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Born to Kvetch

Vayeitzei 5767 Sermon, December 1, 2006

Rabbi Ben Sharff

There is a wonderful book out, recently released in paperback, by Michael Vex called Born to Kvetch.  This delightful yet serious book is essentially an exploration of the history of the Yiddish language from Biblical days as it has evolved over time.  It even includes a glossary in the back.  I recently learned one of my newest favorite words, greptz, but that is for another day.  Let’s just say it is a good word for every new father to know.

Now for those of you not familiar with the term kvetch, it is most often translated as complain.  But this translation really unfortunately fails to capture the essence of is important idea.

To illustrate what kvetch really means, Mr. Vex provides us with the following story:

A man boards a Chicago-bound train in Grand Central station and sits down across from an old man reading a Yiddish newspaper.  Half an our after the train has left the station, the old man puts down his paper and starts to whine like a frightened child.  “Oy, am I thirsty … Oy, am I thirsty… Oy, am I thirsty …”

The other man is at the end of his rope inside of five minutes.  He makes his way to the water cooler at the far end of the car, fills a cup with water, and starts walking back to his seat.  He pauses after a few steps, goes back to the cooler, fills a second cup with water and walks gingerly down the aisle, trying to keep the cups from spilling.  He stops in front of the old man and clears his throat.  The old man looks up in midoy, his eyes beam with gratitude as he drains the first cup in a single gulp.  Before he can say or do anything else, the man hands him the second cup, then sits back down and closes his eyes, hoping to catch a bit of a nap. As he sits back, the old man allows himself a sigh of thanks.  He leans into his own seat, tilts his forehead toward the ceiling, and says, just as loudly as before, “Oy, was I thirsty…”

The term kvetch, as explained in the Joys of Yiddish by Leo Roston comes from the German quetschen, which means “to squeeze” or “to pinch,” or to “eek out.”  As in “Don’t kvetch the peaches,” or “He manages to kvetch out a living.”  But mostly we know it as to fret, complain, or gripe.  So much so that kvetching is more than an idea, it really represents a way of life.  Some know the phrase, “You work in order to live.”  Well we Jews understand this a bit differently.  We prefer, “We live in order to kvetch.”

To express this frustration, we kvetch to anyone who will listen, about almost anything for we are not a people to suffer in silence.  Even our animals know how to complain.  As in the case of Sid.

Sid visits the veterinarian in Delray Beach and says, "My dog has a problem."
The doctor Yosel replies, "So tell me about the dog's problem."
"First you should know, he's a Jewish dog. His name is Yutsite and he can talk," says Sid.
"He can talk?", the doubtful Yosel asks.
"Watch this!" Sid points to the dog and commands:  "Yutsite, Fetch!"
Yutsite, the dog, begins to walk toward the door, then 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 all the MSG. and fat, and you tell me it's a special diet. 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 I could stretch out a little, the sciatic nerve wouldn't kill me so much! I should roll over and play dead for real for all you care!"
The Doctor Yosel is amazed. "This is remarkable! What could be the problem?"
Morty says, "Obviously, he has a hearing problem! I said 'Fetch', not 'Kvetch'."

But the real question is: what are we really complaining about?  Some might think that kvetching is merely an exercise, something that is done because we can.  But truth be told, there is actually a real reason behind all of the kvetching.  But we will get back to that in a moment.

In our parasha this week, Vayeitzei, Jacob has either left or fled his home.  One interpretation has it that Jacob was fleeing because his brother Esau was out to kill him because Jacob stole his birthright.  The other explanation is that Jacob left at the urging of his mother Rebecca to return to their native homeland to find a bride simply because none of the local girls were good enough for Rebecca.  But of course no mothers in our history have ever experienced that sensation.

In either case, Jacob is on his own for the first time.  He left Beersheva and set out for Haran.  But what Jacob is thinking, what he is feeling is noticeably absent from the Torah text.  We do not know if Jacob encountered anyone along the way.  We do not know if he took enough food to eat or water to drink, or if he had to stop at the local watering hole.  All we know is that it quickly becomes night and Jacob takes a stone and rests his head.  Or as I told the kids in the ECE this morning, it was ok, because it was a soft stone.

