Israel’s journey through the desert was unfolding smoothly. The Tabernacle was complete, and the tribes marched toward the land of Canaan beneath the cloud of God’s presence.
But in this week’s parsha, something changes. The people begin to complain, and their complaints distort the way they see reality.
Their first distortion is rosy retrospection—remembering the past as better than it really was. They suddenly grow nostalgic for Egypt, the land of slavery: “Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic!” They remember the food, but forget the slavery. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks calls this self-deceptive nostalgia. “Gone is their memory of slavery,” he writes. “All they can recall is the cuisine.”
The second distortion is mental filtering—focusing only on what is missing while ignoring what is still good. “There is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes,” the people complain. Even though they receive food from heaven every day, they become consumed by what they do not have.
These distorted ways of thinking quickly darken the emotional atmosphere of the camp. The nation begins “weeping throughout their families, every man at the entrance of his tent.” The negativity spreads until even Moses begins to collapse under its weight, begging God to kill him rather than continue leading the people.
God responds by appointing seventy elders to help Moses carry the burden of leadership. In doing so, He models something important: when people become emotionally overwhelmed, the answer is not always greater toughness or endurance. Sometimes people need others to help carry the burden with them.
This week’s parsha is not only a story about complaints in the wilderness. It is also a story about how distorted thinking can spread through a family, a community, or an entire society. Hardship alone does not always break people. More often, people break when exhaustion and distortions begin to shape how they see everything around them. God’s response to Moses reminds us that resilience is not built only through strength. It is also built when we help one another carry life’s difficult burdens together.
Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Schiffman is an Assistant Professor at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School, the Director of Leadership Scholars at the Sacks-Herenstein Center, an instructor at RIETS, and a Sacks Scholar. He holds a BA in psychology, an MS in Jewish Education, an MA in Jewish Philosophy, Rabbinic Ordination, and a doctorate in Psychology. Rabbi Dr. Schiffman also serves as the associate rabbi at Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn, NY, and practices as a licensed psychologist. He is the author of Psyched for Torah: Cultivating Character and Well-Being Through the Weekly Parsha, and The Torah of Character: Psychological Growth Through the Weekly Parsha.
This essay was written as part of our collaboration with The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Sacks Scholars.
