"Beshalach — Part III — Manna, Shabbos, and Spiritual Discipline"

3.5 — Ramban: Manna as New Creation

Not Sustenance, but Ongoing Creation

When Ramban turns to the manna, he does not treat it as food at all. He treats it as creation.

Unlike bread that grows from soil or meat drawn from animals, the manna has no natural source. It does not emerge from earth, water, or human labor. Ramban insists that this is not incidental. The manna is deliberately removed from the natural order so that Israel will encounter Hashem not only as Redeemer, but as Creator in the present tense.

The wilderness becomes a space where creation does not recede into the past. It happens again, every morning.

Creation That Does Not Accumulate

Ramban emphasizes a striking feature: manna cannot be stored. Anything saved overnight decays. Creation here is non-transferable. Yesterday’s existence cannot be stockpiled for tomorrow.

This reveals a radical theological claim. The world does not continue because it once began; it continues because it is constantly renewed. The manna externalizes this truth into daily experience.

Israel is taught to live inside a reality where being itself is a gift that must be received again.

The Wilderness as a Second Bereishis

Ramban frames the wilderness as a return to pre-agricultural existence—not regression, but reorientation. In Egypt, survival depended on human systems: storage, hierarchy, control. In the desert, those systems are stripped away.

The manna recreates the conditions of Creation:

• No ownership of sustenance
• No human mediation of survival
• No illusion of permanence

Like Adam before cultivation, Israel lives directly from Divine speech.

Why Creation Must Be Daily

Ramban explains that daily renewal is not inefficiency; it is pedagogy. If sustenance arrived weekly or monthly, the people could still imagine independence. Daily creation removes that illusion.

Dependence becomes normal. Trust becomes habitual. The people learn that existence itself is relational.

This is why the Torah says:

[וַיִּקְרְאוּ שְׁמוֹ מָן — “They called it manna”]

The name reflects wonder, not familiarity. Creation that becomes familiar stops teaching.

Shabbos as Creation’s Pause

Ramban connects the manna directly to Shabbos. On the seventh day, creation does not renew in the same way. The absence of manna on Shabbos does not contradict creation; it reveals its rhythm.

Creation, Ramban teaches, is not mechanical. It has cadence. Shabbos is not the absence of Divine activity, but its completion.

Thus, the double portion is not compensation—it is confirmation that creation is intentional, not fragile.

From Survival to Worldview

Ramban’s reading elevates the manna beyond survival training. It reshapes theology. Israel learns that:

• Nature is not autonomous
• Continuity is not guaranteed
• Existence is sustained, not assumed

This worldview is essential before entering the Land. Agriculture without this lesson would revert Israel to Egypt’s mindset—reliance on systems instead of relationship.

Conclusion: Living Inside Renewed Creation

Ramban teaches that the manna was not meant to feed bodies alone, but to retrain consciousness. Each morning, Israel wakes into a newly created world, sustained by Divine will rather than stored resources.

Parshas Beshalach thus teaches that freedom is not merely escape from oppression. It is learning to live inside a reality where creation itself is ongoing—and where trust means awakening each day ready to receive existence anew.

📖 Sources

• Full sources available on the Mitzvah Minute Parshas Beshalach page under insights and commentaries.