“By the waters, the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept, and wept for thee Zion….”

Or this one….

“Anatevka, Anatevka.
Underfed, overworked Anatevka.
Where else could Sabbath be so sweet?
Anatevka, Anatevka.
Intimate, obstinate Anatevka,
Where I know everyone I meet.

Soon I’ll be a stranger in a strange new place,
Searching for an old familiar face
From Anatevka.

I belong in Anatevka,
Tumble-down, work-a-day Anatevka.
Dear little village, little town of mine”

Or this one:

“I want to go back to Michigan,
To dear Ann Arbor town,
Back to Joe’s and the Orient,
And back to some of the money I spent,
I want to go back to Michigan,
To dear Ann Arbor town,
I want to go back; I got to go back,
To Michigan.”

What is it that makes people nostalgic? Is nostalgia good? What about when we see it in Fiddler on the Roof? Does any one of us really want to go back to the shtetl lifestyle?

And yet, and yet, that is exactly what happens in this week’s parsha. Maybe even more so. The Israelites start complaining bitterly. Quite frankly they k’vetch and they keep right on k’vetching. It is a long k’vetch. From the moment they left Egypt. They didn’t want to walk through the Sea of Reeds when it parted. Didn’t want to get their feet muddy. They didn’t have enough water. Even after Moses struck the rock twice.
They didn’t want to hear G-d’s voice at Mount Sinai—Moses should go up for them. They didn’t want to wait for Moses to come back down. Aaron should build for them a golden calf. They were called a stiffnecked and stubborn people.

How many of us have started days with this phrase, “I don’t want to?” go to work, go to school, exercise, whatever.

That’s what this week’s portion is about. Let’s look at it. Chapter 11. The people took to complaining bitterly before the Lord. Then the Lord gets angry. The people cry out to Moses.
The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttnous craving. And then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt. The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

Really? They want to go back to Egypt, where they were slaves for the garlic? Don’t get me wrong, I love garlic, but back to slavery so I can eat it? Not sure. This is the problem with nostalgia. We remember the good and forget the bad. And let’s remember, being a slave was not good. Slavery came with reduced food supplies, beatings, working seven days a week, not being able to reproduce. The Egyptians, as the Haggadah says, embittered our lives.

Let’s look carefully at this language for today. Back to where the fish was free? How is it that the fish was free? Isn’t there a cost to slavery? Did the Egyptians really give the Israelites free food or did they have to work for it? The midrash teaches that it was free of moral obligations, like an infant who is fed without expecting anything in return. (Sifrei)

And that seems to be the real issue. The Israelites are acting like children. They cried, They missed the food they ate in Egypt, not because it was good but, , because it’s what they were used to, Moses uses the language of parenting to describe the issues to G-d. He didn’t give birth to them, he can’t nurse them. They are crying and he can’t feed them. He wants to die. In fact, like many worn out mothers he is tied of the question, “What’s for dinner.” Calgon take me away!

This is not really about the Israelites need for food. They have plenty of manna. And according to the midrash, manna could taste like anything you could imagine, whether that is the melons, garlic, onions and fish of Egypt or anything we can dream up. It seems like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory bubble gum. But like Violet, who imagines the taste of blueberries and then becomes one, the Israelites need to be juiced. They have regressed so far and want to go back to the foods they remember from their youth. They want to go back to Egypt where someone else will take care of them

All too often prisioners commit crimes so they can go back to jail where someone will take care of them. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that approximately 67% (or two-thirds) of offenders who were released in the year 1994 were arrested again within three years. Why? Is it just that they are bad apples? For some, yes, but for others, they don’t know how to survive on the outside. They, like the slaves in Egypt, were used to being spoon fed, literally. No matter how difficult prison was they want three square meals a day and a roof over their heads. They are willing to sacrifice their freedom for that sense of security.

The Israelites discovered that freedom wasn’t necessarily easy. It comes with responsibilities. It comes with the need to work for themselves and without a task mastter to keep them in line. They would have to collect the manna—in that sense even though it fell from the heavens, it wasn’t free. They would have to work for it. They would have to live by a system of laws that they hadn’t tottlay bought into yet. And yes, they were nostalgic. They missed the flavorful food of Egypt, the food of their youth. Onions, leeks, garlic. Cucumbers and melons. Food that was just given to them, for free.

Let’s think about those vegetables. What do you notice? What do they have in common? How do they contrast with the seven species of Israel? Pommegranites, olives, dates, grapes, figs?

David Arnow, in his book Creating Lively Passover Seders, points out one of the differences between the foods they long for from Egypt, cucumbers, leeks, garlic, onions and melons are all annuals. They have to be replanted each year. They require constant labor and are only a short-term solution to people’s hunger. It is a band-aid approach. Grapes, figs and pomegranates are perennials—plant them once and they produce for many, many years. They also take several years before they mature and bear fruit. They are a longer-term, more dependable solution to people’s hunger. Carob, another of those Israeli fruits takes 70 years to mature. Honi the Circle Drawer was planting carob and was asked why since he would not be around to harvest any for his own use. He answered, as my ancestors planted for me, I am planting for my children and grandchildren.

American Jewish World Service goes on to make this point: This distinction between the characteristics of foods of slavery and foods of freedom can shed light on the contemporary debate around foreign food aid. While most of the food aid that the United States currently donates to countries facing famine and natural disaster is produced in the United States and shipped abroad, President Obama’s recently proposed budget advocates a more flexible approach in which food would be purchased locally, in the region where the need exists. It seems like organizations such as Heifer International that provides microfinancing so that people can be self-sustaining really do make sense.

