“והאספסף אשר בקרבו התאוו תאוה וישבו ויבכו גם בני ישראל ויאמרו מי יאכלנו בשר.” (בהעלותך י”א,ד’)
רמב”ן: “שלא היה להם חסרון במדבר, כי היה להם המן לשובע והיו עושים בו מטעמים שונים בטעם חשוב מאד כאשר יספר, אבל המשילו בנפשותם תאוה רבה כמתאוים לאכול הפחמים והעפר והמאכלים הנבאשים.”
Ramban: “For they did not lack anything in the desert, as they had the manna for satiation and they would prepare with it assorted dishes with a very special taste, as it is told, yet they empowered within their selves a great desire, like those desiring to eat coal and dirt and spoiled food.”
Indeed, the taavos mentioned by the Ramban, to eat coal and dirt and spoiled food, strike us as being very strange. It is hard to imagine a sane, well-nourished person ever snacking on dirt or coal. But if we take a moment to reflect, we can identify a degree of similarity between these taavos and behaviors that are considered quite “normal”, such as drug usage, gambling and gaming.
Why would someone ever eat coal? The Ramban himself hints at the answer. Several pesukim earlier, the Ramban (Ch. 10, passuk 35) writes that the arousal of these taavos was not an isolated event, but rather the final stage in a sequence of failings. The sequence began with the sin of “ויסעו מהר ה’…”—And they traveled away from the Mountain of Hashem. What was the sin? The Ramban explains, based on the medrash, “שנסעו מהר סיני בשמחה כתינוק הבורח מבית הספר, אמרו שמא ירבה ויתן לנו מצות…”—That they travelled away from Mount Sinai with happiness, like a young child who runs away from school: they said perhaps He will give us more mitzvos.
Now, we may suppose that a child runs away from school because he wants to go play, but that is not all. The medrash emphasizes that he runs away from school, not that he runs to the playground. Likewise, Bnei Yisroel “traveled away from the Mountain of Hashem”. A child runs away from school happily because he really cannot stay there any longer; it is too much for him. Similarly, the Ramban writes that Klal Yisroel were happy to leave Mount Sinai because “they said perhaps He will give us more mitzvos.” They had already received 613 mitzvos, with the 248 positive commandments corresponding to the 248 appendages of the human body, and the 365 negative commandments corresponding to the 365 sinews. In other words, they had already received all the mitzvos which relate to the human condition. Anything else would be inhuman. Thus, they said, “perhaps He will give us more mitzvos”—maybe Hashem will demand of us that we progress past our limitations, our nature. They were happy with Torah and mitzvos, but they did not want more.
The problem is that it is basic human nature to desire more, to want to move past our limitations, and to escape our boundaries. This is a desire that should find expression within Torah and mitzvos; to want more, even if it is beyond our scope. But Klal Yisroel moved in the opposite direction. They were afraid, and they left Mount Sinai relieved and happy in heart: “perhaps He will give us more mitzvos”. And because this desire was not expressed in Torah and mitzvos, it eventually found expression in their physical lives. They pushed past their natural limits in physical desire, and desired things unnatural and unfitting: “desiring to eat coal and dirt and spoiled food”.
It is important that we impart to our children and students that they should always desire more in ruchniyus, just as a businessman wants his business to grow, no matter how successful he is. If a person does not have that drive for more in ruchniyus, he will search for other areas where he can push past his limits, at times with disastrous results.