Ekev | A New Perspective on the Forty Years in the Wilderness

 

I. Not an Accident!

According to conventional thinking, Israel’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness was an unfortunate historical accident. After all, the original plan involved a short trip to the land of Israel, without unnecessary delay.[1] According to the narrative in Sefer Bamidbar, the plan changed when, due to the sin of the spies, the people of Israel were punished:

And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your strayings, until your carcasses be consumed in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you shall know My displeasure. (Bamidbar 14:33-34)

However, when Moshe relates the story of Israel’s journey in our parasha, he gives a different impression:

And you shall remember all the way which the Lord God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments, or not. (8:2)[2]

The forty-year journey in the wilderness is described here as a trial period for Israel, which was arranged on purpose. Moshe portrays the trek as a kind of opportunity for building Israel’s “team spirit,” during which time the people were tested as to whether or not they would really follow God. This was a fundamental period, which had to be engraved in the national consciousness – “And you shall remember.”

The gap between these two perspectives requires explanation.

II. The Land of Israel and the Wilderness

Moshe's new perspective on Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness is part of the oration in which he encourages Israel to remember God and observe His commandments in the Land of Israel – a  theme that runs through all of Chapter 8. Along with this mandate, Moshe expresses concern regarding a new challenge the people will face in the Land of Israel: observing the mitzvot while living a life of natural abundance.

The oration is divided into two equal parts of ten verses; the first part expresses praise for the Land of Israel, while the second part addresses the dangers of abundance in the land. In each part, Moshe mentions the journey in the wilderness and contrasts it to life in the Land of Israel:

Part I - The wilderness versus the good land:

The memory of walking in the wilderness:

And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness… And you shall consider in your heart that, as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. (8:2-5)

Praise of the land:

For the Lord your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley… And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. (8:6-10) 

Part II - The wilderness versus abundance and its dangers:

Abundance in the Land of Israel:

Beware lest you forget the Lord your God, in not keeping His commandments, and His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day; lest when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built goodly houses, and dwelt in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied – (8:11-13)

Forgetting the journey in the wilderness:

Then your heart will be lifted up, and you will forget the Lord your God… who led you through the great and dreadful wilderness, wherein were serpents, fiery serpents, and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water… who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers knew not, that He might afflict you, and that He might test you, to do you good at your latter end. (8:14-16)

The oration follows a chiastic structure: the journey in the wilderness forms the framework, with the description of the land in the middle. The first part describes the potential positive: the people remember the journey in the wilderness ("And you shall remember all the way…"), and thus they enjoy the goodness of the land and bless God for it ("And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord your God…"). The second part describes the danger: material abundance causes the people to forget God and the journey in the wilderness ("and you forget the Lord your God… who led you through the great and dreadful wilderness").

Moshe depicts their time in the wilderness as an experience with the potential to preserve the spiritual strength of the people while they are living in the Land of Israel. Therefore, it is presented as a framework for life in the Land. When one remembers the wilderness, one can experience the land in a positive way; when one forgets it, enjoying the land becomes dangerous.

Why is it so important to remember the journey in the wilderness?

III. The Wilderness as Childhood

Moshe describes the journey in the wilderness as consisting of two different experiences – the experience of abundance and Divine concern, alongside the experience of affliction and trials. This is how the wilderness is presented, for example, in part I:[3]

Affliction and trials:

And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you… that He might afflict you, to test you… And He afflicted you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know. (8:2-3)

Care and concern:

Your raiment waxed not old upon you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years. (8:4)

An experience of affliction seems inconsistent with one of care and concern. How does Moshe present them in one breath?

The answer to this question is found in the next verse:

And you shall consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. (8:5) 

Moshe compares Israel's sojourning in the wilderness to childhood. The afflictions that Israel suffered in the wilderness were part of an educational process God designed for them, just as a father does for his son.

