For 40 years, Bnei Yisrael practiced not worrying about tomorrow

W

 hy did Hashem let Bnei Yisrael go hungry before feeding them? And why did He put them on a diet of mahn, which had to be gathered each day for that day’s sustenance only? It was a fiscal lesson in the making

Bnei Yisrael were hungry. A month had passed since their redemption from Egypt, where they witnessed the destruction of that evil empire through the Ten Plagues, and experienced their own salvation through the Splitting of the Sea. With their own eyes they saw Hashem’s power as a living, tangible reality.

How could it be, then, that as soon as they felt hunger pangs, they developed a plaintive, grousing attitude more suited to Israeli factory workers on strike? How could they have complained, fantasized about the “flesh pots” of Egypt, where they “ate bread to satiety”? Had they forgotten everything they’d experienced a mere month before? Was their memory that short? And if they were having a hard time of it, why didn’t they turn in prayer to the same G?d Who had saved them until now? Why did they frame their situation in such extreme terms — that in Egypt everything had been fine, and here, nothing but death awaited them?

There’s a flip side to this question as well: Why, indeed, didn’t Hashem see to it that they had sustenance in the Wilderness before they reached the point of despair? Why did He not take care of them before they complained, so that they wouldn’t have anything to complain about?