Parsha Behaalotecha, Clara Peller and the Rolling Stones
06/22/2024 08:02:01 PM
Joel Chodos
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In Parsha Behaalotecha (Numbers 8:1-12:16) ) we are introduced to that everlasting symbol of Judaism the Menorah which adorns modern day official Israeli stationary and like the star of David is synonymous with Judaism. The menorah gives off light physically and spiritually. (see slide of model of Jerusalem Menorah and Arc of Titus representation have of the Menorah, about 5 feet tall.
There are, however, darker sides in this Parsha. The continued complaining of the Israelites despite all the signs and wonders they have seen and the Torah they have been given at Sinai.
The answer to my unusual title, which is a riddle, will be revealed at the end . I'll let you try to figure it out from what I say. There is a relation of the figures a) Clara Peller, a Jewish manicurist from Chicago and b) the Rolling Stones with c) today's Parsha.
Although provided for by G-d with manna on a daily basis for which they do not need to cultivate or work for, the people complain and long for the days when they had meat in Egypt which they describe as "free" " The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish, which we did eat in Mitzrayim (Egypt) at no cost; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic ."(Numbers 11:5) This complaining is not new . In Exodus shortly after leaving Egypt the people say:
“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16: 3). The Israelites have a very short memory. Although now free from forced labor, where they even had to make their own bricks, and now were given the Torah directly from G-d himself at Sinai, they still long for the "free" food they had in Egypt when they were slaves and their lives controlled by others. The manna satisfies their nutritional needs and tastes good and can taste like many foods in their mouths (but not all) but they are not satisfied. We are told they lust for meat. They do not recognize that the food they were given in Egypt was not "free" at all but given to them by their slave masters so they could do the demanding labor of slaves for Pharaoh and likely were the discarded less desirable fish the Egyptians did not want. The Israelites don't see this. They forget that as slaves they had no free will and still long for the hand outs from their captors. Another interpretation of the "lust" for meat is that it is metaphor for sexual lust for now prohibited sexual relations now considered incestuous but which were permitted in Egypt "Leviticus 18:3: You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices" (Talmud Yoma 75)
G-d sends them meat in the form of a large flock of quail.
Page 2 Numbers 11: 31. “A wind went forth from the Lord and swept quails from the sea and spread them over the camp about one day's journey this way and one day's journey that way, around the camp, about two cubits above the ground. |
11: 32 The people rose up all that day and all night and the next day and gathered the quails. [Even] the one who gathered the least collected ten heaps. They spread them around the camp in piles. |
11: 33The meat was still between their teeth; it was not yet finished, and the anger of the Lord flared against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very mighty blow. |
11: 34 He named that place Kivroth Hata'avah [Graves of Craving], for there they buried the people who craved. |
Judaism teaches that freedom is always preferred over slavery. In Parsha Mishpatim (Exodus 21: 5-6) we learn a Hebrew slave servant is freed after six years of service. If he declines freedom he is brought before G-d and his master makes a ceremonial mark in his ear lobe with an awl against the doorpost to signify he was offered a way out ,
signified by the doorpost, and G-d's words written on the mezzuzah, but declined to take that offer of freedom and to have only G-d as his master (ie, he did not "listen" as we are told in the Shema Israel ) and he remains a slave for life.
Moses has a crisis and cannot cope. He cries out to G-d and offers his resignation and even in his despair asks for G-d to end his life. "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? . . . I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.” (Numbers 11: 11-15).
Through a paper by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1) I learned of the work of Dr. Ronald Heifetz (2) an innovator in leadership studies at Kennedy School of Government and a medical school graduate. He draws a distinction between technical challenges and adaptive challenges. Technical challenges being ones that an external source can solve like a physician or IT specialist. The specialist fixes the problem for you or you follow their directions to fix the problem.
In adaptive challenges the subjects are part of the problem and we the subjects have to change, not just follow the cook book solution. An example in medicine would be a patient needing to adapt lifestyle changes to deal with an illness like obesity or heart disease or a husband having to learn to get along better with his wife and be more supportive. In changing world and landscape like the newly freed Israelites , the old rules and behaviors have to change and a leader, even one as great as Moses, cannot do it himself or for the Israelites.
