Eikev: 5784 - "And He afflicted you, and let you go hungry, and fed you the manna": There are several explanations for 'He afflicted you,' but why 'let you go hungry'? Presented by Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld,…

00:00 Speaker 1 The weekly parsha, Parshas Eikev. In the parsha, Moshe Rabbeinu rebukes the Jewish people. One of the things he rebukes them for is complaining about the manna. They came with complaints: “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt, the garlic, the cucumbers, and now there is nothing at all; our eyes see only the manna.” Yet what kind of bread did Hakadosh Boruch Hu give them? Moshe Rabbeinu praises it: bread from heaven that contained every flavor. Ah, the parsha says, “He afflicted you and made you hungry, and fed you the manna.” What does “He afflicted you” mean?

00:46 Speaker 2 “He afflicted you.”

00:47 Speaker 1 It says “He afflicted you”—He caused them hardship.

00:49 Speaker 2 He caused them hardship.

00:50 Speaker 1 “And made you hungry.” Why? Why “made you hungry”? “He afflicted you” we can still understand, because it says that someone who has bread in his basket is not like someone who has no bread in his basket. You couldn’t stockpile the manna. What I collected today is what I have; that’s what I can eat. So someone who has no bread in his basket is anxious every day: Will there be manna today or not? That is “He afflicted you.” There is another opinion about what “He afflicted you” means: someone who sees what he is eating is not like someone who does not see what he is eating. After all, the manna had every flavor. I want to taste fish right now, but I don’t see fish, so it feels less filling to me, because I can’t see what I want to eat. That is “He afflicted you.” But what does “made you hungry” mean? Anyone could go out and collect manna. So what hunger was there? Why “made you hungry”? There is a very nice explanation here. The Gemara in tractate Yoma says this: There are three verses that seem to contradict one another. One verse says the manna fell on the camp, meaning it fell inside the camp. Another says, “The people went out”—they had to leave the camp.

02:09 Speaker 2 “And they went out and gathered it.”

02:10 Speaker 1 “And they went out and gathered it.” And there’s—

02:12 Speaker 2 Around the camp.

02:13 Speaker 1 And there’s a third verse that says, “The people roamed and gathered it”—they had to go far afield. How can all three verses be reconciled? The Gemara says: For the tzaddikim, it fell at the entrance to their homes. The average people had to go outside the camp. The wicked—“they roamed and gathered it”—had to go far away and search for it. What would happen to a person who considered himself a big shot, who thought he was a tzaddik? He opens his door in the morning, expecting to find manna right there. There’s no manna. Now he has to leave the camp. Maybe he won’t find any outside the camp either. So he has to “roam and gather it”; he has to go far away. What will everyone think? Ah, he isn’t such a tzaddik after all. So he would rather not eat and go hungry than be embarrassed and have everyone think he wasn’t a tzaddik.

03:10 Speaker 2 “And made you hungry.”

03:11 Speaker 1 So that is “He afflicted you and made you hungry.” There were people willing to go hungry rather than have others think they weren’t tzaddikim. In any case, there are many interpretations of the word “eikev.” “And it shall be, eikev, if you listen.” Rashi explains that “eikev, if you listen” means that you must observe even the seemingly minor mitzvos that a person tramples underfoot with his heel. Then “Hashem your G-d will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore.” There is a Chassidic interpretation in Chassidus: What does “And it shall be, eikev, if you listen” mean? When a Jew fulfills the mitzvos, he does so not only with his mind or heart, with feeling, but down to his heels. Even his heels feel it. As it says of Avraham Avinu, “Because Avraham listened to My voice.” Avraham Avinu was permeated with the fulfillment of mitzvos and love of Hashem down to his heels. And the final interpretation of “And it shall be, eikev”: in the time of ikvesa deMeshicha, the footsteps of Moshiach, the Torah promises, “you will listen.” As the Rambam says, Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised that at the end of their exile, the Jewish people will do teshuvah and immediately be redeemed. “And it shall be, eikev, if you listen.” We are now in ikvesa deMeshicha. With Hashem’s help, very soon, may we listen and may there truly be the true Geulah.

04:31 Speaker 3 Amen, amen.