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By Rabbi Tuvia Bolton, Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim, Kfar Chabad, Israel

In this week’s reading we find the well-known saying, “Man does not live by bread alone.”

This was said by Moses in his final message to the Jewish people as they were about to enter the land of Israel, reminding them to thank G-d for miraculously feeding them Manna for forty years in the desert. The whole sentence goes like this:

“He (G-d) tortured you and starved you and gave you Manna…. in order that you should know that not by bread alone does man live but by the word of G-d does man live.” (8:3)

But, at first glance, this seems to make no sense.

First of all, if Moses is trying to remind them of how great a gift the manna was why does he connect it to torture and starvation?

Even more, the Manna didn’t torture and starve the Jews! Exactly the opposite! The Manna kept the Jews alive for forty years. Perhaps they became bored with it, but certainly it didn’t torture or starve them.

Also how did Manna teach them that man can’t live on bread but only from the word of G-d? The Manna seems to teach exactly the opposite! That G-d’s word isn’t enough and THAT is why He had to rain down physical Manna for them every single day.

But the main question is what is this teaching US? The word Torah means practical teaching and the manna hasn’t been around for over 3,000 years!?

To understand all this all here is a story.

Rabbi Yisroel of Ruzin, a holy genius and miraculous Chassidic leader who lived some two hundred years ago, was known as the ‘Holy Ruziner’ because of the intense G-dliness that emanated from his every action, word and even thought. He had thousands of followers and it was said that visiting him put new joy and meaning into every moment of life like it must have been when visiting the Holy Temple.

But many G-d fearing, highly intelligent Jews hated him and all his Chassidic teachings as being wild and destructive.

Such a Jew was Rab Yho’shua Charif. He was a relative of and had been one of the most brilliant students in the Yeshiva of Rabbi Akiva Eiger (one of the all-time Torah giants but a fierce opponent of the Chassidim) and was convinced that the Chassidim were nothing less than apostates.

But as fate would have it this Reb Yehoshua Charif married a woman whose entire family were Chassidim of the ‘Holy Ruziner’.  And at every to convince him he was wrong about the Chassidim and that he should at least visit their holy leader and have a look.

At first Reb Yehoshua refused outright, but when they didn’t let up, he hit on an idea that he hoped would both get him some peace and maybe even convince his in-laws that THEY were wrong!

His idea was as follows: Years earlier he had found an apparent contradiction between the Talmud and the Zohar (basic Kabala book) regarding the difference between vows (Nederim) and oaths (Shavuot).

The Talmud explains that vows are valid only if they deal with existing things while oaths apply to even things which do not yet exist; for instance, fruits that have not yet grown or money that has not been earned.

But the Zohar explains it exactly the opposite way. There is says that
oaths are limited to existing things, while vows encompass non-existent things as well.

For several years he had been asking other Torah scholars to explain this apparent contradiction but none of them could.

So Rab Yehoshua announced that he would join them in a visit the Rabbi of Ruzin on three conditions. 1) The Rebbe would answer his question about vows and oaths 2) The Rebbe would have to read his mind and guess the question 3) If the Rebbe did not do both of these, they would never mention his name again.

They agreed and Rab Yehoshua traveled with his father-in-law to the Rebbe. The next day when they arrived and entered the Rebbe’s synagogue, they found it packed with hundreds of Chassidim but strangely the Rebbe was sitting at his table before them totally oblivious to all of them.

This went on for almost fifteen minutes and all the time Rab Yehoshua was thinking about his question as much as possible. He was also curious to see if the Rebbe really possessed special powers.

Then one of the more important Chassidim by the name of Reb Leib, entered the room. The Rebbe invited him to sit down next to him and began engage him in conversation and everyone leaned forward and strained their ears to hear.

The Rebbe said, “True, people don’t respect me as a learned person. Although the truth is that I finish all the books of the Talmud once a month.

“But my grandfather the Magid of Mezeritz was recognized by everyone as one of the greatest Talmudic geniuses in the world and nevertheless he had religious Jews as enemies.

“Once one of them decided to test him to see if he had holy vision, by thinking of a Torah question to see if he could both read his mind and answer it. It was a question about vows and oaths. The Talmud says one thing about them and the Zohar says another.”

Rab Yhoshua couldn’t believe his ears! That was precisely what he was doing!  The Rebbe continued speaking aloud to Reb Leib;

“Well, My Grandfather, the Maggid, passed the ‘test’. He both read the man’s mind and gave his answer. And it was a good answer. But I have an answer of my own.

“The Talmud (Baba Metzia 86a) tells us that once there was an argument in heaven between the heavenly court and …. G-d!

“”It’s not important what they were arguing about but when they couldn’t come to a conclusion, they decided to call in an arbitrator from the living: a great Rabbi by the name of Rabba Bar Nachmani. He heard both sides of the argument and concluded that G-d’s opinion was correct!

“But surprisingly, the Ramba’m (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon aka Maimonides) who is the final word in such laws, disagrees! He says the law is like the heavenly court and not like G-d!  And that is the law!

“The only way to explain this is that G-d desired that the Rabbis (providing they are true Rabbis) can, at times, override His opinion!

“So it is in our case regarding vows and oaths,” the Holy Ruziner concluded. “The Zohar is stating the opinion of G-d while the Talmud represents the heavenly court!! So there is really no contradiction. That is my answer.”

Then he turned to Rab Yehoshua and said, “Nu young man, are you ready to be a Chassid?”

Rab Yehoshua Charif became one of the Ruziner Rebbe’s most devoted followers.

This answers our questions about the manna.

Rab Yehoshua in our story became a Chassid not because he was impressed with the Rebbe’s intellectual and spiritual greatness.

He became a Chassid because he saw the Rebbe’s true humility. Namely that his talents and genius were VEHICLES for revealing the greatness of the CREATOR.

In other words, the Rebbe himself was only a means for advertising truth. Something like the first Jew, Abraham.

And this was also true of the Manna.

The Manna was a miraculous bread from heaven but its purpose was to reveal that it was only a vehicle for something totally beyond them; the infinite kindness of the Creator. That is the ‘Word of G-d’ in the Manna.

And it made them hungry and ‘tortured’ them. It awoke in them a constant ‘hunger’ for the infinitely good source of all being.

This is especially important today. The Lubavitcher Rebbe said that our generation begins a totally NEW era: the end of the exile and the beginning of the days of Moshiach.

Now a tremendous hunger for meaning is sweeping the entire world. Entire populations are completely changing their priorities in life and myriads of Jews are seeking true Judaism.

This was the purpose of the Chassidic teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, called Chassidut; to bring a new hunger to the Jewish people so that they (and all mankind after them) will not be satisfied with anything less than the true revelation of the Creator in His creation that will be brought by Moshiach.

As we say three times very day three in the Alenu prayer and as the Rambam writes in the end of his masterpiece of Jewish law “Yad HaChazaka”; ‘Then the world will be filled with the knowledge of G-d like water fills the ocean.”

It’s up to us to do everything in our power to make it happen sooner and not much is missing. We are standing on the shoulders of giants; thousands of years of Jewish self-sacrifice. Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can tip the scales and reveal….

Moshiach Now!

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