The Jews are complaining … again

(JNS) — I have a confession. I know—I’m not Catholic, and you’re not priests, but I’ll share it with you anyway.

Each year, when we come to last week’s Torah reading of Beshalach, I am guilty of passing judgment on the people of Moses’s generation. And over the years, many congregants have asked me the same question. They were eyewitnesses to the greatest biblical miracles of all time. They saw the 10 plagues strike Egypt and completely spare the Israelites. They experienced the Exodus from Egypt, a superpower where not a single slave had ever escaped in history. They personally participated in what is arguably the single most phenomenal miracle of all time, the splitting of the sea. They walked across the sea on dry land and then saw their mortal enemies drown. Time and again, they were recipients of God’s mighty hand of deliverance, and then what do they do?

They complain!

In fact, they don’t stop complaining. With the Egyptians in hot pursuit and finding themselves trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea; they complain. And they complain in such typical Jewish style that I can just hear them saying these words: “Were there no graves in Egypt, Moses? Did you have to take us out here to die in the desert?”

And after the sea is split, and they’ve just sung a song of faith and thanksgiving to God and in His servant Moses, they complain again. This time, there is no water for them to drink. So another divine miracle occurs and the bitter waters of Marah are suddenly sweetened. When they complain that there’s no food in the wilderness, yet another amazing miracle occurs and suddenly there is bread falling from heaven, the Manna.

It doesn’t take long before they complain again. They are tired of the same Manna day after day. They want meat! So, God sends them quail from heaven. And then again, they complain. There is no water.

By now, poor Moses is exasperated and cries out to God, “What shall I do with this people? A bit longer, and they will surely stone me!”

So what’s my confession? I can’t help but judge these people rather unfavorably. How could they be so faithless, so blind? How could they not see the heavenly miracles and deliverances that saved them from peril over and over again? How could they not have a little trust in God and Moses? By now, the Almighty had quite an impressive track record.

As a rabbi, I am fully aware that we must not judge people and that we should always give them the benefit of the doubt. But I must admit that I do struggle with this one.

One of the above-mentioned instances, Exodus 15:23, reads: “And they could not drink the water in Marah because they were bitter.”

Conventional thinking understands this to mean that the waters were bitter. In fact, the word marah means “bitter”; the location got its name because of its bitter waters. But the Kotzker Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgensztern, 1787–1859) offered a brilliant reinterpretation. He said they couldn’t drink the waters because they, the Jewish people, “were bitter!”

Here was a nation of slaves. After enduring decades of drudgery and oppression, generations of torture and torment, could they be healed of such deep-rooted traumas in a moment? They were profoundly embittered by a lifetime of bondage. Can we blame them for their insecurities and complaints? Today, they would be told that they need a lifetime of therapy!

Have I ever been a slave? Have you? Do we have any idea what their psychological condition was— what feelings they were going through during these dramatic, life-changing upheavals? Here is a newborn nation, just freed from being prisoners, inexperienced in the ways of the world, and we are passing judgment on them?

Are we so much better than that generation? Have we not seen miracle after miracle in Israel these days? Wave after wave of Iranian missiles and not one direct hit! The game-changing weakening of Iran’s air defenses. The incredible success of the beeper attack on Hezbollah and the elimination of its top echelons. And more. Have we been impressed? Have we changed our way of thinking? Do we have more faith and trust in God now? Has anything changed in our lives and perspectives on life? I hope the complaint syndrome is not in our DNA.

So, I confess. Al Chait! I should not have judged Moses’s generation so harshly. I should have been more patient, tolerant and understanding. I should have been more sensitive to their suffering and the long-term after-effects of many years of bitterness and trauma. How could I have been so unsympathetic?

May God forgive me.