In this week's parisher, Moses has a breakdown.

It's the lowest emotional ebb of his entire career as a leader.

Listen to his words to God.

Why have you brought this trouble on your servant?

What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?

Did I conceive these people?

Did I give them birth? I can't carry all these people by myself. Did I conceive these people? Did I give them birth? I can't carry all these

people by myself. The burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me,

please go ahead and kill me if I've found favor in your eyes. And don't let me face my own ruin.

Yet the cause seems utterly disproportionate to its effect. The

people have done what they so often did before. They complain. They say, if only we

had meat to eat, we remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost, and the cucumbers, the

melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic. But now we've lost our appetite.

We never see anything but this manner. Now, this isn't the first time Moses had faced this

kind of complaint. They'd done so before. There's several such instances in Seveeshumut

in the Book of Exodus, including one almost exactly similar about the food. If only we died by the Lord's hand in Egypt.

There we sat around pots of meat and at the food, all the food we wanted.

But you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.

Now, on those earlier occasions, Moses didn't give expression to the kind of despair

he speaks from here. Usually when leaders face repeated challenges, they grow stronger each time.

They learn how to respond, how to cope. They develop resilience, a thick skin. They formulate

survival strategies. Why then does Moses seem to do

...