Bread of Affliction

4 / The Bread of Affliction
mann for the whole week? The mann could have been canned
or packaged, like packaged matzos. Instead, every morning the
Bnei Yisrael had to get up to collect the mann, and it couldn’t
be saved. “Vayarum tolaim vayivash,” it rotted away if you
kept it to the next day, and “v’cham hashemesh v’namas,” on
the field it melted away.
The mann was not the only food that couldn’t be saved. It’s
remarkable that of all the commodities that men require, food
has the least durability. It doesn’t last. When you buy a hat,
if it’s good quality it can last a lifetime. A new pair of shoes
last a long time. Eyeglasses last a long time. Food doesn’t last.
The gemara explains that if food would last for a long time,
profiteers would be able to hoard it. They would pile up grain
in their barns and keep it for years until there would be a
famine. Then they could sell the grain at inflated prices and
become rich. Instead, what happens? Rats and insects and
rot start attacking the food, and the hoarders have to sell it
a bargain prices. You see this in the big fruit stores all the
time. The fruit inside is very expensive, but the same fruit
is outside at half price. It’s beginning to rot, you can’t keep
it anymore, so the price goes down. This phenomenon that
food doesn’t last has many benefits. But that is not the main
benefit. The chief benefit is that “Einei chol eilecha yisabeiru
— Everyone’s eyes have to hope to You” (Ashrei). Hashem
doesn’t want anybody to become too confident. He wants you
to know that you have to lift your eyes to Him every day and
ask for your basic necessities again and again. Of course, in
today’s modern society we become deceived. Our pantries are
full of canned goods, and we think that it’ll last forever. (We
don’t worry about whether we will last forever to eat all the
food, but that’s a different story.) In a natural society, you
have to worry about your food every day.