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The Torah Tells Us We Must Stay Positive to Persevere Through Hard Times
Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.
I heard an unattributed quote some years ago: “Complaining is like bad breath – you notice it when it comes out of someone else’s mouth, but not when it’s your own.”
It’s so true. Complaining is ubiquitous to the point of being a cultural requirement. And in a world in which if you complain hard enough it can result in a payout, the compulsion to complain about anything and everything is simply overwhelming.
A pastor from Kansas has made it his life’s goal to roll back the tide, and to end the complaints culture for good. Reverend Will Bowen never intended to launch a worldwide movement; he simply suggested to his parishioners one Sunday in 2006 how they could improve their lives with the help of a wristband. Today, he’s sent out over five million wristbands to 80 different countries – unwittingly unleashing one of the most significant self-improvement crusades since Dale Carnegie.
Not that he’s complaining, mind you. Because that’s precisely the point. Bowen has given up complaining – well, mostly – and he wants the rest of the world to do the same. Bowen believes there is a direct correlation between an excess of global grumbling and why the world is not how we would like it to be.
What the world needs most, he believes, is for people to stop griping and start focusing on the positive.
It all began in 2006, when he suggested to his congregation of 250 that they give up complaining for just 21 days. According to several studies, this is the length of time that it takes to break a habit.
To reinforce his message, he handed out purple silicone bracelets stamped with the word “Spirit.” Those who accepted the challenge to wear the bracelet would move it from wrist to wrist whenever they caught themselves complaining, and those who managed to keep their bracelets on the same wrist for three straight weeks were issued a “certificate of happiness.”
The no-complaining idea struck a chord. Word spread, and Bowen began getting requests for bracelets from around the world. He set up a nonprofit group, “A Complaint Free World,” and recruited volunteers to fill orders. Soon he was on TV and in the newspapers. Then, after appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Bowen received orders for more than 2 million bracelets. Today, he sends out at least 25,000 wristbands a week.
We live in a world where complaints are omnipresent. Social media platforms, customer service hotlines, and even casual conversations are filled with grievances and criticisms. Expressing dissatisfaction has become a universal pastime. But have you ever paused to think about the implications of our collective proclivity for complaining?
Take, for example, the recent outcry over the quality of airline services. It’s almost become a ritual to grumble about cramped seats, delayed flights, and less-than-palatable in-flight food — if there is food! According to the most recent annual Airline Quality Rating released by Wichita State University, overall complaints about commercial flying increased by 55% in 2022.
The report found that all four performance criteria – on-time arrivals, involuntary denied boardings, mishandled bags, and customer complaints – declined compared to 2021. Or did they? Have things actually gotten worse, or are people simply complaining more? Airlines are scrambling to address the concerns, but perhaps there is something deeper going on: people are complaining about the slightest inconvenience in a way that previous generations didn’t.
And the phenomenon of widespread complaints isn’t limited to airlines. Restaurants, retail stores, and even public services are constantly at the receiving end of criticism. This culture of complaining has created an environment where businesses and service providers are in a perpetual state of defense, always trying to anticipate and mitigate negative feedback.
But what is achieved by our incessant grumbling? Does it lead to constructive changes, or does it just foster a sense of perpetual dissatisfaction and negativity? And how does complaining affect our mental and emotional well-being? Research indicates that frequent complaining rewires our brains, making us more likely to focus on the negative aspects of our lives and less likely to appreciate the positive.
Instead of defaulting to complaints, what if we practiced gratitude and sought constructive solutions? Imagine the transformation if, instead of lamenting a delayed flight, we took a moment to appreciate that air travel connects us to distant loved ones and exciting opportunities. What if, instead of criticizing a meal in a restaurant, we expressed our preferences in a way that helps the chef improve and innovate?
While reading through this week’s Torah portion, Devarim, I was suddenly struck by an idea that I’d never thought of before. Devarim is the first of a series of portions that recall Moses’ final addresses to the Israelites before they embarked on the conquest of the Promised Land.
In his speeches, Moses offered profound lessons on faith, responsibility, and duty. But thrown in among his words of wisdom are recollections of all the many instances when the nation had fallen short. And, notably, every one of those instances involved complaints of one sort or another.
Despite witnessing incredible miracles and experiencing divine intervention that ensured their survival against the odds, the Israelites frequently resorted to grumbling, sometimes when they faced challenges, but often when they had no real cause to complain.
Every commentator raises the same question: why did Moses bring up this aspect of the nation’s behavior? Why dredge up ancient history just as the Israelites were about to realize the promise of a new life in the land God had pledged to their ancestors?
The commentaries offer a range of answers, but perhaps the point Moses was making was simple. Instead of all the complaints they had made moving things in a positive direction, all that had happened was that each incident had brought further misery and further exacerbated the Israelites’ unhappiness. Moses was telling them, “The best route to happiness is to refrain from complaints, and to find the good in every situation! Had you not complained, we could have been here so much earlier, and avoided so much trouble.”
Fast-forward to modern times, and this lesson remains equally relevant. Our tendency to complain overshadows the many blessings and opportunities we have. Just as Moses urged the Israelites to reflect on the fact that their complaints had only made things worse, we, too, can benefit from this perspective.
Finding reasons to be cheerful and grateful is so much better than seeking out problems – and then going on and on about them. While it’s totally natural to feel dissatisfaction and express it, we must be mindful of how we do it. To make complaining a way of life only breeds negativity and discontent. By adopting a mindset of gratitude and constructive feedback, we not only improve our own well-being but also contribute to a more positive environment all around.
The lesson of Moses in Devarim teaches us how our words can affect outcomes. The more negative we are, the more negative our lives will turn out to be. But when we embrace a more positive, solution-oriented outlook, our lives will be so much better. As Dale Carnegie put it so well, “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post The Torah Tells Us We Must Stay Positive to Persevere Through Hard Times first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote
Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.
Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.
Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”
“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”
Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.
UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.
Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.
“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.
“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”
I commend Paraguay and @SantiPenap for the landmark decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens… https://t.co/OzWACbWcno— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 24, 2025
On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”
The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.
“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.
Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.
Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.
“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.
“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.
“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”
During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”
At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.
The post Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’
Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.
As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.
Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.
For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance.
On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.
One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”
The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.
These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference.
Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.
This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students.
Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.
As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.
These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.
McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction.
This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.
We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”
Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.
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