Parashat Beha’alotcha: The Only Real Way

In this week's parasha Beha'alotecha , the Jewish People complained that they wanted meat and Moshe Rabbenu said to Hashem, כי תאמר אלי שאהו בחיקך כאשר ישא האומן את היונק – Moshe was asking Hashem how he was expected to carry the nation like a nursing mother carries her suckling infant. The Maharam Shapira asked, the word אומן usually means a Torah teacher of boys aged five or six. Why would Moshe use that word to describe someone carrying a suckling baby? The Rabbi answered, Moshe was saying, his job was to be the spiritual leader of the Jewish People, to teach them Torah and the ways of Hashem, but now they were asking him to fulfill their base desires, that's like a schoolteacher who teaches Torah being asked to take care of infants, which is something that doesn't fit his bill. With this we could understand the baffling statement that Moshe made right after this. הצאן ובקר ישחט להם ומצא להם? – "could there possibly be enough sheep and cattle that would suffice to satiate them?" The mefarshim ask, astonishingly, it seems like Moshe here was doubting the ability of Hashem to provide enough meat for the Jewish People. The explanation is, Moshe was saying, I know the way for them to be satiated is through Torah and mitzvot. The neshama that Hashem put inside man cannot be satisfied any other way, like it says in Kohelet , והנפש לא תמלא. The reason for the complaining was that they were not spiritually satisfied and they were looking for a quick fix. It is true that physical pleasures can temporarily satisfy a person's empty feelings, but very quickly it will wear off and, again, they will feel empty. So Moshe was saying, all the meat in the world will not get this job done. Hashem told Moshe he was right, but he had to provide the meat anyway to prevent a chilul Hashem. Everybody in this world is looking for happiness. The only real way of having sustained feelings of inner joy and tranquility, as well as satisfaction, is by filling up our neshama with what it craves most – Torah and mitzvot. Hashem provided us with an abundance of ways to fill our neshama . And to help motivate us, He even promised rewards for doing them. Hashem created us and knows what will make us happy. The yetzer hara tries to convince us otherwise, but we must not get fooled by it. When a person learns emunah, he feels more tranquil because his neshama is connecting to Hashem more. A young man told me he started learning emunah about a year ago and his words to me were, "it was as if someone had removed a blindfold from upon my eyes. I had always had some level of emunah, but it was only last year that I began to truly see, in every direction that I turned, the Yad Hashem. A whole new world has opened up before me as Hashem is so much more visible to me now" Our neshama is a piece of Hashem and the more we connect with Him, the more our neshama will be satisfied and in a state of tranquility. Spirituality helps reduce anxiety and other emotional roller coasters. The more we connect with Hashem and the Torah, the happier we will be. Shabbat Shalom.