Quail at Dusk and the Bread the Limbs Absorbed

"And it came to pass at evening that the quail came up" (Exodus 16:13). It is written sin-lamed-vav [implying a word from the root of tranquility] but read selav [quail]: the righteous eat it in tranquility, while the wicked eat it and it feels to them like thorns. There are four kinds of quail: the shivli, the kivli, the pheasant, and the selav. The finest of them all is the shivli; the poorest of them all is the selav. They are like sparrows. One slaughters it and sets it in the oven, and it swells until it fills the whole oven. They place thirteen loaves around it, and the lowest one cannot be eaten except mixed with other things. For Rav Yehuda it would be found among the wine vats. For Rav Chisda it would be found among the firewood. For Rava a hunter would bring it from the marsh every day. One day he did not bring it. Rava said, "What is this?" He went up to the roof and heard a child reciting, "I heard, and my belly trembled at the sound" (Habakkuk 3:16). He said, "Learn from this that Rav Chisda has died," and out of grief for the master he ate no food [or: studied his teaching]. It is written "And the layer of dew came up" (Exodus 16:14), and it is written "And when the dew came down" (Numbers 11:9): dew above and dew below, so that [the manna] was like something laid in a box. "Fine" [dak], "flaky" [mechuspas]. Resh Lakish said: a thing that crumbles on the palm of the hand. Rabbi Yochanan said: a thing absorbed into the two hundred and forty-eight limbs, for the numerical value of mechuspas works out to that. They objected: mechuspas is much more than that. Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak said: it is written mechuspas [defective spelling, lowering the count]. Our Rabbis taught: "Man ate the bread of the mighty" (Psalms 78:25). This is the bread that the ministering angels eat, the words of Rabbi Akiva. When this was said before Rabbi Yishmael, he said to them: Go and tell Rabbi Akiva, you have erred. Do angels eat? Has it not already been said, "I ate no bread" (Deuteronomy 9:9)? Rather, do not read "the mighty" [abirim] but "the limbs" [evarim], a thing absorbed into the two hundred and forty-eight limbs. Then how do I uphold "And you shall have a spade among your gear" (Deuteronomy 23:14)? These are things the traders of the nations would sell to Israel. [Rabbi Eliezer says: even those things the manna would dissolve.] Then how do I uphold "And you shall have a spade among your gear"? After they sinned, the Holy One, blessed be He, said: I said they should be like the ministering angels, and they refused; now I burden them three parasangs. This is what is written, "And they camped by the Jordan" (Numbers 33:49), and Rabbah bar bar Chana said: I myself saw that place, and it was three parasangs. It was taught: when they relieved themselves, they did not relieve themselves in front of them or to their sides, but only behind them. The disciples of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai asked him: why did the manna not come down for Israel just once a year? He said to them: I will tell you a parable. To what may this be compared? To a king of flesh and blood who had one son, and he allotted him his food once a year, so the son would greet his father only once a year. The king reversed himself and fixed it daily, and the son greeted him every day. So too with Israel: one who had four or five children would worry and say, "Perhaps tomorrow the manna will not come down and they will all be found dead of hunger," and so they were all found directing their hearts to their Father in heaven.