Today, the use of terms such as "chastening” and “affliction" in an educational context may make us cringe, but in the Biblical world, it is a necessary part of a parent's duty. For example, we read in the section of a rebellious son:  "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son… and though they chasten him, will not listen to them" (21:18). A father's obligation to educate his son through chastening and afflictions is also repeated many times in the book of Mishlei.[4] A father who does not chasten his son is perceived as uninterested and even hateful: "He that spares his rod hates his son; but he that loves him chastens him" (Mishlei 13:24). A father's failure to chasten his son indicates that he has no interest in him and does not want to give him the greatest good  – that of becoming a person with worthy qualities.

Therefore, Moshe integrates God's care and concern for Israel throughout their wandering with the affliction and trials they experienced. Together, they demonstrate God's caring attitude towards Israel, like that of a father to his son. The combination of the two realms shows that the afflictions in the wilderness stemmed from concern and connection. Just as Israel's physical needs were met in the wilderness, their spiritual-educational needs were also met, through the afflictions imposed upon them.

IV. The Affliction of the Manna

At this point, we still need to clarify what the afflictions were that Israel experienced in the wilderness. We must also try to understand the educational process that those afflictions were supposed to achieve.  

We might have expected that when Moshe speaks of afflictions, he would be referring to the discomforts associated with life in the wilderness. However, Moshe points out that the afflictions found expression precisely in the eating of the manna:

And He afflicted you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that He might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live. (8:3)

The description of the manna as an affliction is a bit surprising, for food falling from the sky without any effort on the part of man seems more like an expression of Divine abundance than affliction. What suffering is there in receiving food from heaven? Moreover, the Torah attests to the fact that the manna had a wonderful taste: "And [the people] made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as the taste of a cake baked with oil" (Bamidbar 11:8).

However, eating manna also has another side. Already when the people were first informed that manna would rain down on them, God noted that it would be a challenge and a test:

Then said the Lord to Moshe: Behold, I will cause to rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law, or not. (Shemot 16:4) 

It is not clear in Shemot what exactly the test was, but it is explained in Devarim: The difficulty with manna is that it is a new food, "which you knew not, neither did your fathers know." The manna was a new and unfamiliar experience for Israel. Hence its name: "They said one to another: What is it [man hu]? For they knew not what it was" (Shemot 16:15).

A person's physical existence depends on the food in his environment. His physical need for food becomes a psychological need; if there is even a slight risk that he will not find food, existential anxiety will likely arise. The people of Israel enjoyed the manna, but they were faced with a difficult existential experience in having to rely on unfamiliar food, which arrives miraculously. As the Rashbam explains here: "This is affliction for there is no bread in your basket, and your life depends on the One on high every day" (Rashbam, Devarim 8:2). 

The great difficulty associated with manna is the experience of dependence on it – in contrast to normal food, which one can store up, or which one can generally assume will be available in the wild. Once again, we come to the comparison between the generation of the wilderness and the period of childhood: Just as a child depends on his parents to provide him with his needs, so Israel had to depend on God.

This experience is complex; on the one hand, there is a sense of being cared for, but on the other hand, there is total dependence that can give rise to anxiety. In similar fashion, the period of childhood can be experienced as a pleasant period when all of one's needs are satisfied by one's parents. But the child can also be vulnerable to anxiety, since his existence depends on others.

The purpose of creating this dependence was to develop in Israel the insight "that man does not live by bread only, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live." Life is not based on bread alone, but on God, who is the source of bread. Human existence is based not only on physical needs, but on spiritual life.

One might have thought that in light of this, the wilderness period would be perceived as ideal, for it involved complete connection to God – with physical existence based on the word of God, and not on bread. This description is similar to Moshe's description in the next chapter of his stay on the mountain: "Then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water"(9:9). Just as the people of Israel do not live "on bread," so Moshe lived without bread.[5] The duration of time is also similar; Moshe was on the mountain for forty days, and the people of Israel were in the wilderness for forty years.

What could be more sublime than transcending physical existence and living on devotion to God?!

However, Moshe goes on to explain that this period of existential dependence on God will end when Israel settles in the land:

For the Lord your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley… a land wherein you shall eat bread without scarceness; you shall not lack any thing in it. (8:7-9)

Just as Moshe eventually came down from the mountain, so the people of Israel must leave the wilderness and return to natural existence. They must stop eating bread "in scarceness," stop living in total dependence on God. If the wilderness symbolizes childhood, the land symbolizes adulthood. God does not want the people of Israel to remain dependent, like children, but to be independent and live a natural life.

