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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.
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Turkey’s Moves in Syria Threaten Israel
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in Sochi, Russia September 29, 2021. Sputnik/Vladimir Smirnov/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, is not a likable person. Certainly not outside of Turkey, but also among a great many inside the country. Considered by many a megalomaniac who views himself as the caliph of the Sunni-Muslim world, he seeks to recreate the Ottoman Empire.
Some, like the jihadists who took over Syria with Erdoğan’s equipment, training and cash, look up to him. Though, Bashar Assad’s downfall was, to some degree at least Israel’s doing. The severe blows Israel inflicted upon Hezbollah, and Iranian assets in Syria, provided the jihadists led by Ahmed al-Sharaa (the nom de guerre for Mohammad al-Julani), a path to victory over Assad’s forces.
According to an article published in the Türkiye newspaper on March 17, “Turkey will train the country’s army in two military bases it will establish in Syria.” The paper also reported that “Turkey and Syria will sign a joint defense agreement. According to the agreement, which is expected to be signed soon, Ankara will help Syria if Damascus faces a sudden threat.”
Türkiye also reported the government’s plan to have 50 Turkish Air Force F-16 jetfighters nest inside the new bases to support and protect the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from collapse until a new Syrian air force is established.
Erdoğan has far greater ambitions than to simply train Syrian Sunni rebels.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported on a large-scale military mobilization by Turkish forces, along with an extensive deployment of mine engineering teams, in the villages of Mar’anaz, Al-Alqamiyah and Menagh in northern Syria.
Should Erdoğan deploy the F-16 jetfighters in Syria it would threaten Israeli security and hinder Israeli preventive operations inside Syria.
Israel has established a temporary buffer zone on the Syrian slopes of Mount Hermon to protect its citizens in the Golan Heights from jihadist forces. It also seeks to prevent the jihadist butchery of Druze citizens of Syria who have sought Israel’s protection.
Erdoğan warned, ostensibly Israel, that it must withdraw its forces from Syrian territory or it will cause an “unfavorable outcome for everyone.”
It takes a great deal of chutzpah for a character like Erdoğan, who has repeatedly ordered the Turkish army to invade Syrian territory to butcher Kurdish civilians and who holds territory in northern Syria, to warn Israel. Erdoğan plans to take full control of Syria, in his vision of creating a neo-Ottoman empire.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quick to respond to the attempted intimidation tactics of Erdoğan, declaring in its statement, “Israel completely rejects the statement of the Turkish president.” The ministry statement further added, “The aggressive imperialist actor in Syria (as well as in Northern Cyprus, Libya and other areas in the Middle East) is Turkey itself, and it is advisable for the Turkish president to avoid unnecessary threats. The State of Israel will continue to act to protect its borders from any threat.”
Back in July 2024, Erdoğan threatened to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians. He said, “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to Palestine,” and, he said, “Just as we entered [Nagorno-]Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”
Turkey’s president has escalated his attacks on Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 people. He has sought to incite the Sunni-Muslim world against Israel, and according to many in Israel, Erdoğan’s hostility toward Israel has reached a point where many in the Jewish state see a Sunni-Muslim crescent led by Erdoğan just as threatening as the Shiite-Muslim crescent led by Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei.
A Turkish military presence on Syrian territory could present a real threat to the State of Israel.
The Trump administration must consider measures against the megalomaniacal Turkish leader who is unreliable insofar as NATO is concerned. Erdoğan purchased Russian S-400 missile designed to shoot down NATO planes, and Russia provided the Turkish armed forces with advanced weapons capable of covering most of Syria, as well as their old adversary, Greece (also a NATO member) in contravention of NATO rules.
Under Erdoğan, religious minorities in Turkey are also faring badly, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The commission pointed out that Turkish society in recent years has seen a marked increase in incidents of vandalism and violence against religious minorities, primarily Christians. The commission also declared that “Religious minorities in Turkey have expressed concerns that governmental rhetoric and policies contribute to an increasingly hostile environment and implicitly encourage acts of societal aggression and violence.”
With his incompetent handling of the Turkish economy and his avoidance of the difficult tasks required to heal it, Erdoğan seeks “victories” in foreign affairs—including his meddling in Jerusalem’s management of Islamic holy sites.
In September, for instance, Erdoğan accused Israel of targeting the Al-Aqsa Mosque as part of an expansionist Israeli drive. He also urged the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to convene an emergency summit to discuss the war in Gaza and accused Israel of attacks on Muslims in Jerusalem.
The Trump administration must reconsider providing F-16 jetfighters to Turkey, as well its place in NATO. The United States must also protect the Kurds of northeastern Syria from repeated attacks by the Turkish armed forces.