Adaptive leadership Rabbi Saks and Dr. Heifetz point out is called for when the world is changing, circumstances are no longer what they were, and what once worked works
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no more. There is no quick fix, no pill, no simple following of instructions. We have to change. The leader cannot do it for us. Providing the route across the red sea, water in the desert and manna or even the meat the Israelites lust for is not enough. The people must change and Moses sees in the episode with the spies and again now with the lusting for meat and longing for the "free" food when they were slaves, that the people have not changed . Hence he is so despondent that he in effect tenders his resignation to G-d and asks G-d "please go ahead and kill me --if I have found favor in your eyes and do not let me face my own ruin."
Moses is despondent that the people remain passive, dependent and myopic--still retaining the slave mentality inculcated from hundreds of years of slavery. They don't appreciate the manna set before them as a perfect food for their sustenance and long for
"good old days on the slave plantation" where all decisions were made for them. They did not have a Torah and its rules to guide them in decisions they needed to make for their own lives. Decisions involving free will.
Adaptive leadership involving changing the people or fundamental behavior is not easy. It is dangerous and fraught with hazard of the leader being eaten up or burned out in the process. This is one reason why the war on poverty has not been won despite billions and billions of dollars spent--because money alone does not change poverty prone populations in America--a change in mindset and family structure is part of the cure and money alone cant buy that. The quail meat will not quench the complaining of the Israelites because their problem is they do not value freedom and have a "what have you done for me lately mindset."
G-d does not accept Moses resignation. He advises him to gather seventy elders of the tribes to assist him in leadership but the road is still hard. Change is difficult and changing the mindset of a people is very difficult . Ultimately a new generation of those born outside slavery will be needed which is what prolongs the Israelites stay in the desert (bemidbar) to 40 years. Moses understood centuries before its time the 20th century Pogo cartoon " We has met the enemy and he is Us." The light of the Menorah introduced at the beginning of the Parsha still does not yet fully illuminate their lives. They don't judge what they have gained, only what they perceive what they have lost. They don't understand the adage of the yet to be written Pirkei Avot: Who is rich? He who is content with what he has.
They are more concerned with the taste of the food than the taste of freedom they have gained.
CODA
So what does Clara Peller, a manicurist from Chicago have to do with Behaalotecha? Clara Peller in her 80's was cast in the TV commercial actress playing the elderly woman who said "Where's the beef" in advertising Wendy's hamburgers vs Big Bun hamburgers .[ See video] That campaign boosted Wendy's sales by 31% and was their most successful campaign ever. "Where's the beef " became a buzz word for showing me what counts to me and was even used in a Vice-Presidential debate by Walter Mondale .
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Showing a short memory for gratitude Wendy's also later fired Ms. Peller when she did an ad for Prego spaghetti sauce in which she said " I finally found it " which Wendy felt undermined its "Where's the beef " line. She died in 1984.
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, sang in a 1965 release "Satisfaction" I can't get no, oh, no, no, no...I can't get no satisfaction, I can't get no satisfaction " [see video] which was in effect the mantra of the Israelites complaining. Mick Jagger also in a 1969 release sang the song line "You cant always get what you want, but you get what you need" which what the Torah teaches us about manna (and many other things) but which the Israelites reject.
Note the end of this week's Haftorah from the Book of Zachariah, which is selected to complement Parsha Behaalotecha, Zachariah is presented by an angel with a golden menorah whose seven lamps are fed by oil from a bowl and two live olive trees (se slide), but Zechariah does not fully recognize its significance. This is a metaphor for G-d providing humans with what is needed-- the Menorah which provides physical and spiritual light and a self sustaining fuel source (the olive trees from which olive oil is derived) but the people need to recognize what they have in their hands, just as the manna, is really all they needed for their sustenance, but they were unable to see this.
References:
1. Babylonian Talmud Yoma 75.
2. Sacks, Jonathan. Behaalotecha (5771) – Two Types of Leadership June 11, 2011 www.rabbisacks.org
3. Heifetz, Ronald. Leadership Without Easy Answers. Harvard Univ Press 1994
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