Chukas 5786 - The Manna and the Layers of Torah

the parish over here because we find that Khalis complained about the moon and they said it's uh it it it's it's terrible. We we we had very good food and so on and they were complaining about lacking uh all sorts of vegetables and so on. the um and it's hard to understand could they really have not understood that the man is such a great and refined food and the man was was was ext was was extremely uh tasty refined and so on and their yearning for the courses of foods things that the mitzim um gave them obviously was was the worst of the worst it doesn't make any sense unless obviously when a person wants to complain about something they complain whatever they want that that would be a parab but the Rambam uses this concept uses this para actually as a um a way to understand a big yes in um in people's tastes and feels that's relevant to another area is at the beginning of it is introduction in San. This is where the Ram famously listed for you and so on. And he speaks about a bigger understanding of kazal and so on. And he says that kazal have really a um three there three approaches of people to kazal. There are the people who are simple people. They are um they take everything that's said exactly the way it is. They don't bother to contemplate to think into things and they just um take it as literal as can be and that's that. They don't look for something deeper. They don't appreciate any deeper meaning and so on. There's a second group who um has the same attitude towards hazal. They take it literal and they mock it. They say this is obviously absurd. This can't be and so on and so forth and therefore it is something that they that they make fun of and reject it. And finally there's there is a third group of people. This group, he says, are very few who understand the greatness of Torah, who understand the depth of what Kazal meant and try to understand the meaning of these agam says very very few. He almost says I can they're so few that I almost can't consider them a category rather they're they're individuals and that that's the Rams obviously the Ram's approach to understand many the kazal or all the understood in terms of meaning but some kazal it's only the meaning and so on but the ram so so that's the way the ram explains the different approaches to kazal but then he adds that how can a person who is who who is coarse um enjoy food that's refined and he uses our para as that example. In other words, the people complained and so on that it was a real complaint. In other words, the food that Mitsim had given them was coarse and they were slaves, very coarse people and things that were physical, tangible, rough, coarse was food for them. Something which was delicate, refined and so on simply did not count as food. They did not have the the enjoyment of munching, crunching, sharp taste and so on. It's like the difference. People who have very simple tastes, they need to drink something which is heavily sweet, heavily flavored and so on. A more refined palette likes enjoys something which is um where the taste is very very subtle where where it's you have to sort of sense the subtle taste in in the product. So the the difference between um coarseness and subtlety in the person will then project itself in all the person's activities. Uh let's take another area just as an example. A person who's coarse needs to say things in a very blunt and coarse way. A person who's more refined will um will will will be more subtle and so on. I I want to sort of add some explanation in that point that Rama makes. The the the difference between the coarse taste to the subtle taste is a difference between um taking the object as an object. So the person eats wheat. So he has the full plant and he has the the the the the the process of extracting flower is a process of refining and extracting a certain essence. It's laborious. Obviously person has to work hard to bring it out and it also is is is is it is much more subtle. it does not really um connect to a person's course. Bread that's very very refined, flat, very refined is something that doesn't crunch and doesn't munch and doesn't it's it's something that it's it sort of melts on your tongue type of thing. So the the the difference in taste reflects a difference between um living with the shell and the cup and so on versus the the the essence and so on. So when Kasol was complaining in in Mitzim about the about the food they're complaining about the month the complaint was real. they they're they had not refined themselves and therefore it's something that that's what they felt about. Now it's true also a a person who's refined innas tends to be refined in ashmas and vice versa. It's something that says something about their person that they can only deal with things that are cost and so on. The Ramban for instance speaks about the man as being a very very um rnistic type of food. It was physical but it it was sort of once again it means that the person needs a very heavy physical sensation in order to feel good that he ate versus a person who's and and there's something else about it that that that uh let's take another simple mushel two people eat a meal one person has it's all about the food and and and and and unless there's a lot and and with a lot of taste and so on, he doesn't like it. A second person enjoys the company, certain ambience, the people, what was spoken about, um what happened at the at the meal, and he enjoys the meal, but it's it's sort of the content, the meal. Those those are the type of things that the Rama think is alluding to in this. So the Rambam learns uphat in our in our para that the complaint about the food was real. It reflected their own um coarseness that they had not become refined enough to appreciate the taman. And I'm talking here about um even the uh in a physical sense whereas the man was pure flavor but it it lacked in in in real substance. These bits and all those stuff these were heavily physical and that that was true in that level. The Rambam um the Rambam reflects that this is a a reflection of theiristic status. The Ram compares this to the world of Tyra. And this, interesting enough, is true about the um the the the world of which the Ram was not part of, but it reflects itself. The there the Ram says in the you have the words and you have the meaning and deeper meanings and so on. That's that's the um that's the nature of in the words used by isra the zar also speaks about the tree uh in terra the tree with leaves and bark and so on and you have the essence and you have the outer layers the the the now the one thing is and older say that in terra itself insh you shalom can't say anything is just a metaphor but everything is literally true but the the content of terror doesn't stop at the literal story it's what is the story telling me what happened and there is an an almost infinite amount of layers of um of of meaning to it but in kazal raam says there certain ly is that distinction and therefore there are kazal that are not meant to be literal. They're meant to be only a metaphor for something deeper for a person who is not used to extracting the the the he looks at it. He either swallows and put the wrapper together and thinks that the wrapper is food or he laughs. A person imagine a primitive was given food that's wrapped you know sealed in a sealed wrapper. So one person would swallow it with the wrapper. This is food says on it that it's good for you. A person a little more sophisticated but not thinking would laugh at it and say how could piece of cellophane be food. And the third person realizes that you have to take off the rappers, the layers of rappers and then you have the food inside. That's the way to really understand hazal were giving us their deepest understandings through it. And and the agatas that are meant to teach that are all um rappers where if the person if the person extracts the food from inside it's a person the person is is lives off it. And if a person doesn't make that effort then then then he complains one way or