Now to interject a bit of a Midrash into the text, one gets the sense that this is not a happy journey for Jacob.  If we know Jacob, who was at times a bit ethically challenged, he was probably muttering under his breath the whole time.  “I can’t believe Esau is so mad.  Heck he sold his birthright for a bowl of soup.  Not the brightest star in the night’s sky if you ask me.  And why did my mom make me come all the way out her?  The girls back home were perfectly fine.  Oh great, forget about all those comfortable pillows with the Egyptian cotton back home, all I have is this hard rock to lay my head on.”  And it probably went on and on from there.

Yet when Jacob did finally lay down to rest, he dreamed a dream so remarkable, that even Jacob could say nary a word against it.  For in his dream, Jacob saw a ladder reaching to heaven with angels ascending and descending, which was pretty remarkable in and of itself.

Yet while having this dream, a voice from the heavens called down to him.  At this critical juncture it was God who said to Jacob, “Hinei Anochi Imach, Here I am, with you: I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this soil.”  “I will bless you and your descendants, and I will keep my promise with you.” 

Upon hearing this remarkable news, Jacob did the one thing that was really out of character for him, he praised rather than complain.  As the text tells us, “Waking from his sleep, Jacob said, ‘Truly, the Eternal is in this place, and I did not know it!”  But more than that, the text tells us that Jacob was in fact completely awestruck.  He was not at a loss for words by this, but he realized the profoundness of the situation.  Jacob was in the presence of God.  Jacob for at least that brief moment had a vision of the world, as it ought to be rather than as it really was.

This is the heart of our kvetching.  Or as Mr. Wex explains kvetching, it is a way for Jews to express that all is not right in the world.  We were expelled from our homeland.  Our Temple was destroyed, and we have been persecuted ever since.  But more than that, how can all be right with the world, since the Messiah has as of yet to arrive to redeem us from this existence?  Or more succinctly, the world is not yet as it ought to be.

Therefore our complaints are not merely an existential exercise on complaining, they are really part of a larger tradition of frustration and sadness that things are not as they should be. 

This is part of the heart of Jewish existence.  Part of our covenant with God is to serve as critics for the world.  Usually the term critic is derived according a negative connotation.  “So is so is just so critical.”  Or, that movie critic was just so harsh, but I happened to love it.  But the truth is, is that to be a critic is a very important piece of bringing harmony to society.  For without critics, there would be no voice to tell the world how it really is versus how it perceives itself.

The greatest examples of this were the Prophets: Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Micah, and the list goes on.  They were all part of one of the most difficult of all professions.  They were often times despised for their words by a populous who mocked them rather than listen to what they actually had to say.  Nonetheless, these prophets went from town to town preaching the message that God would be with them whenever and wherever they sought to improve the plight of all of the members of society.  And when things looked the most bleak, it was these same prophets brought words of comfort and compassion.

We Reform Jews like to discuss how we are the inheritors of this prophetic ideal.  We do this through acts of Gemilut Chasidim, acts of loving kindness, as well as acts of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world.  But even our kvetching can sometimes be a part of this tradition as well.  Not when we are complaining about the weather or our neighbors, but instead when we are raising our voices to proclaim that which is not right in our world. 

When we use our voices to kvetch about injustice, intolerance, and inhumanity, we state loudly that the world is not as it should be and needs to be changed.  But to be a critic, to be a kvetch in this context is not easy to do.  It requires first looking about and coming to terms with the world as it is, just as Jacob came to that revelation in his dream and subsequent awakening.  It then involves listening actively before ultimately striving to find solutions.  For a kvetch who exists for the soul purpose of kvetching cannot stand.  Kvetching only works if it has an attainable goal, and is immediately followed by action to bring that goal about.

Far be it for a rabbi to encourage his congregants to kvetch, but wherever you see injustice.  Whenever you hear of suffering.  It is well within line of Jewish tradition first to kvetch about it, as long these statements are followed by action.  This choice was not always in the hands of our ancestors, who suffered at the hands of the greater society.  But know we are a part of the greater society, and we have our homeland restored to us.  So we are well on the way.  And with a little luck, a little praying, and just enough kvetching, we may someday soon instead have much to kvell about.

Shabbat Shalom