Beshalach: Netvort By Rabbi Josh Hoffman - Excerpt

Rabbi Abraham Twerski writes, in his book, A Formula for Proper Living (Jewish Lights, September 9, 2009), that the manna, which came each day for that day alone, taught the people to take each day as a separate, independent unit. The Ramban says that the people began to complain about their lack of food after they had been traveling for a considerable amount of time and did not see any indication that they were reaching their final destiny. They therefore thought that they may die there. The manna, which came in discrete units of one day's supply at a time, indicated to them that the proper approach to their journey was to take each day as it came, and not worry about what would happen the next day.

Rabbi Twerski points out that this idea was used by Bill Wilson, who founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, in treating recovering alcoholics. He said that if you tell an alcoholic that he can never drink again he will not be able to manage it. However, if you tell him that tomorrow is not in our control, and he should only concentrate on today and make sure that he doesn't drink any alcoholic beverages in the course of that discrete unit of time, he has a chance.

Through this approach, along with the rest of the techniques used in the twelve-step program, thousands of people have been able to control their addictions over the past 75 years. This idea, however, says Rabbi Twerski, finds its origins in the way that the manna was supplied to the people in the wilderness, one day at a time.