Parshas Ha-Mon

There is a silly tradition among some Jews of reciting Exodus 16.4–36 on the Tuesday before the Saturday on which the Torah portion containing this chapter is read publicly in the synagogue worship service. I’m sorry for starting with such a confusing sentence, but it’s the best way I could render ‘the Tuesday before parshas B’shallach‘. See, every week Jews read a different passage from the Torah, completing the whole cycle in a year, and this week the reading is from the middle of—never mind.

Anyway, this particular chapter relates the story of how God sent manna to the Israelites in the desert. Reciting it on this particular day is supposed to be a segulah for a good livelihood and good sustenance. (A segulah is a ritual object or action that has some kind of magical mystical power: nine times out of ten it suffices to substitute the word ’superstition’.) This chapter is known as Parashat Ha-Man, or in proper Ashkenazic Yiddishy Yeshivish Hebrew, Parshas Ha-Mon, which means ‘the section about manna’. Some people seem to recite it every day—the Yerushalmi maintains that if you do, you will never go hungry—but there is a particularly special segulah on this day to say it. What narishkeit.

You can find the complete text in Hebrew here, along with the traditional before- and after-texts, along with the late antique Aramaic translation of Onkelos, for whatever that’s worth. It also seems to be on pages 181c–181f of my ArtScroll prayer book. Since the text is only available in Hebrew (except for ArtScroll’s awful translations), I will translate the silliest parts of this superstition for your reading and deriding pleasure below. My snide comments are in italics and parentheses. For a translation of Exodus 16.4–36, please consult a quality translation. But seriously, if you’re skipping work to spend more time in shul to make sure to recite this section with extra devotion, expecting that God above will make His bounty to fall out of the sky and onto your family’s dinner plates, then you might be in for a bit of a surprise when your paycheck gets docked for the missed work.

Parshas Ha-Mon

It is said in the sources that he who recites Parashat Ha-Man every day will not lack a livelihood, and beforehand he should recite ‘May it be Your will…’. He may recite Parashat Ha-Man even on the Sabbath; only the prayers for livelihood should not be recited on the Sabbath. (Because it doesn’t count as a prayer for livelihood if you don’t say that’s what you’re doing! How’s God going to know the difference?)

May it be Your will, Lord our God, God of our ancestors, that You provide a livelihood for all Your people, the House of Israel, as well as my livelihood and the livelihood of the people in my household besides, in comfort and not in trouble, in honour and not in disgrace, in permission and not in prohibition, so that we will be able to perform Your worship services and study Your Torah, just as You provided sustenance to our ancestors in the wilderness, in a barren and desert land. (Because it totally worked out for the Israelites in the desert, didn’t it, when God sent sustenance and those sorry ingrates rebelled. I’m sure He had some good method for dealing with that, didn’t He. Oh wait, yeah, in the very next chapter, there is no water for the people, and they go nuts. Good planning there, God.)

(Exodus 16.4–36 is read here. Seriously, go read it. If you do, you’ll find that the food in your refrigerator has suddenly doubled. Or at least it will seem to have doubled if you dig deep enough inside.)