ספר במדבר

Numbers 11,12. “did I conceive, etc.‎‏......‏‎’?, “did I bear ‎them? ….. As a nurse carries an infant on the soil. ….From ‎where am I going to produce meat?” The words ‎על האדמה‎, ‎‎“on the soil,” present a difficulty here. What do they add to ‎Moses’ complaint? If they belonged at all, the Torah should have ‎written: ‎אל האדמה‎, as then the purpose of nursing such an infant ‎until he could live as an adult in the Holy Land might have been ‎easier to understand. Furthermore, the word ‎אדמה‎ does not relate ‎to the request of the people for meat.We must remember ‎that it was always Moses’ function and desire to be a dispenser of ‎largesse and loving kindness. It had never been Moses’ nature to ‎restrict this largesse available to the Israelites. The fact that the ‎manna was able to taste according to the imagination of the ‎person consuming it is proof of that, especially when we consider ‎that according to the Talmud in Taanit 9, the manna was ‎granted to the Jewish people through the merit accumulated by ‎Moses. If the Israelites demanded meat at this juncture this ‎indicates that they felt somehow as already entitled to the ‎צמצום ‏המזון‎, ‎‏)‏intense, concentrated, taste of food), something that is an ‎exclusive to the land of Israel. This was something beyond Moses’ ‎ability, and this is why he referred to ‎על האדמה‎, “on the soil of the ‎earth,” meaning the soil of the land of Israel.‎