Guest Sermon by Michael Harris 30th May / 14th Sivan 5786

Parashat B'ha'alot'cha

This week’s parsha seems to be all about complaining.  Firstly, let me explain and translate the verb to complain in cases anyone here doesn’t understand that.  It simply means to kvetch.

Our portion starts in Bemidbar chapter 11, verse 1 with the people looking to complain – it doesn’t actually say about what – just that they want to complain.  Later in the chapter – verse 11 – Moses complains to G-d. 

Maybe part of our heritage is the propensity to complain.  But we must remember, that, in our reading, when the people complained, G-d saw that as evil.  Later in the parsha, when Aaron and Miriam, his sister, complain about Moses, G-d not only sees that as evil, but he punishes Miriam who contracts a disfiguring disease, and punishes Aaron by having to see his sister suffer, which, by the way, the Rabbis interpreted as a worse punishment.  They reasoned that it is far worse to see someone you love suffering relative to the person who is suffering.  Later, G-d did seem to relent and allow Miriam to recover. When Moses complains, as you hear in the reading, G-d helps Moses and the people get their meat.

This is not the only instance in the Torah where people complain.  Funnily enough it is also not the only instance in our history where the Jewish people have complained.  I have even heard our own members complain – not very often of course.

Surely, there must be sometimes when it is right to complain.  I think there are such times.  But there are other times when – perhaps – we can deal with complaints in a positive rather than a negative way.  We could certainly try to eliminate complaints which are about trivia. Or at least relegate complaints about things that don’t matter to a low pitch.  We can express complaints in different ways.  So, rather than tell the workman that he’s useless because he leaves all the mess and dirt to be cleared up, you could ask him if he’s ever considered clearing and cleaning up before he leaves a job as this might result in much happier customers and set him apart from other workmen.  I’m sure you can think if even better ways of dealing with any situation.

I am fairly sure that the portion we read is trying to point us in the direction of learning how to better deal with complaints and getting the right response.

I think there may be another important lesson to be drawn from the portion.  Maybe this describes the very first time when we can learn about the danger of misleading information, now termed disinformation, especially when promulgated by leaders.  Whilst Moses was away collecting the ten commandments, in effect Aaron, the leader left behind, was misleading the people, spreading (had he known it it) disinformation and effectively fomenting revolution.  He succeeded in persuading the majority.  As I pointed out in the study passage*, the text tells us that the majority needed to be exonerated.  All they had done was to be led.  Isn’t the lesson here to be careful of what you are being told by so-called leaders, to be careful who you trust, and to examine information you come across - maybe check the situation out, seek out more information  and rely on  your own conscience, following the guidelines we can learn from our Torah.

Finally, on the subject of complaints, I’ll leave with you with this final thought. A waiter comes over to a table where a group of old Jewish people are seated and says, “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Is anything all right?”

Shabbat Shalom.

* the following study passage is taken from an essay in Plaut on the parsha –

The cry of the rebels  was  for  meat  and variety, not for food as such, for there was no hunger among the people. Meat was the object of momentary craving; but after this was satisfied- or more than satisfied-the underlying problems that had caused the rebellion still remained. Satiety, boredom, lack of challenge, and the inconveniences of nomad existence were seeds of discontent as potent as want and poverty. A surfeit of manna and meat would not for long cover the lack of inner resources among the people. Long years of slavery had produced a generation that could not adjust its dreams of freedom to reality. Ultimately it was the God of freedom whom the murmurers rejected when they cried, "Oh, why did we ever leave Egypt!” (Num. 11:20 ). It would not be long before that whole generation would be pronounced unfit to enter the Promised Land (Num. 14).

The rebellion was fomented, so we are told, by the "riffraff”.  This was surely the judgment of later generations and designed to exculpate the majority of the people, who were thus shown to have been misled by worthless agitators.