Behaalosecha: Don’t Cry Over Lost Fish / Forbidden Relations (FULL Article)

Synopsis: This is the audio version of the 3-page article I wrote and published on rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/ on 6/9/26 titled: Behaalosecha: Don’t Cry Over Lost Fish / Forbidden Relations (FULL Article). Sometimes a fish is just a fish, but sometimes it's a euphemism. At least, that's the disagreement in the Gemara. What is the basis of this disagreement, and what does it teach us? Here's my approach.

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Transcript

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Hello, I'm Rabbi Matt Schneewise, and this is the audio version of the three-page article I wrote and published on my Substack at rabbi Schneewise.substack.com on June 9th, 2026. And the article is titled Bihalosha, Don't Cry Over Lost Fish Slash Forbidden Relations. And this is the full article, not the part one that I posted originally last week. The facts. Things begin to go south in Bamidbar chapter 11. First, the Israelites complain, and Hashem responds with a conflagration. Next, the Asafsuf, i.e., the rabble that left Egypt with them, instigates more complaining. Quote from Bamidbar 11, 4 through 5. And the Asafsuf that was in their midst were seized with craving, and also the children of Israel wept again, saying, Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish that we would eat in Egypt, Chinam, for free, the cucumbers and the watermelons, and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. End quote. I'm sure you assumed that the fish mentioned in this complaint referred to actual fish. What else could it refer to? Turns out it's a machlokus, disagreement, and a bizarre one at that. The Gemara in Yuma 75A states, quote, Rav and Schmuel disagree about the meaning of fish in the verse, we remember the fish that we would eat in Egypt for free. One said, actual fish, and one said arrayos, forbidden sexual relations, end quote. Yes, you heard that right. One side maintains that fish means fish, but the other side thinks fish is a code word for araios. Why would they be crying about arrayos? And what do arryos have to do with fish? Rashi explains, araios, which had become forbidden to them in the wilderness upon receiving the Torah, and Daga fish, alludes to sexual intercourse, as in the Yidgula Rove, may they multiply like fish from Baratius 4816. End quote from Rashi. The closest English equivalent we have is rabbits, which can serve as shorthand for reproduction or the activity associated with it, as in breeding like rabbits. Lest you think the Gemara leaves the Maklokus at that, it does not. An extensive proof text analysis follows. And I'll just note before I quote the Gemara that since I'm translating a lengthy Gemara here, and the Gemara tends to omit lots of connecting phrases or unstated um assumptions, uh, I have extensive brackets in my translation here, but I'm not going to attempt to differentiate that on the audio. So if you want to know exactly what is the translation and what is the additional explanatory information, you're going to have to look at the actual document. Okay, quote: the Gemara explains the one who said fish bases his interpretation on that which is written, that we would eat, implying something they ate. And the one who says arrios bases his interpretation on that which is written for free. Certainly the Israelite slaves were not given free fish by their oppressive taskmasters. The Gemara asks, according to the one who says Araios, isn't it written that we would eat? The Gemara answers, the Torah implied a euphemistic expression. As it is written in Mishlay 3020, so is the way of an adulterous woman. She quote unquote eats and wipes her quote unquote mouth and says, I have done no wickedness. Eat and mouth are clearly sexual euphemisms in that context. And according to the one who said, fish, what is the meaning of for free? The Gemara answers, the Israelites brought fish from the river, which was ownerless property. As the master said, when the Jews drew water, Hokarish Barku prepared little fish for them in the water that swam into their jugs. The Gemara comments, Granted, according to the one who said they cried over actual fish, and that they were not promiscuous with Arios in Egypt, this is what is written in praise of the Jewish people in Sheerashirim 4.12. A garden enclosed is my sister, the bride, a locked fountain, a sealed spring. This figurative language teaches that the Jewish women were chaste. But according to the one who said the Jewish people cried over Arios, what does a sealed spring mean? The Gemara answers, it means that they were not promiscuous with those relatives who were already forbidden to them by the seven No Hide commandments, which they observed in Egypt, but in the wilderness they cried over the additional Urayos imposed upon them by the Torah. The Gemara asks further, granted, according to the one who said that they cried over the newly forbidden Urayos, this is as it was written. Moshe heard the people weeping for their families, Bamidbar 1110. They wept over quote unquote family matters because it became prohibited for them to cohabit with those relatives. But according to the one who said they cried over fish, what is the meaning of weeping for their families? The Gemara ultimately concludes both this and that happened. They cried about Arios, and they also cried because they no longer had the fish of Egypt. End quote from the Gemara and Yuma. The question. The only thing they disagree about is whether the word fish in We Remember the Fish That We Would Eat in Egypt for free refers solely to actual fish, or whether it refers to arryos. What could possibly be at the heart of such a narrow machus? The foundation. The first step is to identify the conceptual common ground. This can be summed up in a single word, kiddusha. While kiddusha is commonly translated as holiness or sanctity, I find that such terms fail to convey the precise meaning. My preferred translation is transcendence, specifically transcendence of our minds over our physicality. Kiddusha is predicated on the fact that a human being is a hybrid creature, a non-physical, truth-seeking, abstract thinking, cellam elokim operating through a physical body with animalistic drives and emotions. By default, these two parts of our nature are at odds. Kiddusha, as an ideal, refers to the state of mind over matter, in which