Ekev - Forethoughts And Afterthoughts

8:3 And He stressed you and He gave you hunger. And He gave you Manna to eat, that which you and your ancestors never knew about, in order to make you aware that it is not by bread alone that man lives but rather by what comes from the Mouth of G-D that man lives.

We know that the Manna came down in daily portions, one portion each day from Sunday through Thursday and a double portion on Friday.

The Talmud (Yoma 76a) provides the following teaching about the Manna.

The students of Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochi ask him the following question.

?Why didn?t the Manna come down one time annually??

He responded with the following

?I will give you an allegory.?

?Consider a king who supports his son. If he provides his allowance one time a year then the son may come to visit his father only one time each year. However, if he provides the allowance on a daily basis then his son will seek him each day.?

?Similarly, if a man had four or five children then he worried about the Manna not falling on the next day and his children starving to death.?

?This way, everybody kept their focus on their Father in Heaven.?

?Another reason that the Manna was not provided annually was so that they could have warmed food each day.?

?Another reason is so that they would not have to bother with carrying around a year?s supply of food.?

This teaching provides us with an insight into human nature.

The second reason was to make the Manna more appealing to eat. The third reason was for convenience. Yet they did not suffice and Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochi felt the need to provide the first reason, too.

The Manna was guaranteed by G-D.

And yet, a person would prefer to lug around a year?s supply of Manna through the desert and eat it cold each day in order to have control over his food supply, rather than have it provided on a daily basis.

========================= Courtesy of JewishAmerica http://www.JewishAmerica.com