Turkey, under Erdoğan, is fighting the Syrian Democratic Forces, an ally of the United States and threatening Israel, America’s only reliable ally in the Middle East. It is time for the United States to address Erdoğan’s dangerous megalomania.
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A Bad Week for the Muslim Brotherhood
Ekrem Imamoglu, ousted Istanbul Mayor from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), speaks during an interview with Reuters in Istanbul, Turkey, May 9, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer.
JNS.org – It’s not been a good week for two of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most prominent affiliates. In Gaza and in Turkey, the final days of the holy month of Ramadan have been marked by angry demonstrations calling for an end to the rule of, respectively, Hamas and the Justice and Development (AKP) Party.
The demonstrations are not connected and are not referencing each other. Their targets, however, are intimately connected—through their ideological fealty to the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamist movement that emerged nearly a century ago seeking to impose Sharia law, and, more immediately, through the energetic backing for Hamas provided by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime.
In the Turkish case, the protests were sparked by the regime’s arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu—the mayor of Istanbul who had planned to challenge Erdoğan for the presidency—on fabricated charges of corruption. A member of the secular Republican People’s Party who has said that he considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization, Imamoglu has been vilified by the regime, to the point of having his Istanbul University degree annulled. Under Turkey’s constitution, presidential candidates must possess a college degree, so Erdoğan’s move was an effective if slimy way of shifting his most credible opponent out of the running—for now, at least.
The Turkish authorities have responded violently to the protests, arresting nearly 2,000 people. Such behavior is consistent with Erdoğan’s record, particularly since he overcame an alleged coup attempt a decade ago. According to the US State Department’s most recent report on the woeful state of human rights in Turkey, Erdoğan’s regime is guilty of such crimes as torture, enforced disappearance, pursuing and harassing opponents based abroad, gender-based violence and persecution of the Kurdish minority. Media freedom is heavily restricted, with Turkey prominently listed among those countries where journalists are routinely imprisoned.
Despite its dreadful domestic record, its support for terrorist proxies in neighboring Syria and its lionizing of Hamas, Turkey remains a member of NATO and a candidate member of the European Union. Should the threat posed by Iran to the Middle East eventually be neutralized, Turkey stands ready to assume Tehran’s mantle, with the notable advantage that, unlike Iran’s rulers, Erdoğan shamelessly participates in the institutions created by Western democracies while decrying and undermining the values and policies these same institutions represent.
Over in Gaza, Hamas—lauded by Erdoğan as a “resistance organization that strives to protect its lands”—is separately facing the wrath of its own people. During its long reign in Gaza since 2007, Hamas has periodically faced local opposition over its corruption and the brutal character of its rule. Yet the current demonstrations, which began after Israel issued evacuation orders for the northern part of the enclave following the resumption of rocket attacks against Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza border, are unprecedented. Protestors are calling for an end to Hamas rule during a time of war no less. Their chants include “Out, out Hamas,” “Our children’s blood is not cheap” and the simple “Stop the war.”
As I noted on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, a distinct sense of war fatigue was already settling in among many ordinary Palestinians. Even so, fatigue at being relentlessly bombed by Israel has not translated into serious regret for the Oct. 7 atrocities, during which thousands of Palestinian civilians crossed the border alongside Hamas to take part in the slaughter and the mass rapes. Quite a few commentators have pointed out that, even under Nazi rule, there were many Europeans who risked their lives to save beleaguered Jews, yet in Gaza—as borne out in the testimonies of some of the freed hostages—not a single Palestinian has done the same on behalf of the abducted Israelis. Even now, as the current wave of protests highlights widespread dissatisfaction with their Hamas rulers, Palestinians have refrained from demanding the release of the remaining hostages and a definitive end to terrorist provocations and attacks upon Israel. Doing so would, of course, secure an end to the war that has destroyed their homes and livelihoods.
Even at this stage, it’s possible to draw two conclusions from the Gaza protests.
First, the very fact that they are taking place at all demonstrates the degree to which Israel’s military campaign has degraded Hamas’s enforcement capabilities. As a result, Hamas has been compelled to issue contradictory messages regarding its view of the protests. On the one hand, Hamas spokesman Bassem Naim tried to spin them as demonstrations of anger against Israel. But on the other—and perhaps this is a more truthful reflection of the terror group’s view—a statement issued by the “Factions of Resistance,” which includes Hamas, claimed that the protests “persist in blaming the resistance and absolving the occupation, ignoring that the Zionist extermination machine operates nonstop,” threatening that “these suspicious individuals are as responsible as the occupation for the bloodshed of our people and will be treated accordingly.”
Second, the protests are an acknowledgment by the exhausted Gazans that Israel cannot be defeated militarily and that any future attempts at a pogrom will be met with a similarly devastating response. If Israel cannot be defeated on the battlefield, then how will Hamas fulfill its goal of eliminating the Jewish state as a sovereign entity? Through democratic means? It’s hard to see many Israelis voting for the dissolution of their own state to live under the rule of those who would rape their daughters and murder their babies.
