Parashat HaMan
Prayer for Livelihood
Our sages said everyone who said Parashat HaMan every day would not lack his livelihood. He should first recite the following yehi ratzon (petition).
May it be Your will, Hashem our G-d and the G-d of our fathers that you bestow sustenance to Your entire people – the house of Israel – and include the sustenance for me and for my household. Let us receive the sustenance smoothly without pain, in honor and not in shame, in a permitted way and not through a prohibition, in order that we can serve You and learn Your Torah. [Please provide for us] just as you sustained our forefathers in the wilderness, wasteland, and barren desert.
So, Hashem said to Moshe, Behold! I am going to rain down for you bread from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather what is needed for the day, so that I can test them, whether they will follow My teaching. And it shall be on the sixth day that when they prepare what they will bring, it will be double of what they gather every day.
[Thereupon,] Moshe and Aharon said to all the children of Israel, [In the] evening, you shall know that Hashem brought you out of the land of Egypt. And [in the] morning, you shall see the glory of Hashem when He hears your complaints against Hashem but [of] what [significance] are we, that you make [the people] complain against us? Then Moshe said, when Hashem gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning [with which] to become sated, when Hashem hears your complaints, which you are making [the people] complain against Him, but [of] what [significance] are we? Not against us are your complaints, but against Hashem.
Moshe said to Aharon, tell the entire community of the children of Israel, “draw near before Hashem, for He has heard your complaints.” It came to pass when Aharon spoke to the entire community of the children of Israel, that they turned toward the desert, and behold! The glory of Hashem appeared in the cloud. Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying, I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, in the afternoon you shall eat meat, and in the morning, you shall be sated with bread, and you shall know that I am Hashem, your G-d.
ַּIt came to pass in the evening that the quails went up and covered the camp, and in the morning, there was a layer of dew around the camp. The layer of dew went up, and behold, on the surface of the desert, a fine, bare [substance] as fine as frost on the ground.
When the children of Israel saw [it], they said to one another, it is manna, because they did not know what it was, and Moshe said to them, It is the bread that Hashem has given you to eat. This is the thing that Hashem has commanded, “Gather of it each one according to his eating capacity, an omer for each person, according to the number of persons, each one for those in his tent you shall take.” And the children of Israel did so: they gathered, both the one who gathered much and the one who gathered little. And they measured [it] with an omer, and whoever gathered much did not have more, and whoever gathered little did not have less; each one according to his eating capacity, they gathered. And Moshe said to them, “Let no one leave over [any] of it until morning.” But [some] men did not obey Moshe and left over of it until morning, and it bred worms and became putrid, and Moshe became angry with them. They gathered it morning by morning, each one according to his eating capacity, and [when] the sun grew hot, it melted.
It came to pass on the sixth day that they gathered a double portion of bread, two omer for [each] one, and all the princes of the community came and reported [it] to Moshe. So, he said to them, “That is what Hashem spoke, tomorrow is a rest day, a holy Shabbat to Hashem. Bake whatever you wish to bake, and cook whatever you wish to cook, and all the rest leave it over until morning.” So, they left it over until morning, as Moshe had commanded, and it did not become putrid, and not a worm was in it. And Moshe said, “Eat it today, for today is a Shabbat to Hashem; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day is Shabbat, on it there will be none.”
It came about that on the seventh day, [some] of the people went out to gather [manna], but they did not find [any]. Hashem said to Moshe, “How long will you refuse to observe My mitzvot and My teachings? See that Hashem has given you the Shabbat. Therefore, on the sixth day, He gives you bread for two days. Let each man remain in his place; let no man leave his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.
The house of Israel named it manna. It was like coriander seed, [it was] white, and it tasted like a wafer with honey. Moshe said, This is the thing that Hashem commanded: Let one omerful of it be preserved for your generations, in order that they see the bread that I fed you in the desert when I took you out of the land of Egypt.
Moshe said to Aharon, “Take one jug and put there an omerful of manna, and deposit it before Hashem to be preserved for your generations.” As Hashem had commanded Moshe, Aharon deposited it before the testimony to be preserved.
Then the children of Israel ate the manna for forty years until they came to an inhabited land. They ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. The omer is one tenth of an ephah.