Shnayim Yomi - Behaalotecha - Shishi - #6 - Rabbi Ephraim Polakoff - When the Nation Complained

Parasal the aliyah of Shishi. This aliyah is packed full of drama. Many famousukim in this aliyah. And we begin really with perhaps the most famous pukon. And as we know this is the p that we say each and every time that we open up the kodesh to remove the safer to read it. We say this and what exactly are we saying? Let's understand it. What exactly are we saying? Soon when the traveled Moshe said as follows that you should get up and all of your enemies should scatter and all of those who are your foes. All of those who hate you should run should flee from before you. And this we say when we return the safer Torah to the Auron that when the Aon would rest when the Auron would rest then we would say then Moshe would say Hashem Rivos als tranquily Hashem among the myriad thousands of Ben Israel. So we're talking about the fact that Hashem's enemies should be scattered and we're talking about the fact that Hashem should dwell within us and rest within us. These are perhaps the most uh famous in Shishi. But then Shishi continues with tremendous drama. People in B is some of the people in B Israel begin complaining about the uncertainty of traveling through the Midbar. How are they going to have what they need? Who's going to protect them? Who's going to guide them? Hashem punished these people for complaining. There's a question in the mafarim. Did Hashem punish the elders? Did Hashem punish the Avra which was that group from Mitsim that was supposedly going to convert and caused a lot of problems for the Jewish people. Hashem punished them. The people cried out to Moshe. Moshe davened and stopped the punishment. This punishment in this case was fire who brought fire to punish those who had complained and this place was named kros I'm sorry this place was named tavra then the people complained about the lack of meat the lack of food they remembered the wonderful foods that they ate in famous we remember the fish that we ate init we remember the kishuim and all of the delicious vegetables, all the things that we ate in Mitim. We remember the meat and now we're left in the desert and all we have is the mun. That's all we have. The Torah then describes the mun. The mun as we know, it took on all sorts of forms. It could be ground. It could be cooked. It could be baked. The Torah says it tasted like dough with oil. Tasted delicious. And we know it descended with the de with the tal each and every morning. Moshe heard these people complaining about their food and Moshe was disappointed. But Hashem was angry. Moshe then complained to Hashem about the burden of Israel. Why did you cause these problems for me? Moshe says I can't do this myself. He complains about the burden. He says I can't do it myself. Hashem tells Moshe, "Moshe, you're right. You can't do it yourself. So bring 70 elders to O Moed and we're going to establish a Sanhedrin. I'm going to come rest my presence among them and they will share the burden of B Israel with you." Hashem then says that these people that complained about the meat, I'm going to give them meat. Not for a short while, for 30 days straight. I'm going to give them to the point where they become nauseous. Moshe then asks, "How is how am I going to get all this meat for 600,000 Jews for 30 days? Where am I going to get this kind of meat? We're in the desert here." replies, "Don't worry. I can take care of it." And Hashem, of course, can. Moshe brings these 70 elders, these 70 men. The spirit of Hashem descends upon them and they all become prophets. According to most mafaram, they only prophecy once. Uh but they do become prophets. Now Moshe had to select six from each shet 70 and there were 12vat he had to select six from each shvet but then there would be an extra 72. So kazal tell I'm sorry there would be an extra two and kazal tell us that they drew lots and whoever drew the lots that had a blank on them they were the two that were not going to be part of the Sanhedrin. There were two individuals by the name of Eldad and Maidad. They did not come and join the 70 who were drawing lots. Some say because they were very humble. They didn't feel that they were worthy of being part of the Sanhedrin. And others say they were embarrassed. They didn't want to draw those lots that had the blank and uh and and not be not merit to be part of the Sanhedrin. They ended up being members of the Sanhedrin because others drew those two lots. But Eldar did not join. They remained back in the camp. While they were in the camp, they also got that prophecy when came down and his presence rested among these people. The Gomorrah says that their prophecy was that Moshe will die and Yahushua will take over and bring Ben Israel into Erit Israel. Yeshua is very upset by this and he runs to Moshe. He says, "Mosheim, we have to imprison these people. Look, listen to what they're saying. It's terrible." Moshe refused and Moshe said, "No, they're just Naveim. All of the Jewish people would be Naveim. They did nothing wrong. There's no reason to punish them." Just one thought about this aliyah is that we find many times in this aliyah complaining, complaining about the uncertainty of the midbar, complaining about the food. So often we have situations and we have so much brah. The people in the midbar, Hashem was guiding them. They had the mud. They had everything that they needed. But they looked at the glass as half empty. And they saw all the things that they did not have. In life, we have to train ourselves to look at the glass as half full and to always see the that gives us in life.