The Rebbe’s correspondence was legendary. There was a time when the amount of mail delivered daily to Chabad World Headquarters in Brooklyn addressed to the Rebbe was exceeded only by the White House. He opened every letter and until the mid-seventies, most responses were sent as formal letters. As the numbers increased, the Rebbe often jotted down a short response on the margins of the letter or on a small note which was then dictated by a secretary to the recipient by phone.
While the original letters were destroyed for obvious reasons, thousands of these handwritten responses were preserved and, although we can only see one side of the conversation, they are a rare treasure of the Rebbe’s saintly wisdom, prophetic vision, and legendary sensitivity and love for every Jew.
Here is a loose translation of the Rebbe’s handwritten response to an individual that a friend shared with me yesterday:
“Thank you for sharing the good news. May you continue to always share good news - unlike your other letters which are filled with complaints (the original Hebrew word is translated literally as “sighs”) - May Heaven protect us - for decades now!! Even though it is publicly known that you succeeded in raising Torah observant children, helped many people etc. etc.”
I assume the recipient of this response was strongly engaged in Jewish life and activism and had a decades-long correspondence with the Rebbe. Without knowing what type of complaints this fellow was writing for years, here the Rebbe is celebrating the fact that he shared some good news and pointed out that he had much more good news in his life to share than complaints. While the stuff he was kvetching about could have been valid issues, focusing on them was not productive at all. And reading between the lines, it seems like many of the complaints resulted from viewing life from the wrong lens.
In this week’s parsha we learn how the Israelites traveled away from Mount Sinai where they had camped for close to a year and headed towards the Promised Land. After three days, people started grumbling about the constant traveling. G-d was angered by their misguided complaint - because the non-stop travel was meant to be a mad dash to reach the Land of Israel as fast as possible - and a terrible plague broke out.
Moses prayed on their behalf, but then they complained about the Manna - the heavenly bread which miraculously nourished them every day. Imagine that! They found problems with the food which tasted like almost anything you desired with no negative side-effects at all. Instead of appreciating the tremendous good in the Manna, they complained they couldn’t taste cucumbers, watermelons and leeks.
Here’s an important lesson we can learn from this story. Firstly, complaining is a human default setting. Even in the presence of divine miracles it’s possible to view life negatively, so chances are that wherever you find a problem you’ll find a blessing if you dig a bit deeper. (Remember the joke about the optimistic kid and the pony?) And even if you encounter a real problem with no apparent blessing in sight, kvetching never helps. Focus on the many other good things around you, express your thanks and gratitude for the many blessings in your life, and most importantly, do more good things you can be proud of.