Don't be a Kvetch- A High Holiday Message

  Let me begin with a story about a man named Morty who takes his dog to a vet saying, “My dog has a problem.”
The vet replies, “So tell me about it.”
“First you should know,” says Morty, “that he’s a Jewish dog. His name is Irving and he can talk.”
“He can talk?” the vet asks.
“Watch this!” Morty points to the dog and commands: “Irving, Fetch!”

Irving walks toward the door, turns around and demands, “So why are you talking to me like that? You order me around like I’m nothing. And you only call me when you want something. And then you make me sleep on the floor, with my arthritis. You give me this fahkahkta food with so much salt and fat. It tastes like dreck! You should eat it yourself! And do you ever take me for a decent walk? No, it’s out of the house, a short pish, and right back home. Maybe if could stretch out a little, my sciatica wouldn’t kill me so much! I should roll over and play dead for real for all that you care!”

The vet is amazed and asks. “This is remarkable! So what’s the problem?”
Morty says, “Obviously, he has a hearing problem! I said ‘Fetch,’ not kvetch!”

It is hard to not laugh at this story about a kvetching dog, but when we are around kvetching individuals, it definitely does not seem like such a laughing matter.  Kvetching or complaining too much, according to our sages, is a sin. A sin, mind you is about missing the mark.  So why is kvetching a sin? Perhaps it is considered missing the mark because it hurts oneself, leads to feelings of being ungrateful and pessimistic, and at times kvetching can make you feel down-right sick. 

Avoiding kvetching is actually an action promoted by our Sages in the Talmud, who suggest that every night before you fall asleep—as part of the bedtime Shema—one should declare: “I hereby forgive anyone who angered or antagonized me, or who sinned against me.”  We are advised to let go of any disappointments and bitterness before going to sleep.  Perhaps another piece of advice that you might have heard from one of your parents along a similar vein is that you should never go to bed angry.  Work your problems out before they are given time to fester.  Wake up with a fresh and positive attitude each day.

The bigger question we might be asking ourselves is how can we stop taking our blessings for granted?  If you’re up all night with a sick or crying child, how do you look at the situation and remember how thankful you are to have a child.  If you’re frustrated at work with the job expectations or co-workers, how do you remember to be thankful that you have employment and a source of livelihood?  If you’re hurting emotionally, how do you refocus, look at your situation and find the good that exists within your life?

Is it possible to fix the ills we see in the world and in our own life without kvetching about them first?  Is it possible to know that life isn’t perfect but it is very good?  When I think back to a very difficult period of time in the life of my family, I remember getting into bed one night with Charlie and taking time to assess our past week.  We actually said to one another, “You know, except for the burglary this was a great week!”  We could actually lie in bed and laugh about it too!  That moment taught me that it is possible to be grateful even when something seemingly of great importance that is not positive takes place. Yes, it is easy to be grateful when all is going well in life, but what about when times are tough?  Robert Emmons, a leading expert on gratitude from the University of California at Berkeley writes, “In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. In other words, gratitude can help us cope with hard times.” His research states that being grateful is actually different than feeling grateful.  Our feelings happen without our conscious choice, but being grateful is a matter of making a conscious choice of having a perspective on life that is “immune to the gains and losses that flow in and out of our lives.”

So if having an attitude of gratitude, is something that modern day social scientists and those who study “positive psychology” are starting to tell us about, how is it that Judaism has been a proponent of HAKARAT HATOV, recognizing the good (having gratitude) as part of its value system?  Judaism understands that gratitude opens up our hearts to the human and divine dimensions in life that provide us with blessings.  Judaism is not naïve enough to believe that things are not lacking in everyone’s life, but it does have a positive attitude that is expressed in a short phrase in Pirkei Avot 4:1  :  Who is rich?  Those who rejoice in their own lot.  We have brachot which give us a way of expressing our thanks, prayers which are designed to help us do more than just make requests, and examples in Torah that show the proper ways of recognizing the good.

So my prayer on this evening as we begin to reflect upon our own lives as individuals and our life as a community is that we open our hearts to the goodness that fills our lives, that we make a strong effort to avoid kvetching to one another and to G-d about the slights we feel fill our lives, and that we make a conscious choice to show gratitude which will have the power to heal us as we set upon a new year together.