Parashat Beshalach: The Secret of the Manna
How is Our Nourishment an Indicator of our Level of Awareness and Alignment?
Why is it So Challenging to Eat Mindfully and Raise the Sparks in Our Food?
Many of us – especially women – struggle deeply with our relationship to food and eating. The month of Shevat is particularly attuned to rectifying our unholy, grabby way of eating, as it states, “He made the letter tzaddi king over devouring…” (Sefer Yetzirah, Chapter 5). The work of rectified eating touches the root of the very first eating disorder in the Garden of Eden, and because the tikkun is so foundational, the resistance is great. There are real spiritual obstacles that arise precisely when we try to eat in holiness. I can testify to this personally. How many times have I resolved to recite my blessings with intention, to eat modestly and mindfully, with the awareness to raise fallen sparks with every bite? Yet, how many times have I instead found myself hungrily devouring food, stuffing my face while answering emails and messages on the computer?
While some women ride the seesaw of dieting, I find myself on the seesaw of mindful eating. I know that the most basic intention is actually very simple: to say at the beginning of a meal, “I do not eat to give pleasure to my body, G-d forbid, but only to keep my body healthy and strong in order to serve Hashem” (Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, The Book of the Conduct of the Righteous). And yet, I keep forgetting. The next level is even more demanding – to intend to extract the holy sparks within the food, whether those sparks are inherent in the food itself by its nature, or sparks that entered plant and animal life through reincarnation.
(Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heshel of Apta, Sefer Orach LeChaim, Parashat Beshalach).
I wish I were consistent in articulating these intentions verbally before every meal, but it often feels as if there is an invisible force of gravity pulling my awareness downward, making me forget again and again. Each Tu b’Shevat, I renew my New Year resolutions, and for a while, I succeed. Then suddenly, I realize I have been sliding down once more. Still, I long to rectify the holy sparks within food and to heal the eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil – through the awareness that the food itself yearns for its rectification, and in truth receives more than the one who eats it. Remembering that “A tzaddik falls seven times and rises” (Mishlei 24:16), I am determined to keep rising and never give up. Let us validate our efforts, even when they seem small. Baruch Hashem, each year I feel myself coming a little closer – even just a little – toward eating in holiness.
“Are You What You Eat” or “Do You Eat What You Are”?
When the Israelites first discovered the manna, they were surprised, as they had never before experienced such sustenance. Although the saying, מָן הוּא is usually translated as a proclamation – “It is manna!” according to context, it makes more sense to translate it as a question. This is because, it says right afterward, “for they did not know what it was.” The word מָן/man translated as “manna,” is related to the word מַה/mah – “what.” This gives rise to the following alternative translation: “When the children of Israel saw [it], they asked one another, ‘What is it?’ because they did not know what it was…” It seems to me that the Talmud also understands the phrase as a question, “what is he?” and answers how the manna reflected the spiritual level of the eater.
For the righteous, the manna would descend at the entrance of their homes. For the ordinary people, it would descend at a distance, and they would go out and gather it. For the wicked, they would go out far into the field and gather it. It was taught: The manna would change into every taste. For the young, it tasted like bread, for the elderly, it tasted like honey; for infants, it tasted like milk (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 75a–b).
This reveals that the manna was like a mirror, indicating the character of each person.
Why is the Manna Compared to Coriander Seed if it Was Entirely Spiritual?
ספר שמות פרק טז פסוק לא וַיִּקְרְאוּ בֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת שְׁמוֹ מָן וְהוּא כְּזֶרַע גַּד לָבָן וְטַעְמוֹ כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ:
“The House of Israel called its name manna; and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like a wafer with honey” (Shemot 16:31).
When the Torah describes the manna as “like coriander seed, white,” Menachem Tzion asks why this detail matters at all, if the manna was not meant to be a gourmet food. He explains that the Torah is not praising physical taste, because the manna was entirely spiritual and therefore absorbed into the limbs, without any waste, as the Gemara teaches (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 75b). Its purpose was not to gratify the palate, but to educate each limb in its proper Divine service – to reveal to a person how every faculty was created to serve Hashem (Menachem Tzion, Parashat Beshalach).
