Even after meat was permitted, the desire for it remained dangerous. A craving for meat can pull a person downward, toward animal impulse and sin. This is what happened to the people of Israel in the wilderness, when their demand for meat became a form of rebellion: “The rabble among them were seized by craving, and the Children of Israel also wept again and said, ‘Who will feed us meat?’” (Bamidbar 11:4). Moshe Rabbeinu cried out to God over this: “Where shall I get meat to give this entire people, when they cry to me, saying, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat’? I cannot bear this entire people alone, for it is too heavy for me” (ibid. 11:13–14).
Moshe was then told to warn them that their punishment would come through the very thing they had demanded: “until it comes out of your nose and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord Who is among you, and you cried before Him, saying, ‘Why did we leave Egypt?’” (ibid. 11:20). The Torah continues: “A wind went forth from the Lord and swept quail from the sea… The people rose up all that day, all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail. Even the one who gathered least gathered ten ḥomarim (a vast quantity), and they spread them out all around the camp. The meat was still between their teeth, before it had been consumed, when the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. That place was named Kivrot Ha-ta’ava, because there they buried the people who had craved” (ibid. 11:31–34). This episode teaches for all generations how grave and dangerous an unrestrained craving for meat can be: it dims the light of the soul and destroys the body.
To keep us from being drawn too strongly after meat, the Torah describes the wish to eat it as a “craving,” as it says (Devarim 12:20): “When the Lord your God expands your border, as He has spoken to you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because your soul craves to eat meat, you may eat meat according to all your soul’s craving.” If eating meat is bound up with craving, that craving should be restrained. Along these lines, the Sages said: “The Torah teaches proper conduct: a person should eat meat only when he has an appetite for it” (Ḥullin 84a), that is, when he truly wants to eat it.
The Sages also learned from these verses that one must be careful not to let the desire for meat lead him to waste his money. The verse says, “When the Lord your God expands your border, as He has spoken to you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat’”; only when a person has attained financial comfort is it proper for him to allow himself to buy meat. The Sages further inferred from the phrase “you shall slaughter from your cattle and your flock” that one should eat only part of his cattle and flock, leaving them to continue reproducing abundantly. This guidance applies to all luxuries: a person should spend only a small portion of his money on luxuries, while reserving most of it for more important needs or investing it wisely (based on Ḥullin 84a).