our desires are subordinate to our intellect, and our physical drives no longer define us. All mitzvos promote Kiddusha, as is evident from the standard formula for the Brachos we say on mitzvos, Ashir Kidishanabh mitzvosav, who made us kadosh through his mitvos. But some mitzvahs are more kiddusha-centric than others. In his Magnum Opus, the Mishnah Torah, Ramam classifies all 613 mitzvos into 14 books based on their underlying theme. Sefer Kedusha is comprised of two primary sets of laws, Hilkos Isure Biya, the laws of forbidden relations, and Hilhos Ma'halos Asuros, laws of forbidden foods, along with Hilkus Shita, the laws of slaughter, as a subcategory of the latter. Why does the Ramam single out these two categories of mitzvos as emblematic of Kedusha? Because they pertain to the two fundamental instinctual drives within us, the sexual and the appetitive. Kedusha requires us to continually exert our minds over our matter, and since our sexual and appetitive drives are the most prominent part of our animalistic nature, the mitzvos that govern these drives are the primary mechanisms by which Kedusha is inculcated in the members of the nation. With this concept of Kedusha in hand, the framing of the Mahlochis becomes clear. The Israelites had been taken out of Egypt, a fundamentally anti-Kedusha society in which sexual excess was rampant, as is evident from the Torah introducing the Parsha of Araios with, quote, you shall not act as they do in the land of Egypt where you dwelled, end quote, from Vikra 18. Rabbi Joseph B. Solovechik calls this the pagan way of life in his lecture on leadership. Quote, what is the pagan way of life in contradistinction to the Torah way of life? The pagan cries for variety, for boundlessness, for unlimited lust and insatiable desire, the demonic dream of total conquest, of drinking the cup of pleasure to its dregs. The pagan way of life is the very antithesis of Yahadut, Judaism, which demands limitedness of enjoyment and the ability to step backward if necessary, the ability to withdraw, to retreat. The unlimited desire, which the Greeks call hidone, is the worst desire in man. The pagan way of life has a tremendous attraction for people. The Torah describes so beautifully the way in which the pagan gathers, accumulates property, gathers the slav, how he gathers property, means of gratification for his hungry senses. So the people worked all that day and all that night gathering the quails. The least anyone gathered was ten chomeres, and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. That's a quote. They were mad with desire. There was no controlling, limiting element in their desire for vastness. The imagination excited them, and their good sense was surrounded with a nimbus which was irresistible. The more, the better, and you start gathering new goods even before you have completed gathering the other goods. The pagan is impatient and insatiable. That's what the Torah describes in the Kibros Hatava, the graves of desire. End quote from the Rav. During the lengthy Egyptian exile, the Israelites had assimilated Egypt's values, including its relationship to Tava, desire. They had accepted the Torah, but that doesn't mean their values changed overnight, or even over the year they spent in the wilderness. That inner conflict came to a head in the Kirz Hatava Hatava episode in our chapter. An approach. In light of this, I would like to suggest an approach based on the following sifray in Bamidbar 11.5, Piska 87. Quote, we remember the fish that we would eat in Egypt for free. Is it possible that the Egyptians gave them fish for free? Is it not written in Shemos 518, and now go and work, and straw will not be given to you? If they did not give them free straw, would they give them free fish? How then are we to understand free? Free of mitzvos. End quote from the siphray. Both sides agree that the Israelites' complaints stemmed from their reluctance to relinquish the pagan way of life they had enjoyed in Egypt. Both sides also agree that this conflict expressed itself in an overt complaint about food and a covert grieving over the sexual freedom they had previously enjoyed. The open sexual rebellion would not occur until later, with the Moabite and Midianite women at the end of Parshisbala. The point of disagreement is this. Did their complaints stem merely from Tava, i.e. the desire to gratify their sexual and apetitive lusts, or was their tava rooted in a more sinister desire to cast off the yoke of mitzvos? I will attempt to elucidate this distinction through a real-world example. I am a high school teacher. Although I have only taught at Orthodox Jewish day schools, my students have come from a variety of backgrounds and levels of religiosity. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of students who struggle with the kidusha aspects of halacha. Some students simply want to gratify their desires. They crave noncosure food, they want to be in the same kinds of relationships as their non-Jewish peers, they want to be able to engage in fun activities on Chavez, and so on. In areas where their desires do not clash with halacha, they have no complaints. But there are other students who want these same things and harbor a resentment toward halacha. They don't just want to indulge their desires, they want to cast off the yoke of mithos and be free. They don't only oppose halacha because it's an impediment to their desires, they resent being restricted per se. Perhaps this is the question at the heart of this machlokis. The side that says fish means the side that says fish means actual fish maintains that the Israelites longed for Egyptian food and Egyptian sexual norms, and that this longing stemmed purely from Tava. The side that says Araios adds a deeper dimension to their complaint. It's not just that they wanted to gratify their desires, it's that they wanted to be free from mitzvos. And that extended to both their cravings for food and their sexual freedom. This is why the Drasha is on the phrase, the fish we would eat in Egypt for free, because that phrase expresses their true complaint in all its fullness, encompassing both the sexual and the appetitive, and naming what they truly yearned for, freedom from mitzvos. If this approach is correct, it illustrates how sensitive Khazal were to the nuances of the text and how masterfully they encoded rich philosophical and psychological insights into their cryptic midrashic comments.