Desiring to Desire vs. Longing for the Longing

In this past week's parsha, in the description of the the complaints of the Eirav Rav, the pasuk uses a very interesting double lashon. Loosely translated, the phrase used means "and they desired." It continues on to discuss how they complained because they weren't getting meat in the desert.

If translated literally, however, the phrase means "and they desired desire." What does this mean?

1. The mon was purely spiritual. As such, it elicited no forbidden ta'avos within the people. The particular people who were complaining literally wanted "desire," those forbidden ta'avos that come with eating the same physical nourishment that animals do.

2. The people wanted to find something to complain about. So they worked themselves up, searching for something that they could twist to their purposes. They discovered a few things lacking from the otherwise endless choices in the mom, and grabbed that as their excuse to complain. They tried to build in themselves a desire to do bad, and succeeded.

It just struck me, cause I find myself doing that sometimes. There're times when I don't really care either way about doing something, but I want to want to do it, so I work myself into it. For bad things AND for good things.

Think about it. The next time you're ambivalent about something, consider: Is it something you just want to create a ta'ava for? Or is it something that you want to build a ratzon for within yourself, because it coincides with the Ultimate Ratzon....?

There's a stone in the place where my heart used to be
And I'm longing for the longing once again
There's a small subtle trace of my sincerity
And it only comes to taunt me now and then...

Gut voch and shavua tov.