As the Israelites are readying themselves for their forthcoming entry into the promised land, Moses, as we see in this weekly portion of Torah, Reh-eh, envisions ordinary farmstead meat consumption in the land, apart from the elective sacrificial priestly protocol that availed meat to the participants.

Yet, he associates repeatedly such mundane eating with “an obsessive desire” – (it could be also rendered as “craving” or “lust”) – rather than viewing it as an essential or normative human need. This word Ta’avah (or ‘Avat) that Moses invokes in conjunction with meat eating (Deut 12: 15, 20-21) has profound negative associations.

We first meet it in “the garden” when the woman observing the forbidden tree found it ‘’to be desired by the eyes” (Gen 3:6); God warned the Israelites not to go about after “your own eyes” (Num 15:39).  And when the Israelites demanded meat from Moses while traversing the Sinai wilderness, God’s anger was evident.

Though providing them quail........

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