on Shabbat. While that may be easy to say today, this was a most difficult test as little as 75 years ago. With no “double portion” falling on Shabbat we dare not give anyone who was unable to pass this test a failing grade.
[2] We have this very same concept at the end of this week’s Torah reading where, when Moshe lifted his hands the Jewish people would be victorious over Amalek and when he lowered them Amalek would secure victory. Our Sages commenting on this very strange military strategy, “Did the hands of Moses make war or break war when he lowered them? Rather, to tell you that as long as the Jewish people turned their eyes upward and subjected their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they prevailed, but if not, they fell” (Mishna Rosh Hashanah 3:8).
