It all started in a place called Elim.

Think about it: when the world was first formed, the Almighty set up twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees there. Why those numbers? Well, they correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel and the seventy elders. A beautiful symmetry, right? And it was right there, in Elim, that the Israelites truly began to delve into the study of Torah, of God's law. They revisited the laws given to them earlier at Marah, deepening their understanding.

But the journey wasn't all spiritual enlightenment, was it? After leaving Egypt, the Israelites had brought bread with them. It lasted them thirty-one days. Then… nothing. Picture this: thousands of people, fresh from slavery, now staring at an endless, desolate wilderness. Can you imagine the panic?

The entire community, the whole kahal, turned on Moses. It wasn’t just the immediate hunger gnawing at their bellies. It was the terrifying uncertainty about the future. The wilderness stretched before them, vast and unforgiving. Their courage faltered.

"We left, expecting freedom!" they cried. "But now we're not even free from the worry of finding food! We're not the happiest people, like our leader promised, but the most miserable!" According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, they felt utterly deceived.

They continued: "His words raised our hopes so high, filled our ears with empty promises, and now he torments us with famine, unable to provide even the simplest meal! He tricked this great multitude with talk of a new home. After leading us from a familiar land to this wasteland, he plans to send us to the underworld – the final path of life!"

Ouch. Harsh words, right?

They even went so far as to say, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord during those three days of darkness in Egypt! At least then we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread!"

But here's the thing: in their despair, they were rewriting history. They were speaking untruths. As we find in Midrash Rabbah, the reality was that they had suffered from hunger in Egypt too. The Egyptians certainly weren't overfeeding their slaves!

So, what does this tell us? Maybe that even in the face of incredible miracles and the promise of freedom, human nature remains… human. We forget the bad times, exaggerate the present hardships, and let fear cloud our judgment. It makes you wonder, doesn't it, how often we do the same thing in our own lives, forgetting the past blessings and succumbing to the anxieties of the moment?