Embracing Faith in Uncertainty: Lessons from the Exodus

The people of Israel entered the wilderness with no organized plan of livelihood for millions of men, women, and children. Behind them lay a land of oppressive tyranny — yet one that still provided basic food and a form of “bread through labor.” Ahead of them stretched a barren desert. In light of this reality, we can fully understand the verse: “Thus says the Lord: I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your bridal days — your following Me into the wilderness, into a land not sown” — as well as the immense trials the Israelites endured over forty years.

A Cry of Hunger — and a Merciful Response

This likely explains why the Israelites’ complaint, recorded in this week’s portion before the manna was given — “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pot of meat, when we ate bread to satiety; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this entire assembly with hunger” — was not met with anger by God or by Moshe. Their existential distress is understandable, even if it led to exaggerated descriptions of the abundance they supposedly enjoyed in Egypt. After all, they truly had left an ordered life for the complete unknown.

Indeed, God provided them with manna for the entire forty years in the wilderness — “bread from heaven” which, according to the tradition of our Sages, could taste like anything one desired.

And yet, the manna did not provide economic security. It was absolutely impossible to store food from one day to the next; this was explicitly forbidden by a clear command. Even when some attempted to violate it, they gained nothing, as the Torah records: “It bred worms and rotted.” The manna was deliberately and unequivocally a one-day supply.

A Divine Educational Model

Despite the discomfort of this arrangement, and despite the Creator’s limitless power, God established this system as a first-rate educational model. The nation was indeed on its way toward an agricultural life, destined to become a productive people using their own labor for themselves rather than for foreign rulers. Yet first, they needed to internalize the belief that their livelihood rests in God’s hands.

This challenge, experienced in modern life primarily by the self-employed rather than salaried workers, from taxi drivers to business owners, farmers, and investors, is in fact the way of life closest to God. Fortunate is one who merits choosing such a path, provided he continually strengthens his faith and sense of dependence on the Holy One, blessed be He.

It may be that the Torah’s portrayal of the “normal” way of life as agricultural serves precisely this goal of cultivating dependence on God. As the Talmud states, “Faith is the Order of Zera’im (Seeds),” meaning that the tractates dealing with agriculture are called the “Order of Faith.”

Faith in an Unstable World

In our generation, this is not limited to farmers. Seeing one’s livelihood as uncertain may be the truest way to live out, day by day, the message of the Exodus from Egypt discussed last week — the message articulated by the Ramban, who writes that “a person has no share in the Torah of Moshe our teacher unless he believes that all our affairs and occurrences are miracles, with no element of nature or the normal course of the world.”

Only someone who lives with such faith, and who is accustomed to coping with instability through it, can endure periods of economic upheaval, and remain free of anxiety about the unknown.

Training for a Life of Torah

There was another purpose to the economically insecure life of the people in the wilderness. The elite group destined to become the nation’s Torah scholars was meant, even in the future, to live a life of trust in God without conventional “economic security.” Their basic training for this way of life took place in the desert.

On the one hand, their livelihood was guaranteed, as the Rambam writes at the end of Hilchot Shemittah veYovel . On the other hand, they needed to be prepared to leave the structured framework of planned lives in which a person controls his own finances. They were expected to live by a miraculous mode of existence rather than a natural one.

“The Legion of God”

Continuing his discussion that the tribe of Levi had no portion in the land or spoils — “for they are the legion of God,” sustained directly by Him, the Rambam adds these remarkable words: “Not only the tribe of Levi, but any individual from among all humanity whose spirit generously moves him and whose intellect understands to separate himself to stand before the Lord, to serve Him and to know Him, and who walks uprightly as God created him, and removes from his neck the burden of the many calculations that people pursue — such a person is sanctified as holy of holies. God will be his portion and inheritance forever, and He will grant him in this world what is sufficient for him, just as He granted the priests and Levites.”

A soldier in the “legion of God” must not expect a known or clearly defined arrangement in advance. Part of “casting off the burden of many calculations” — which merits this special divine providence, is the willingness to live like the Levites: without a fixed income, without land or inheritance, and without knowing how matters will work out, relying instead on faith and absolute dependence on personal divine providence. This path indeed requires inner resolve and spiritual desire, as the Rambam emphasizes: “one whose spirit generously moves him.”

Torah Without a Livelihood?

Although the priests and Levites served in the Temple only for short periods each year, they were Torah scholars and teachers of law, not engaged in agriculture or other common economic pursuits.

In principle, may one rely on miracles and devote himself to Torah without engaging in earning a livelihood? Is this a legitimate approach according to the Torah, which generally teaches “one should not rely on miracles” ?

At the conclusion of the section of the manna, the Torah states: “This is the matter that the Lord has commanded: Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness… And Moshe said to Aaron: Take one jar and place there a full omer of manna.”

Commenting on this, the Malbim — one of the great thinkers and commentators, writes: “The reason for this command is to teach that the matter of the manna was not limited to the wilderness alone. It is an enduring principle for all generations: anyone who withdraws from worldly pursuits in order to devote himself to Torah and divine service — God will prepare his daily bread for him without toil or effort, and he will be among those who eat manna. Just as God provided for Moshe, who became wealthy from the chips of the Tablets — meaning that through receiving the Torah he was granted wealth and sustenance by miraculous means.”