My granny, who is 94, has a favourite joke that I like to tell her. There’s an old Jewish man on a train complaining about being thirsty. “Oy, am I thirsty!” he says. “Oy, am I thirsty!” (She especially loves that I do voices, and I give him a New Jersey accent reminiscent of her daughter-in-law.) A young man grows ever more frustrated and eventually stands up, folds his Financial Times, and goes to the bar car to get a glass for this older man. The old man glugs the water delightedly, smacks his lips, and relaxes before declaring: “Oy, was I thirsty!”
It’s a stereotype that we just can’t stop complaining, and in Devarim we hear Moshe’s recollection of the list of Israelite complaints – a meta-complaint, if you will. I have frequent arguments about the purpose of a good kvetch and how to kvetch effectively. “The break room is so dreary. I wish it could be brighter in here so we enjoy our breaks more” has a lot in common with “It’s such a long way to the Promised Land. Isn’t there a shortcut?” Kvetching is an important form of communication, one that many of us share and revel in. On one hand, it can promote bonding within a group. It aids with social bonding through validation: people realise they aren’t alone in their misery. “It’s wet and cold and I want to go home. Anyone else?” It also provides ego validation and boosts our sense of self, especially if we’re complaining about others (in-group vs out-group) – this is good for those who are in the loop. Further, airing a complaint could be the impetus for changing a group’s plan or organizational strategy if enough people feel similarly.
However, in the case of the Israelites, it may have brought them together (arguable, and let’s refer back to Korach), but their complaints also incited God’s anger and Moshe’s endless frustration – even though he was a champion kvetcher himself. I can feel his frustration at the Israelites when he kvetches, “How can I bear unaided the trouble of you, and the burden, and the bickering!” (Deuteronomy 1:20). He’s exhausted of hearing them complain. Sifre, the commentary on Numbers and Deuteronomy, suggests that all the places Moshe listed in Deuteronomy 1:1-2 are not real geographic locations, but reminders of where the Israelites had a kvetch. Bamidbar is a reference to kvetching about “if only we’d died in the desert!” Arava near Suf is a reference to worshiping Baal Peor in the Plains of Moab and also Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds. Di Zahav references the golden calf, and kvetching that Moshe was taking way too long up the mountain, and changing their group organisational strategy – although in a very dangerous way that was ultimately deleterious.
Later, Moshe recounts some of the journeys undertaken by the Israelites, totalling 38 years in order to fulfil God’s promise of killing off the older generation of warriors. “Indeed, GOD’s hand struck them, to root them out from the camp until they were finished off” (Deuteronomy 2:15). This seems to imply a more active mode than just letting the generation die out through the long walk. The Or Chaim, an 18th century commentator, interprets this as “not only did the people of that generation suffer death in the desert, but they did not enjoy their sojourn in the desert while it lasted” and that those individuals selected for death had been separated out and lived a diminished existence, leading to constant kvetching. (Interestingly, this phrasing of “warriors” in 2:14 also brings up issues raised in my previous d’var on the military census, with men over 20 standing in for the collective.)
Was all the complaining in the wilderness a bonding experience? Did it make the Israelites feel good to be them against Moshe, them against God? Did it make them feel better than the decision makers, those wise men Moshe appoints with Yitro’s encouragement? Was it like the old man on the train, just enjoying the words and being a slight bother? It ultimately ends up costing them a short journey and an entire generation. But it’s kind of served us as a people ever since.
The recent New York Times Work Friend column consoles a writer whose colleagues have been whining about wanting to leave for over a decade. The writer assumes they’re blowing off steam, but finds it constantly dispiriting. On the other hand, a friend’s workplace has a quarterly kvetch session where everyone submits a kvetch to an anonymous box and they’re read aloud. In house shares, my housemates and I have regularly-scheduled gripes, similar to the “airing of grievances” in Seinfeld’s Festivus celebration. It seems the difference between annoying, bothersome kvetching and useful, bonding kvetching may be creating a container for it. Having social buy-in to a complaint time regulates the steam and results in a shared experience rather than background annoyance. Perhaps the generation that complained needed that sacred kvetch space. Perhaps communities should have regularly scheduled kvetch-fests to know that we all have the same gripes. Let’s not end up like Moshe recounting coded references to the Israelites’ complaints!
Stacy Hackner, LBC rabbinical student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.