To me this becomes an interesting concept. Maimonidies teaches the eight levels of tzedakah the highest level of which is to help someone become self-sufficient. Sometimes we say, give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

Our community garden project that this synagogue has committed itself to, does several things. It teaches us to fish. It calls attention to this problem of global hunger and puts a face to it locally. There are 19,000 food inecure people in Elgin. There is a higher percentage of students on subsidized lunch and breakfast programs in U46 than any other district in Illinois. The two schools closest in proximiety to us have over 90% on subsidized meals. The needs are staggering. Our planting and harvesting, G-d willing will help. But since we are planting annuals, even onions and leeks, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, it will still be a band-aid approach.

We at Congregation Kneseth Israel spent a week working at Food for Greater Elgin. For those of you who were not there, the warehouse is set up like a grocery store. Families and individuals receive a numbe based on the size of their famiy, then a grocery cart, which they push up and down the aisles, chosing exactly what they want to eat. I worked in the bread aisle. People were grateful, smiling, sharing recipes with one another. Young children ate snacks, read pre-school books. There did not seem to be much kvetching.

Was this manna? Quail? Should we be angry that people need assistance? That some maybe taking advantage of the opportunity?
Are there some people who stay on food assistance too long because it is easier? Because like the Israelites who missed Egypt, they want the free fish? Perhaps.

What is our obligation as Jews? We are commanded to feed the hungry. Our Passover seder says “Let all who are hungry come in and eat.” We are commanded to leave the corners of our field for the widow, the orphan, the stanger, the most vulnerable among us. We are doing precisely that as we expand our community garden program. When we give money to Mazon, the Jewish response to hunger, when we tax ourselves for our simchas, like Simon and I will do for installation next week, we are living out this vision.

But we have to do more than that. Whatever crop we are able to harvest from our garden, it will do little to feed the 19000 food insecure people in Elgin. We need to also work for systemic change. We need to understand why people are hungry. What are the root causes? Why are there people, even in our own community, who need to choose between heat, medicine and feeding themselves or their children. Is it about unemployment, underemployment, disability, age, education? It isn’t usually about people just wanting to kvetch or to take the easy road.

This week I will go to a training for a new organization, the Fox Valley Initiative. I was a founding member of a similar organization in Lowell. In fact, I am proud it was incorporated on my dining room table. This new organization is beginning to identify those problems, like hunger, that we can make a real difference about, rather than whining about them. It aims to empower people so that they can feel an ownership and begin to have some control over their own lives and destinies. If anyone would like to join me, there are flyers in the back.

The Israelites whined, they kvetched. We all know how to do it. We all do it too often. G-d didn’t like their kvetching. G-d got really angry about it. We do it here too in the synagogue. I think we forget what our mothers taught us, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Or its collolary, “Think before you speak.” There have been a number of people this year whose feelings have been hurt, intentionally or unintentionally because people whined or kvetched.They wanted to go back to the way things were. They didn’t want any change in the synagogue. They remembered nostalgically the Judaism of their youth or maybe of stories that their zayde used to tell. They didn’t have an understanding of where the synagogue leadership was going. They muttered behind peoples’ backs or sent emails or called and yelled on the phone. They kvetched. They are no different than the Israelites wandering in the desert.

Aaron and Miriam also kvetched in this parsha. What’s more, in this portion, they tattled. They ran to G-d to tell on their brother. As the text says, “They spoke against Moses.” They bore a tale to G-d about Moses because he married a Cushite woman. Horrors! Even Moses, our greatest prophet was in an interfaith marriage?! They thought that maybe G-d didn’t already know this? But that was not the real issue in the text. They wanted to be recognized for their own leadership as well. They were jealous of Moses and the relationship he had with G-d, face to face. They wondered aloud, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has G-d not spoken through us as well?”

The Hebrew is interesting, it is va-t’tadabber, feminine singular. It would appear as though Miriam is the only one speaking, and therefore it is Miriam alone who gets punished. Is this a case of the original Mean Girls? Is it just that as we know from watching toddlers and middle school girls play that a threesome is hard? Is this another case where they should have thought before they spoke? G-d brought all three together to announce the punishment. G-d came down at the entrance of the tent of meeting and spoke to all three together.

Miriam is punished. She winds up with a disease that might be like leprosy. Some skin disease or rash. But an amazing thing happens. The text tells us that Moses is a humble man, the humblest man on earth and he did not defend himself automatically. Instead, Moses prays for his sister Miriam, El Na Rafana La. It is a very simple prayer, G-d please heal her. He uses his power of speech for good.

This congregation needs some healing still. We need to be more like Moses, using our power of speech for good rather than incure the rath of G-d by kvetching. We can do this, use our speech to heal instead of hurt.

I want my garlic, my onions, my leeks. They add flavor to my life. There are days when I want to return to Boston. I need the perennials in my life too. Figs, dates, pommegranties, things that will sustain me year after year after year. The people of Elgin need garlic, onions, leeks, cucumbers, melons, our lettuce, kale, snap peas. Things that will feed them today. And we need to work for systemic change so that they can benefit from the perrienials. I will probably whine and kvetch again, but more and more I want to use the power of speech for good. If you catch me whining, stop me and remind me what I said this morning. I’ll do the same with you. Then we will be able to enter the promised land together.