“We remember the fish that we used to eat for free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” (Bamidbar 11:5)

Rav Zalman Sorotzkin (1881–1966) asks a question that has been bothering me for many years. I found his answer spot on. Even though I didn’t think of it, I thought that perhaps others would gain from it as well.

Moshe Rabbeinu complains to Hashem that the Jews complaint of “give us food”, was too massive for him to bear. To this Hashem answers, “I will add the zekeinim to your work force, and this will alleviate the problem.” The question is that to provide the requested food, Moshe Rabbeinu needed a miracle of some type! How could adding members to his work force take care of this problem?

My initial thoughts were that to be a leader and make important decisions is an extremely pressurized situation. The verse in Mishlei (24:6) tells us that when we are faced with indecision, teshua b’rov yoetz – the proper answer comes through consulting with many people. I therefore assumed that by the fact that Moshe would have a built-in counsel, he would be better able to deal with the issues of Klal Yisrael.

However, this doesn’t really answer the question. Sometimes klal Yisrael were asking for things that were impossible to provide. At this exact time, they wanted food, when there was no natural way to create it! How could extra advisors help?

Rav Zalman Sorotzkin offers the following explanation based on a parable: The Poritz had a laundry maid that he would abuse to no limit by giving her an unending amount of work, a meager sustenance, and no appreciation at all. The king happened to have seen this maiden and she found favor in his eyes. This resulted in the king taking her as his queen. She moved into the palace and quickly learned the joys of royalty. While she spoiled herself with all kinds of royal delicacies, she was still a laundry maid at heart, and soon had a desire for some black bread and herring – coarse food of a poor person. Not only could this food not be found in the palace, but the king didn’t allow any signs of poverty on his premises. Yet his new wife started to complain to no end that she “needed” that wonderful tasting food. What did the king do? He took into his employment that Poritz as well. And now whenever the queen would complain that she wanted that coarse food, he would call in the Poritz, and her nightmares of working for her former boss would come alive again. The wish for herring and black bread dissipated, and instead she appreciated how she was now in the king’s palace

Says Rav Sorotzkin: Moshe put into place the zekanim and the shotrim that existed in Egypt. When Klal Yisrael would see them, they would have a flashback to the “good old days of back-breaking slavery in Egypt”. This would automatically halt their complaint and they would instead appreciate all that which Hashem had given them.

I believe that this idea is a recurring refrain throughout our history. We seem to glorify the “good old days” that weren’t necessarily good! I would like to share with you a thought that a friend of mine from Jerusalem shared with me about a conversation he had with my father less than 10 years ago. He asked my father, “What was it like in Yeshiva in the ‘good old days’?” My father smiled and responded to him, “What makes you think that today isn’t good?”

If we learn to appreciate that which we have instead thinking that the grass was greener in generations past, we can seize the opportunity of today to have a pleasant experience, basking in the glory that Hashem has bestowed upon us. We live a life of luxury that has no precedent since Klal Yisrael went into Galus.

However, there is one area where we should truly miss the “good old days”. We should yearn for the days when we had the Beis Hamikdash and were living in the Holy Land under the leadership of Hashem Yisborach!