A man was married to a woman who was very difficult to get along with. Still, despite her many faults, he loved her. And when she passed away, he missed her greatly.
He remarried to a much nicer and more refined woman, whom he respected and loved. One day he praised her. "My dear, when I see your beautiful face, it is as if my first wife has arisen from the grave and is standing before me!"
The second wife was understandably quite unhappy with this "complement."
"If your first wife is so vividly engraved in your memory," she retorted, "why do you claim to love me so much and insist that I remind you of her? We both know that my personality and character traits are very different than hers!"
The Error of the Elders
It is written that during Matan Torah the elders of Israel "had a vision of the Divine, and they ate and drank" (Ex. 24:11). What does this mean? What was this meal?
At Sinai, the elders merited a wonderful vision. They experienced the incomparable sweetness of Divine revelation. And yet this otherworldly experience reminded them of worldly pleasures, of eating and drinking!
Certainly there is something terribly wrong with this comparison. It indicates that the elders had failed to attain true Ahavat Hashem. Despite this wonderful gift of prophetic vision, the zekeinim lacked a sincere love and reverence for G-d. For this error they deserved to be punished, but their punishment was postponed until a more opportune time.
Adapted from Mishlei Yaakov, pp. 129-130
