Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. Many of us look back and imbue the past with more positivity than it actually held. This week’s Torah portion, Behaalotecha, demonstrates this in full technicolour. Hungry, tired and annoyed, the Israelites articulate the ultimate rose-tinted yearning for the past:
“If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt freely – also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look at!”
Our Wednesday Torah study group astutely recognized the emotions at play here. How comfortable it is to reminisce and to insist the past was better, easier or kinder. But doing so is often unhelpful and usually untrue. I read this as a warning against the tempting belief that things are worse now than they have ever been. Such views undermine both the present and the past.
The Afghan Sephardi tradition of whipping fellow guests at the Seder with spring onions during Dayeinu is a direct response to this verse: you might miss the food but you have forgotten the whips.
We should take heed.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
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