This week’s Parasha has something strange that is unique to this parasha, and no other in the entire Torah- the upside down Nuns. These letters look like brackets, which in this case seem to insert something that doesn’t belong there.
The commentaries explain that there were three negative things that occurred with the Jewish people at that time, and in order to break up this string of negative events, pesukim that talk about Torah were inserted.
The first of the negative events was -וַיִּסְעוּ מֵהַר יְדֹוָד -They traveled away from the mountain of Hashem.
The Midrash says that they were -כתינוק הבורח מבית הספר,-like a child running out of school.
They had spent a long time at Har Sinai, getting a lot of Mitzvot, and they must’ve felt, deep down, that if they stayed any longer, they’d get more than 613 mitzvot. They were happy to leave. They left like a child who hears the recess bell, one who doesn’t appreciate what he’s getting. That was the first negative event.
The second negative event was that the people were complaining about their trip. They were called מתאננים-Lastly, was the event known as
אספסף, where they wanted meat and complained again, about the manna.
These three events have one basic theme.
Rav Yerucham Levovitz, the Mashgiach of the Mirror Yeshiva in Poland gave a mashal about this. In those days, many of the boys used to come to the Yeshiva from America. They had to endure a long boat ride to get there. Many special people took that trip, such as Rabbi Scheinberg.
Imagine a boy got off the boat after the long trip, and said, “Wow, that was exhausting!” And someone reprimanded him, “How dare you say that?”
What was wrong with what he said?
That’s like what happened in the desert. And it was worse in the desert.
The problem, says Rav Yerucham, is that if someone is lifting gold bars out of a warehouse, and every gold bar that he takes he can keep, he would not complain about being too hot or too cold, or how long the trip was. He would be thrilled to be getting the gold bars. So too, Bnei Yisrael didn’t appreciate what the Torah was.
When they complained about the manna and everything else, it stemmed from a lack of appreciation of what was going on.
It’s very important to realize that we have to put our bitachon glasses on, and appreciate all that we have. We should not be מִתְאֹנֲנִים / complainers.
The pasuk in Echah says, “What should a person complain about? Complain about your sins!”
We are alive. And we complain
Rabbi Miller gives a mashal. Imagine a man standing in a line at Aushwitz. Someone offers to smuggle him off the line, but there’s a problem.
1-You’ll have to live in a two bedroom apartment your whole life. “Okay. No problem,” he’d say.
2- You’ll have a difficult parnassa- “Okay, not problem.”
3- Your wife will be difficult to live with.He’d say, “Okay - I’m in!”
Why? Because he’s on a line at Aushwitz. Of course, he’ll take whatever he can.
It’s the glass half-full vs the glass half empty.
The Hafetz Haim was once asked what happened if the people didn’t think of anything before, they ate the manna. He said that it wouldn’t taste like anything, because if they thought of something, it would taste like that thing.
So why did they complain about the manna? They could make it taste like anything in the world, just by thinking it.
The answer is that it’s easier to cry and complain than it is to think !
We might be natural complainers. It may go all the way back to Adam HaRishon, who complained האשה שנתת -the wife that you gave me.
Is it nature or nurture? Rabbi Miller says that when a mother looks out at a rainy day and calls it a nasty day, that mother is conditioning her child to think that rain is nasty. Rain isn’t nasty, rain is beautiful, but that’s what she’s teaching her child.
I once saw an article by a Dr. Travis Braderry, who wrote that, “research shows that most people complain once a minute during a typical conversation.
Your brain loves efficiency and doesn’t like to work any harder than it has to. When you repeat a behavior, such as complaining, your neurons branch out to each other to ease the flow of information. This makes it much easier to repeat that behavior in the future — so easy, in fact, that you might not even realize you’re doing it.”
This is called automaticity.
“You can’t blame your brain. Who’d want to build a temporary bridge every time you need to cross a river? It makes a lot more sense to construct a permanent bridge. So, your neurons grow closer together, and the connections between them become more permanent. Scientists like to describe this process as, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Repeated complaining rewires your brain to make future complaining more likely. Over time, you find it’s easier to be negative than to be positive, regardless of what’s happening around you. Complaining becomes your default behavior, which changes how people perceive you.”
And how you perceive the world.
Rav Ades once related that he attended a sheva brochos celebration, and somebody picked up the liver, smelled it, and made a face, expressing his displeasure. The other guests naturally assumed that the liver was spoiled, and so nobody ate any liver. Rav Ades said that this was “murder,” embarrassing and offending the woman who worked hard to prepare the food for the event. He added that the next time he attended this kind of affair, he made a point of complimenting everything – the napkins, the plates, the arrangement, the rolls and everything else. Rav Ades observed how this influenced his children, who followed his example and grew accustomed to giving compliments and speaking positively. By focusing on the positive aspects of all things and refraining from speaking negatively, we can infuse our homes with positive energy and genuine joy.
That is the lesson of our Parasha. Hashem does not like people that complain, because that means they aren’t thinking, or looking at the full picture.
So how do we fight back this negative force of complaining?
And it really is negative. Studies show that when you complain, your body releases the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol shifts you into fight-or-flight mode, directing oxygen, blood, and energy away from everything but the systems that are essential to immediate survival. One effect of cortisol, for example, is to raise your blood pressure and blood sugar so that you’ll be prepared to either escape or defend yourself.
All the extra cortisol released by frequent complaining impairs your immune system and many other things.
So, what’s the solution? Go the opposite way! Gratitude and appreciation can switch your brain. I saw a beautiful thought that the נ is worth 50. Two נ nuns, are 100. How do you fight the negative force of complaining? By making 100 Berachot daily. One hundred blessings a day is 100 opportunities to see the positive and thank Hashem for what we get. BeEzrat Hashem we will take advantage of the 100 blessings that we have and pause and appreciate that glass of water- imagine if you didn’t have it; or that apple or that dinner, even if it was overdone, underdone, over-salted or under-salted.
Be appreciative. Hashem doesn’t like complainers. He likes people that are full of gratitude and thanks.