The realization is dawning among Palestinians that the Oct. 7 pogrom was a tactical success but a long-term failure. Israel isn’t disappearing. And maybe that’s the best we can hope for at this juncture—a peace based on grudging acceptance of Israel’s reality, combined with the fear that any attempt to undo that reality will result in the kind of military campaign that we have witnessed over the last 17 months. In a Middle East without Hamas and without Erdoğan—neither an easily attainable prospect, but far more so than the aim of wiping Israel from the map—that cold peace could blossom into something with more meaningful value.
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From Strength to Strength!
A Torah scroll from North Africa on display at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris. Photo: Reuters/Jérôme Leblois/ Hans Lucas
JNS.org – There have been a variety of inquiries and investigations into the reasons that Israel was so shockingly vulnerable to the unprecedented terrorist attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. The Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet and independent groups have each researched and published their own findings. The government itself insists that an official National Commission of Inquiry will only take place after the war is over. This is being hotly debated throughout Israel with many voices calling for it to happen immediately and arguing that it is long overdue.
While different findings have emerged and some prominent IDF leaders have tendered their resignations, one thing that seems to be common to all the investigations is that Israel and all its security branches were caught napping. It would appear that there was an overall sense of complacency that had set in, and no one expected Hamas to be interested in or even capable of such a terrible invasion.
Believe it or not, this brings me directly to the Torah reading this Shabbat. We will conclude the Book of Exodus (Shemot) with Parshat Pikudei. In Ashkenazic communities, at the conclusion of each of the Five Books of Moses, when the Torah reader sounds the very last word in the book, the entire congregation rises and proclaims aloud Chazak, Chazak V’Nitchazek! “Be strong, be strong and we will all be strengthened.”
There are varying reasons advanced for this tradition some going back as far as the days of Joshua. Our Torah study can always do with some strengthening. Many of us would love to spend more time studying the deep repositories of Jewish wisdom, but not all of us excel at time management and we often think we “don’t have the time.” Communal encouragement can only be helpful to us.
Then, there is the encouragement it provides to the individual who was honored with being called to the Torah for the last aliyah in the book. Human nature is such that when we finish reading a book, we usually take a bit of a break before starting the next one. I suppose we feel the need to catch our breath a bit before moving on to our next volume.
But Torah is not just any book. Torah is nothing less than the wisdom of God. And Torah is our very source of life, as we recite nightly in our evening prayers, “For they [the words of Torah] are our life and the length of our days.” We can take a breather from reading novels, but can we take a break from life itself? So, when we finish an entire book of the Torah, we encourage the man at the bimah, and all of us to be strong and not falter, to not take a vacation from Torah but rather to have the strength to continue and open the very next book of Torah immediately.
And, indeed, we do. During the Shabbat afternoon Minchah service just a few hours later, we will read from Vayikra, “Leviticus,” the very next book of the Chumash. There is no break, no gap, no pause whatsoever in our study of the vitalizing words of Torah. We can have a rest from the latest bestsellers, but from the all-time, bestselling book in history, the Bible, there can be no break.
The message of Chazak is to not become complacent with what we have achieved. We must keep reading, keep learning, keep growing and keep getting stronger intellectually and spiritually. We cannot afford to lapse into complacency, self-pride and satisfaction with our achievements to date. Life and learning go together. As long as we are alive, we must continue learning with no sabbaticals from the study of God’s wisdom. Torah is the very breath of life. We dare not take a breather from breathing!
I am privileged to be the teacher of what is, arguably, the longest-running weekly Torah shiur, class, in South Africa. My Tuesday night Talmud class is now in its 38th uninterrupted year of study. Even during Covid, we continued learning on Zoom. In January, we concluded the long and often difficult book of Bava Metziya, all 119 double-sided pages. It deals with civil law, labor law, the rules of lost and found, usury and much more. We celebrated with a big siyum dinner, and my 25 students, and their wives, were deservedly proud of their significant achievement, especially considering that none of them had ever attended a yeshivah in their youth. The following week we immediately began a new book of the Talmud, Moed Katan, which covers work on Chol Hamoed, the intermediate days of Passover and Sukkot, laws of mourning, and more.
And our Sunday morning Mishnah shiur, just this week, concluded the book of Beitzah and the laws of Jewish holidays. This Sunday, please God, we will begin the book of Pesachim just in time for Pesach. There was no interruption between the conclusion of one book and the beginning of the next.
Every day brings a new challenge, a new opportunity and a new chapter in our lives. As long as we are breathing, the job is never done. May the Israel Defense Forces never lapse into complacency again, and may we all continue our upward advances in every area of our lives, please God, going from strength to strength.
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