I’m not the first to have pondered this curious turn of phrase. Rashi, the endlessly prolific French commentator of the late 1000s, suggests that really what this clause means is that the inhabitants of Kəná’an were busy burying their dead; the earth was eating them by swallowing them up in graves.
Read MoreThe Israelites want choice, agency over the intimate matter of their diet; monotonous manna is not enough. Think about how management reacts when workers ask for an improvement in the condition of their work: Who doesn’t know the clichés of that outrage? We pay them more than enough to live on; they should be grateful to have such a good job in this economy! How can they ask for more when others don’t even have this? Instead of giving them a raise or more time off, let’s just throw a pizza party in the break room.
Read MoreAll the other Levites charged with carrying the dismantled Mishkan around the wilderness wanderings get oxen and carts to bear the load, but Qəhat’s sons, charged with carrying the Holiest of holy things, don’t get that help; they have to do their schlepping on their own shoulders. Why?
Read MoreIt’s time to get a move on.
For the whole book of Vayiqra — and, indeed, for the better part of the book of Shəmot, too — the recently freed Israelites have been camped out at the base of Mt Sinai. Now, in the book of Bəmidbar, they’re going to pull up their stakes and start trudging around the wilderness in earnest.
But first, of course, they have to learn how to pack up the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary where the very Presence of G-d resides.
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