September 20, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Nitzavim
Is Not Complaining a Jewish Virtue? Or Is Complaining a Jewish Virtue?
September 20, 2025 – 27 Elul 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Recently, as part of a routine medical procedure, I needed to get hooked up to an IV. Unfortunately, the nurse who did it, while very nice, had a hard time. She poked a needle into my arm and said, oh, so sorry, that didn’t work. She poked a needle into my arm a second time and said, oh, so sorry, that didn’t work either. Let me ask one of the other nurses. Another nurse came and the third time was a charm. The IV took.
When the procedure was over, and I got home, I was fine, but I noticed that my arm had all these cuts and bruises. I wanted sympathy. So I went to my wife in search of that sympathy. I pointed to my right arm. I pointed to the wounds, which I called, for greater effect, lacerations, contusions, and hematomas. Shira look at these lacerations from the bungled IV attempt! Look at these contusions! I think this is a hematoma!! From the bungled IV!!
I’m not sure what I was expecting. But I wasn’t expecting what I got. What I got was, Shira took one look at my arm and said: Buck up buttercup. Excuse me, I said. What did you just say? She said: Buck up buttercup.
In our 42 years together, Shira had never put those three words together, ever. I had never heard them before. I wasn’t exactly sure what Buck up buttercup meant, but it did not sound like the kind of sympathy I was looking for. It sounded like she was saying: toughen up. Stop complaining.
The bad news was that I did not get the sympathy I was looking for. The good news is I got something even better: a sermon topic. Is it a Jewish virtue not to complain, or is it a Jewish virtue to complain? There is a lot of Torah on complaints and complaining, and it is nuanced.
On the one hand, there seems to be an aversion in Jewish sources to complaining about our own hard lot in life. The classic story concerns Aaron who loses two sons, Nadav and Avihu, on the day when the Tabernacle was being dedicated. Aaron did not lose a child. He lost two children. And yet the Torah describes his reaction as: Vayidom Aharon. Aaron was silent.
Aaron here role models a certain silent, strong, stoicism. We take the hand that is dealt to us, even and especially the hard hand, with an uncomplaining flinty acceptance. I have been with so many families over the years after the passing of a loved one, a beloved parent or grandparent who channeled Aaron’s silent strength. Family members will say, especially when there was a long, drawn out illness, my father never complained. My mother never complained. My father was so stoic. My mother was so strong. Not complaining seems to be a Jewish virtue. Accepting the hand that we are dealt with silent strength and stoicism seems to be—we will come back to this—but it seems to be a Jewish virtue.
Yet, complaining as a moral protest against injustice is very much held up as a religious ideal. The biblical prophets complain. That’s what they do. Amos complains about mistreatment of the vulnerable. Isaiah complains about the corruption of the powerful. Isaiah and Jeremiah complain about empty religious ritual. Hosea complains about idolatry. Jeremiah complains that our people’s failure to live up to the covenant will result in exile. All the prophets complain about injustice. They all learn this move from our father Abraham who complains to God about God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty… Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” Abraham pairs his complaining with action: he negotiates with God that if 10 righteous people are found, God will spare the towns.
We know that Israeli Jews have been channeling this moral protest energy since before October 7 when protests began around judicial reform—and now as the war continues and the hostages are not yet returned. I remember once Shira and I were in Israel. We were visiting with Danny and Elisheva Gordis on a Saturday afternoon, in the last hours of Shabbat. This is before October 7. When we left, I asked Danny and Elisheva what they were going to do that Saturday night. I’ll never forget Danny’s answer. What do we want to do? We want to stay home and watch Netflix. What will we do? We are going to go out and protest. We do that every Saturday night.
There have been times when American Jews have channeled this prophetic social protest energy. Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with Dr. King. Jewish college students fought and died for civil rights. American Jews protested to free Soviet Jewry. There was the huge protest in Washington DC a few weeks after October 7.
One question for each of us—it sits uncomfortably but it is real—is what is the place of complaint as moral protest against injustice for us today? The question is uncomfortable because we are so divided about what is it that is wrong in our world and what do we do to fix it. And it is real because there is so much pain in our world. No sermon can answer that question for you. Only you can answer that question for yourself. Is there a place for the prophetic voice of moral protest in your Judaism today?
So Jewish sources at first blush seem to draw a distinction: complaining about our own lives is frowned upon, Vayidom Aharon, Aaron was silent. Complaining about injustice in the world is a religious ideal.
But I want to revisit the aversion to complaining about our own pain.
Is it ever okay for us to complain about our own pain? Not about some lofty issue of injustice, but about our own bumps and bruises, cuts and contusions, our own pain and our own hurt? Is doing so always whining, to be avoided? Or is there some other way to look at it?
Rabbi Harold Kushner, may he rest in peace, once spoke of a study which had two subjects, in separate rooms, each put their leg in a vat of cold water. The question was: how long could each subject stand it? In one room, the subject was by himself. In the other room, the subject had a friend to keep him company. The person with the leg in cold water by himself had nobody to complain to, and nobody to validate how miserable it was to have a leg in freezing water. The person who had a companion was able to complain, and to hear the words of validation of his friend that what you are going through is truly an ordeal. The experiment concluded that the person who had a friend in the room was able to withstand the pain for significantly longer than the person who had no friend in the room. Rabbi Kushner pointed out that when we go through adversity with somebody, that gives us more strength and endurance.
In other words, there is something cathartic about complaining about our pain, and it is comforting to be with a friend who hears us, who cares about us, and who is with us in our pain. When we feel like complaining about what we are going through on a given day, that is more than okay. That is what friends are for.
And yet, there is another layer.
The words we say affect the feelings we feel which affect the deeds we do.
When we say words to the effect that the sky is falling, it will make us feel like the sky is falling, and it will make us act like the sky is falling. Conversely, when we say words to the effect that I’ve got this, everything is going to be just fine, it will make us feel like I’ve got this, everything is going to be just fine, and it will make us act like we’ve got this, everything is going to be just fine. Our words so often become self-fulfilling prophecies—for oy and for joy.
Here is the crucial question: Does complaining about your own lot serve you? Does it serve you in the sense of giving you more strength, more hope, more resilience, more ability to get past this travail? If it serves you because you are like the person in the ice water experiment, and there is a pastoral benefit to sharing your pain, go for it. But beware that words of woe can create feelings of woe which can create a reality of woe; and words of resolve can create feelings of resolve which can create a reality of resolve.
There is a time and place for complaining about our broken heart. And there is a time and place to buck up buttercup. May we choose the path that will best serve us today. Shabbat shalom.