Yet the Torah insists on describing its appearance: round like coriander seed, and white. The Maharsha explains that גַּד לָבָן/gad lavan is not merely a visual description, but a functional one. The manna would מַגִּיד/magid – ‘tell’ – and clarify matters that were hidden or doubtful, whitening what was dark and unresolved. Just as a judge must determine who is innocent and who is liable, the manna revealed truth where there was doubt (Maharsha, Yoma 75a). Thus, manna functioned as a spiritual diagnostic tool, exposing inner reality.
How Can Our Nourishment Today Be an Indicator of Our Spiritual Level?
These teachings of our Sages – that the manna revealed a person’s spiritual level daily (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 75a) – were not fixed categories. The manna descended calibrated day by day. A person could experience closeness one day and distance the next, depending on his actions, awareness, and spiritual standing at the time. As Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apta explains, the manna itself never changed; rather, the receiver changed. The effort required to receive it reflected the inner state of the recipient (Orach LeChaim, Parashat Beshalach).
Seen this way, the whiteness of the manna becomes deeply significant. לָבָן/lavan is not only a color, but a symbol of clarification, purification, and truth. The manna whitened confusion, exposed inner alignment or misalignment, and revealed who a person truly was at that moment. It was not only bread from heaven; it was a mirror.
This teaching does not remain in the desert. It quietly accompanies us into our own relationship with food. While our nourishment today is physical and clothed in concealment, our way of eating affects us spiritually. Sometimes we eat and feel enlightened, focused, and invigorated; other times we eat and feel heavy, bloated, dulled, or disconnected. The food itself may be the same, but we are not. Just as the manna revealed the inner state of the eater, our experience after eating can become a subtle indicator of our level of awareness, intention, and alignment at that moment. Eating thus becomes an opportunity for self-clarification – a chance to ask, gently and honestly: Where am I right now? Am I receiving nourishment that elevates me, or am I weighed down by unconscious eating? In this way, the manna continues to teach us: food does not merely sustain life – it reveals it.
How Does the Manna Teach Us to Receive Divine Abundance?
Building on the word זֶרַע/zera – “seed,” Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kosov understands this word as an allusion to Hashem, Who “sows righteousness and causes salvations to sprout” (Blessing before Shacharit Shema prayer). He contrasts this Divine giving with human tzedakah, where the recipient often feels shame – “one who benefits from something he did not earn feels a sense of shame before the giver” (Jerusalem Talmud, Orlah 1:3). Therefore, the highest form of human charity is giving in secret (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 10b). With Hashem, it is the opposite: the purpose is that the receiver recognizes the Giver and knows that it came from the hand of Hashem (Menachem Tzion, Parashat Beshalach). This causes humility that is not degrading; it becomes holy awe, and from it flows genuine joy (Menachem Tzion, Parashat Beshalach). The Torah says, וַיִּקְרְאוּ בֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת שְׁמוֹ מָן – “the House of Israel called its name manna” (Shemot 16:31). The Torah’s choice of “the House of Israel,” rather than “the children of Israel,” is deliberate. Rabbi Aharon of Karlin explains that “house” signifies the dimension of reception. Thus, Beit Yisrael denotes the aspect of Israel that receives Divine flow within vessels, as illumination that has been constricted into a form the world can bear (Toldot Aharon, Parashat Beshalach; cf. Zohar I 24b). It was precisely in this mode of reception that Israel encountered the manna, whose descent reflected the spiritual state of each person (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 75a).
Rabbi Shlomo Rabinowicz of Radomsk deepens this by linking the manna to מ״ן/man to mayin nukvin – an awakening from below that draws down shefa (Divine abundance). He reads the word גַּד/gad as an acronym for גּוֹמֵל דַּלִּים – bestows the poor, alluding to abundance reaching Malchut, the place of need and receptivity (Tiferet Shlomo, Parashat Beshalach). The manna thus trained Israel in how to receive, whether through effort or as a pure gift. This depended not on the manna, but on the inner state of the receiver. In every generation, our nourishment and acts of giving reveal who we are becoming. When we learn to receive our nourishment from the hand of Hashem, without entitlement and without denial, our eating, our humility, and our joy begin to sprout from the same seed – a seed that grows into clarity, trust, and redemption.
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