Parshas Eikev

 Liyluy Nishmas Elchonon Tzvi ben R' Yisroel Menachem, Zekaini Moiri R' Baruch Moshe Aryeh ben Harav Zev Yehuda, my cousin Zev Yehuda ben Rav Shmuel Mordechai, Avraham ben R' Yitzchok Zev, R' Dovid Meir ben Rav Shmuel..

In perek ches posuk gimmel the posuk says "Vayochlacha es ha'man asher lo yadaata v'lo yadun avosecha" "I fed you the maan that you did not know about and your forefathers did not know about".
 The Medrash Raba says, R Ilai asked in the name of R' Yosi ben Zimra, why didn't Hashem tell Avraham avinu about the maan? Rav Abba says becasue its the way of Tzadikim to say a little and do a lot so Hashem didn't tell him. Davar acheir is, had Hashem told Avraham and klal Yisroel knew about it, Klal Yisroel would have said "we already ate maan when we were in Mitzrayim." Just as Klal Yisroel remembered eating fish in Mitzrayim that chazal say they never got any of it, they just saw Mitzriim eating it.

The Rosh Yeshiva ztl asks the following, Klal Yisroel then wasn't a group of people that would just complain about having something random b'meizid that was so far fetched. They weren't just out to complain and they weren't crazy so how could they complain about something that wasn't even there in Mitzrayim with them.

The Rosh Yeshiva explains that the wa people work is when they know they are going to have something they begin to have the hana'a from it as soon as they know its coming. I heard from a Rav in a Shabbos Drasha the same idea. Someone is bidding for something at an auction for example a nice watch. He bids high and it seems that the watch is his they start counting down until the watch is his. The bidder begins to picture the watch on his arm shining in the sunlight completing his image. His nice suit and tie, his stylish shoes and his new beautiful watch. Suddnely someone from the crowd jumps up and raises the bid and wins the watch. In the first bidders mind, the second bidder has just stolen his watch. If you don't believe it think of your own scenario and you'll come to realize that this is in fact the way it works.

Klal Yisroel would have been so used to knowing the Man was coming that over the years they would have begun to believe it was theirs already way before they actually began getting it, and would have lost appreciation for it.

This is the way we are. It takes effort to realize what we take for granted. We get so used to things that we lose our appreciation but it doesn't have to be that way. We can try to stay focused on it and realize the things we do and don't have and appreciate them in turn.

Good Shabbos
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