What is the significance of the fish, which the Torah mentions independently from the other species that the people requested?
Yoma, 75a: Rav and Shmuel argue over whether "Dagah" refers to fish or to Arayos - they craved marrying their close relations - that incest should become permitted. 1
If the Egyptians did not give their slaves straw (to make bricks - See Sh'mos, 5:18) would they have given them free fish?
Rashi and R. Bachye #1 (both citing the Sifri): "Chinam" means (not free of charge, but) free of Mitzvos. 1
Ramban #1 and R. Bachye #2: The Egyptian fishermen would willingly give them fish from their nets, as fishermen customarily tend to do; and the other species grew in abundance in Egypt, which is compared to a vegetable garden, and which Yisrael were able to pick at will as they worked in the fields. 2
Ramban #3: The complainers, who had been ascribed to work for the king, and who received only sparse bread and water, went out into the fields and gathered vegetables, and were given small fish - which were plentiful and cheap in Egypt, from the fishermen beside the river, from the fish that they had caught for the king's table.
R. Bachye #4 (citing Yoma 75b): It refers to the small fish 3 which the women brought from Hefker, which they miraculously found in the water that they drew in their jugs. 4
Hadar Zekenim #1: When the Nile overflowed its banks and spread over Egypt, everyone made pits, and fish were caught in them.
Da'as Zekenim and Hadar Zekenim #2: "Dagah" refers to the species listed after this - gourds, watermelons.
Yoma, 75a: Refer to 11:5:0.1:2. With reference to marrying their close relatives, Chinam means that they had easy access to them. 5
R. Bachye: This demonstrated their contempt of the Avodah and their intention to throw of the yoke of Mitzvos, as they recalled how they lived with the Egyptians on equal terms ("as the Torah writes in Devarim 4:34 "Goy mi'Kerev Goy") following their customs, serving idols and going with haircuts like them - without having to keep Mitzvos.
Presumably, the Ramban 1is not perturbed by the question, seeing as the Egyptians refused to supply them with straw only after Moshe asked Par'oh for permission to leave Egypt to go the desert to Daven.
See Oznayim la'Torah.
As the Gemara states in Sotah, 11b.
See Torah Temimah, note 3.
Why did they ask "Who will feed us meat" in the previous Pasuk, and mention "Zacharnu" regarding fish and vegetables?
Ramban: Because, although they had eaten meat during their stay in the desert, 1 they reminisced about fish, which they had not tasted since the day they left Egypt.
Moshav Zekenim: They were not requesting fish and vegetables, seeing since it would be a burden to bring rivers and seas to a dry Midbar to supply them. They requested only meat, since many Chayos live in the desert. 2
Why did the people mention specifically these five foods - cucumbers, watermelons, leeks, onions and garlic? What do they have in common?
Rashi and R. Bachye #1 (both citing the Sifri): These foods 1 are harmful to a nursing baby if his mother eats them, so they were the only foods whose taste the Manna could not replicate.
R. Bachye #2: They mentioned the cheap foods that they obtained free in Egypt, 3 in order to belittle the Manna which was so Chashuv. 4
R. Bachye #3: It demonstrates their depraved nature - that they developed a desire for such inferior foods and all kinds of materialistic pleasures 5 - as the Torah writes later "Bocheh le'Mishpechosav". 6
Moshav Zekenim (citing the Ri): Because they had an abundance of food, they wanted these for dessert. 7
Yoma, 75a: There are two opinions as to whether the Manna could replicate the taste of every food except for these five species, or whether it could adopt the qualities of the food as well as its taste, 8 but only the taste of these five species - but not their qualities.
Hafla'ah (in Kesuvos 60b): It seems that also small fish are included in the list, since they are harmful to feeding mothers..
See Devarim 11:10.
R. Bachye: Egypt was a fertile country which produced many kinds of fruit, which the Egyptians did not give them free. And likewise, they said "ha'Dagah" and not 'ha'Dag' or 'ha'Dagim', because 'Dagah' refers to fish four or five days old that had already gone bad - See Sh'mos 7:21 and Yonah 2:1 and R. Bachye - which is what the Egyptians gave them.
R. Bachye: And that explains why, throughout the Parshah, the Torah refers to them by the degrading title of "ha'Am".
See R. Bachye.
As was customary in former times.
Rendering it all the more difficult to understand what they were grumbling about. See Torah Temimah, note 5, who elaborates. See also Oznayim la'Torah.
