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: \u201cThe rabble among them were seized by craving, and the Children of Israel also wept again and said, \u2018Who will feed us meat?\u2019\u201d (Bamidbar 11:4). Moshe Rabbeinu cried out to God over this: \u201cWhere shall I get meat to give this entire people, when they cry to me, saying, \u2018Give us meat, that we may eat\u2019? I cannot bear this entire people alone, for it is too heavy for me\u201d (ibid. 11:13\u201314).<\/p>\n
Moshe was then told to warn them that their punishment would come through the very thing they had demanded: \u201cuntil 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, \u2018Why did we leave Egypt?\u2019\u201d (ibid. 11:20). The Torah continues: \u201cA wind went forth from the Lord and swept quail from the sea\u2026 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 \u1e25omarim<\/em> (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\u2019ava, because there they buried the people who had craved\u201d (ibid. 11:31\u201334). 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.<\/p>\n To keep us from being drawn too strongly after meat, the Torah describes the wish to eat it as a \u201ccraving,\u201d as it says (Devarim 12:20): \u201cWhen the Lord your God expands your border, as He has spoken to you, and you say, \u2018I will eat meat,\u2019 because your soul craves to eat meat, you may eat meat according to all your soul\u2019s craving.\u201d If eating meat is bound up with craving, that craving should be restrained. Along these lines, the Sages said: \u201cThe Torah teaches proper conduct: a person should eat meat only when he has an appetite for it\u201d (\u1e24ullin<\/em> 84a), that is, when he truly wants to eat it.<\/p>\n 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, \u201cWhen the Lord your God expands your border, as He has spoken to you, and you say, \u2018I will eat meat\u2019\u201d; 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 \u201cyou shall slaughter from your cattle and your flock\u201d 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 \u1e24ullin<\/em> 84a).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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: \u201cThe rabble among them were seized by craving, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-17-14"],"yoast_head":"\n