There is no talk, however, about detachment from God. The mature state of the people is to involve independence and natural existence, alongside awareness of the source of this existence – a combination of natural life in the land and remembering life in the wilderness, where existence was based on "what proceeds from the mouth of God."

This combination is achieved through enjoyment of the land along with thanking God for all the good: "And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you" (8:10). This blessing stems from the remembrance of the wilderness period, where existence based on God was more tangible. The challenge is to continue to bless God even when living a more natural life.

V. The Danger of Abundance

However, the process of maturation and transitioning to a natural life also involves danger. Independent, natural life can lead to pride and to forgetting that God is the source of existence. This is what Moshe addresses in the second part of the oration – a danger that is most likely to arise when the people experience great abundance:

And when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied…. (8:13) 

The phenomenon is familiar, in both collectives and individuals, in which great abundance and indulgence leads to degeneration. Moshe explains that this phenomenon will take place in Israel if they forget the period during which they wandered in the wilderness and ate the manna:

And you will forget the Lord your God… who led you through the great and dreadful wilderness… who brought you forth water out of the rock of flint; who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers knew not. (8:14-16)  

Such detachment from the experience of “childhood” will lead to arrogance and detachment from God:

And you will say in your heart: My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth. (8:17) 

From all this danger, we can also see the path to repair. As long as the people remember the period of their dependence in the wilderness, their pride will be balanced. They will be able to combine natural life in the land of Israel with maintaining a relationship with God, the source of their abundance. This balance is beautifully described towards the end of the oration:

But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He that gives you power to get wealth. (8:18)

The people do indeed have "power to get wealth." They are not weak and helpless; they can be independent and take care of their own destiny. However, this power comes from God, who raised the people to maturity and brought them into the good land.

The importance of the memory of wandering in the wilderness in the national consciousness also finds expression in the fact that there is a special holiday dedicated to it – the festival of Sukkot:

But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruits of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord seven days… You shall dwell in booths seven days… that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. (Vayikra 23:39-43)

The Rashbam explains there that Sukkot is celebrated precisely at the peak of enjoyment of the goodness of the land, during the period of the harvest. This is when the danger of pride and forgetting God is at its height. Therefore, it is precisely then that one should remember the period of the wilderness – by dwelling in huts to simulate the way Israel lived then. The Rashbam points out that this explanation for the Sukkot festival is based on Moshe's oration in our parasha, which links the dangers of abundance to the obligation to remember Israel's journey in the wilderness.

VI. The Forty Years in a New Light

Our examination of Moshe's oration may answer the question raised above: How is it possible that the forty years in the wilderness are now described as a period that was meant to be from the beginning, and not as a historical accident?

It seems that the answer relates to the historical point in time at which the matter is being considered. In the book of Bamidbar, the forty-year stay in the wilderness is perceived as an unfortunate punishment. Now, however, at the conclusion of that period, Moshe looks back and realizes that these years in the wilderness were necessary for the maturation of the people.

The sin of the spies showed that the people of Israel were still at the beginning of their childhood: they were frightened by the idea of conquering the land and could not imagine that God would be with them. A child requires an extended period of relying on his parents in order to gain confidence and a sense of stability in the world. Similarly, the people of Israel had to spend time in the wilderness and experience close Divine care and concern. This period was important in order to develop the recognition that it is possible to depend on God and to be maintained directly by Him. As mentioned, however, there was also something agonizing about this period, as it was necessary to rely on miracles.

This struggle hardened the people and developed in them the understanding that one should not rely exclusively on the familiar forces of nature. This is precisely the repair that was needed for the sin of the spies, when the people of Israel demonstrated narrow thinking, based only on calculations of natural forces. With this way of thinking, they feared that the peoples of the region would have the upper hand against them. It was only after eating the manna for forty years that Israel matured, which allowed them to move forward and enabled them to live a natural life while maintaining a connection to God, who gives them the power to get wealth.

(Translated by David Strauss)