Monday, August 11, 2008

Taste of the Manna

The Gemora (Daf Yomi: Gittin 31a) states that one can separate both terumah gedolah and terumas ma’aser with a thought and one does not need to physically or orally designate the terumah.

Tosfos writes that on Shabbos, it is still forbidden to mentally separate terumah, for through that, he renders the produce usable (it is regarded as “fixing” on Shabbos).

Based upon this, the Pnei Dovid answers the following contradiction: It is written [Shmos 16:23] regarding the manna: Tomorrow is a rest day, a holy Shabbos to God. Bake whatever you wish to bake, and cook whatever you wish to cook. Rashi comments: Whatever you wish to bake in an oven, bake everything today for two days, and whatever amount of it you need to cook in water, cook today. Yet, it is written [Bamidbar 11:8]: The people walked about and gathered it. Then they ground it in a mill or crushed it in a mortar, cooked it in a pot and made it into cakes. And there Rashi comments: The manna did not actually enter the mill, the pot, or the mortar, but its taste changed to that of ground, crushed, or cooked food. And this is actually how the Gemora in Yoma (75a) explains it as well! It wasn’t actually baked, but rather, if they wanted it to taste as if it was baked, then it would! Seemingly, Rashi is contradicting himself!?

He answers that there is a distinction between the weekdays and Shabbos. During the weekdays, they could mentally decide on how the manna should taste, and so it happened. However, on Shabbos, this would be forbidden, for it would be regarded as “fixing” the food! They therefore had to bake it from beforehand if they wanted it to taste baked on Shabbos.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps it's only considered a tikkun if it is a machashavah which is required to be done, like terumah; but here, the man didn't have to taste like a baked item, so even if he thinks baked, it might not be regarded as a tikkun?