“…And the mann was like coriander seed, and its color was like the color of bedolach.”  (Bamidbar 11:7)

The gemora in Yoma tells us that the mann is called “Gad Lavan” because the word “lavan” implies that it cleanses the Jews from their sins.

An acquaintance once told me a story that he heard directly from the subject of the story, who years ago learned in Radin under the Chofetz Chaim. The Chofetz Chaim had a rule in his yeshiva: Students were only permitted to learn the tractate that the entire yeshiva was studying. Unfortunately, this young man had a burning desire to learn Tractate Nazir. Unable to control himself, he decided to break the rules and surreptitiously learn this tractate. His first problem was that in the entire yeshiva there was only one Shas; if this volume was consistently missing, people would start to suspect him. So, this industrious young man travelled 10 km away to a Rebbetzin whose late husband had a full set of Shas, and he convinced her to allow him to borrow this one volume. Life was blissful: He was learning his regular sedarim and was also successful in his learning of Nazir, too, until one day he came to a Tosafos and was stumped. He could not ask anyone because they would obviously ask, “Why are you interested in a Tosafos in Nazir?!” One day in the middle of seder, he sat dejectedly at his place, and dreamed about an answer for his problem with Tosafos. The Chofetz Chaim walked over to him and suggested that he read up on a few sources. He looked up the information that the Chofetz Chaim suggested, and to his surprise he found a passage that explained his difficulty in Tosafos. It puzzled him: How did the Chofetz Chaim know that he was learning Nazir and also how did he know that he was stuck on this Tosafos? A stifling feeling of being stalked possessed him to the point that he left the yeshiva!

As the Bnei Yisrael travelled in the desert, whenever someone sinned the mann would be found further away from his door. One could imagine that aside from having a guilty conscience, those people would have the feeling of being stalked by Hashem. This is possibly the meaning of the verse in Devarim 8:3 (which speaks about the affliction of having to eat the mann).

We can easily understand the thoughts of these Jews who preferred eating the foods of Egypt “freely.” This could possibly be understood as wanting a reprieve from being “scrutinized”.

The Chofetz Chaim was wont to say that every invention comes to teach us something, to help us in our service of Hashem.

Not long ago, in a Shul in Jerusalem, a man used the facilities in the middle of a weekday shacharis, and when he came out, he found only one of his tefillin. The other was missing! Would someone have stolen just one tefillin? He quickly contacted the Gabbai and they looked at the security camera videos and saw something strange: A man left the shul with the strap of a tefillin dragging behind him. The Gabbai went to this man’s house and asked if he found one tefillin, and the homeowner was surprised and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact I did. When I came home this morning, I opened the door to my home and then noticed a single tefillin had dropped on the floor.” The Gabbai was able to return this lost item to the original owner, and we gained a story which strengthens us in remembering that all our actions are recorded.

We can now understand Hashem’s dismay at our complaint that we want to have other foods besides the mann. He gave us the mann to help us keep in line. Saying we would like to be rid of this scrutiny is implicitly stating that we would like to act as we wish, without being monitored.

Today we are constantly tracked by thousands of security cameras, as well as our own cellphones. As we learned during the government lockdowns of 2020, “They” always know where we are. This makes the idea of the Mishna in Avos, “An eye that sees and an ear that hears” very real and meaningful to us. Remember this Mishna to ensure that we don’t do any damage to our souls that may one day come back and embarrass us.