Parshas Behaalotecha: Always With the Kvetching!

Ugh! It's cold, rainy, windy and all around dreary here in the usually-warm-and-dry-by-June inland northwest. I was supposed to receive a conference call at 1:30 that never came. Whine, whine, whine--and now I want cheese but am all out!
Alright, so I'm kind of joking around here, but the truth is my inner dialogue is quite often full of complaints. If it's sunny and warm, I'm kvetching about having to water my flowers or being too hot. If that phone call had come on time, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to write this blog post. All in all, life is pretty darn fantastic. I am, thank G-d, alive, healthy and happy. Nonetheless, I often find reason to be unsatisfied. I will boldly venture to guess that I am not alone in this either. In fact, the earliest documentation of excessive kvetchiness can be found in the Torah as the Jewish people made their exodus from Egypt.
We were freed and then the sea was in our way; we whined. G-d made a miracle and split the sea; we celebrated. Then we decided we were scared; we whined. G-d made another miracle and sent clouds by day and night to protect us; we celebrated. Then we got a little hungry; we whined again. G-d made another miracle and sent us water to drink and manna to eat. This heavenly manna arrived daily and in double doses for Shabbos. It could taste like anything you wanted it to! And for a bit, we were satisfied, but then after a while...you guessed it, we whined some more. We were bored with the manna and wanted meat! Sound familiar at all?

Ok, now I'm NOT joking--my parents really did hang a sign like this outside my playroom when I was a kid!

The parsha (Torah portion) of this week is Parshas Behaalotecha, which translates to "when you raise light." It is in this parsha that we learn about the laws of building and lighting the menorah that was found in the mishkan. However, that is a seemingly minute portion of this particular reading. Much more focus is put on the implementation of a "second Passover" for Jews who were ritually impure and unable to participate in the first one. Additionally we read about the kvetchiness of the Jewish people regarding their dissatisfaction with the generous manna supply. Moshe elects seventy elders to assist him in governing the Jewish people. Meanwhile, Miriam speaks ill of Moshe and is punished with leprosy. Nonetheless, Moshe prays to G-d for her healing and recovery and his prayers are answered.
Right about now, you might be wondering how I'm going to tie all this together? What does my kvetching and the kvetching of the Jewish people have to do with raising light? Or with modern day life for that matter? Actually, I've found it has a great deal of relevance and applicability. We live in a culture and society that is very rooted in instant gratification. I can, with the click of a button, share my ideas with friends nearby, family far away and complete strangers halfway across the world. How powerful is that! But what happens when I am made to wait longer than a New York minute for something? I feel frustrated; I kvetch. I want what I want and I want it now. And when I get it? There's something else that I want, which I want right NOW! Modern technology has provided us with a means to communicate in ways we were previously unable to even fathom. Like manna, we can use this tool in any way our mind can imagine; the sky is the limit. However, like the Jewish people during the time of the exodus, we grow so accustomed to the predictability and generosity of this tool that we take it for granted, misuse it at times (think: all those Facebook and twitter posts that maybe didn't need to be broadcast...) and grow brazen enough to demand more.
Yet, each and every day my life is abundant and full of blessings. It is raining today so I don't have to water my flowers. My plans changed this afternoon so I got to study this week's parsha and write this blog post. And like the Jewish people of the many generations before and many generations to come, I am called upon to raise a light in a world around me that can, no doubt, be very dark at times. Oftentimes, this light begins with finding genuine--not conditional--gratitude in the abundant blessings I receive each and every day. Some of these blessings may be obvious to me; others may be harder to reveal immediately.
A friend of mine recently wrote the following and I really took it heart:
"I'm not optimistic or pessimistic, I don't know if the glass is half full or empty...I'm just so glad there is a glass."

Do you curb your enthusiasm?

In that merit, thank You, G-d for the glass that You so unfailingly fill up each and every day to overflowing. And thank you, "Blogosphere", for keeping me grounded and providing an opportunity to share and express the light that is within each and every one of us.