The Magical Manna and Its Many Tastes

(15) When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “man hu - What is it?” —for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “That is the bread which יהוה has given you to eat.

(31) The house of Israel named it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers in honey.

(7) Now the manna was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium. (8) The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes. It tasted like rich cream.

“All the people were seeing the voices” (Exodus 20:15). Voice is not written here, but “voices.” .... Come and see how the voice would emerge to each one of Israel, each and every one in accordance with his capability; the elderly according to their capability, the young men according to their capability, the children according to their capability, the nursing babies according to their capability, the women according to their capability, and Moses, too, according to his capability, as it is stated: “Moses would speak, and God would answer him with a voice” (Exodus 19:19), with a voice that he could withstand. .... Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina said: If you are astonished about this matter, learn from the manna that would fall for Israel only according to the capability of each and every one of Israel. The young men would eat it as bread, as it is stated: “Behold I will rain bread for you from the heavens…” (Exodus 16:4); the elderly, like honey wafers, as it is stated: “And its taste was like wafers with honey” (Exodus 16:31); the nursing babies, like milk from his mother’s breasts [shedei], as it is stated: “Its taste was like the taste of a cake [leshad] with oil” (Numbers 11:8); and the ill, like fine flour mixed with honey, as it is stated: “My bread that I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, with which I fed you” (Ezekiel 16:19); the idolaters tasted it bitter like a coriander seed, as it is stated: “The manna was like a coriander seed” (Numbers 11:7). Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina said: If the manna, which was one type, transformed into several types to fill the need of each and every one, the voice that had power in it, all the more so that it would change for each and every one so they would not be harmed.

It was also said with regard to the manna: “And its taste was as the taste of a cake [shad] baked with oil [hashamen]” (Numbers 11:8). Rabbi Abbahu said: Shad means breast. Just as a baby tastes different flavors from the breast, since the taste of the milk changes somewhat depending on what foods his mother eats, so too with the manna, every time that the Jewish people ate the manna, they found in it many different flavors, based on their preferences. There are those who say that the word is written as shed and means literally a demon. How so? Just as a demon changes into different forms and colors, so too, the manna changed into different flavors.

[Jethro rejoiced] "for all the good" [that the Eternal had done for Israel.] This could be understood literally. But Rabbi Joshua says: "for all the good" refers to the manna. They told him, 'the manna we eat can taste like bread or meat or fish or locusts - the taste of any tasty thing in the world.' Indeed that is how our sages interpreted "a cake baked with oil" (Numbers 11:8) in Yoma: Just as a baby tastes many tastes from the breast, so the manna turns into many tasty things. We can apply an a fortiori argument: If one can prepare bread, which comes from the earth, into a thousand types of food, as is told in Aggadat Eichah - the woman who apprenticed her son to learn to cook various dishes and they taught him five hundred tasty things to do with wheat, and then another five hundred - how much more so for bread that descends from heaven!