Water is essential to life. It is an intrinsic part of life, as we see in this week's Torah portion. The Sea of Reeds opened and the Israelites crossed it. They sang and danced to celebrate (Exodus 15:20-21). But all things come to an end, including miracles and their celebration. They pressed onward into the wilderness of Shur. The Israelites wandered for three days without finding water. This is typically the amount of time a human being can last without water, so it is understandable that the Israelites would get nervous. The Torah then has this to say:
ויבאו מרתה. ולא יכלו לשתת מים ממרה, כי מרים הם. על כן קרא שמה מרה.
And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah because they were bitter. Therefore, the name of it was called Marah. -Exodus 15:23
The simple meaning refers to the waters being bitter. That is how many have translated the verse. The Hebrew word for water (מים) is in the plural, which means the "They were bitter" can refer to the water. At the same time, there is a grammatical ambiguity because (הם) "they" can also refer to the Israelites. This is an interpretation provided in the Midrash (Exodus Rabbah 50:3). The Israelites were so busy complaining that they could not notice the drinkable water.
This is not the first time that this has happened in the Torah. Abraham expelled Hagar and Ishmael. Once they consumed what water they had, she was beside herself because they were stranded in the desert and she did not believe they would survive (Genesis 21:-15-17). She did not want to see the death of her child. Ultimately, G-d opened her eyes and she perceived the well of water (Genesis 21:19). As Artscroll brings up on its commentary on Genesis 21:19 (Chumash):
The Torah does not say that a well was created miraculously; the verse implies that her eyes were opened and she saw a well that had been there all along. This teaches that G-d always provides what we need, but we must be ready to open our eyes and see it (Midrash).
According to this Midrashic interpretation, the Israelites had drinkable water. They just chose not to see it. This is not the last time the Israelites incorrectly perceive a situation. Later when they were wandering in the desert, they were accusing G-d and Moses off bringing them in the wilderness to die because there was no food or water (Numbers 21:5). What is interesting is that immediately after saying there was no bread, they were disgusted by "the rotten bread (ibid.)." This is even more intriguing because the Talmud (Yoma 75a) states that manna taste whatever the eater wants it to taste like. Think about that for a moment. Manna can taste whatever the eater would like and yet the Israelites chose rottenness, a choice that resulted in G-d sending fiery snakes to poison many of the Israelites (Numbers 21:6).
The Israelites were guilty of kvetching, which is the Yiddish meaning "to complain excessively." When people make too much of a fuss, they are incapable of seeing the good. It was such an incapability that brought much personal suffering to the Israelites. It is a mentality that has not gone away since Biblical times and still brings suffering in our time.
Negativity bias is a cognitive bias that events or things of a more negative nature have greater emotional weight than positive or neutral events. Perhaps it is a survival mechanism that was engrained into human DNA centuries ago, but it takes three positive events to neutralize a negative event. It makes sense that kvetching became a part of Yiddish because it is also a human tendency. The irony of kvetching becoming such a part of Yiddish culture is that it is anathema to Jewish ethics. How so?
One of the words for a Jew is יהודי. The word יהודי comes from the Hebrew verb "to thank" (להודות). It is a Jewish namesake not to kvetch, but to be grateful. In Judaism, the Hebrew term for gratitude is , which literally means "to recognize the good." This does not mean we ignore the bad or look at the world through rose-colored glasses. It means being able to see what the Israelites at Marah could not: goodness in the world. It would explain why Judaism has a practice of saying 100 blessings a day. Whether meant to be taken literally or not, it helps us examine just how much good this world has to offer.
On the one hand, there is some space for negative thinking. We cannot be happy all the time. As I wrote for Tisha B'Av in 2020, there is a place in our lives to diminish happiness where it can paradoxically increase happiness. On the other hand, happiness has a major perspective component to it. Catastrophizing that the Israelites partook in leads to more suffering (Petrini and Arendt-Nielsen, 2020). Those who have a more hopeful view on life tend to be happier than those who are negative all the time much like the Israelites at Marah were. R. Jonathan Sacks, z"tl, taught that optimism is a viewpoint that the world was getting better, whereas hope is the belief that we can make the world better. Optimism is more passive; it does not require action, only belief. Hope is a more active concept. We work towards it. We have confidence that we can make things better, whether in our individual lives or for others.
That was where the Israelites messed up. They saw bitterness when there was fresh water in front of them. They ignored the manna's existence, only to complain about it shortly thereafter. The excessively negative lens through which the Israelites viewed the world made it hard to appreciate life. It also made it difficult to find solutions because as we see in these texts, the bitterness makes it impossible to see what is in front of you. This would explain why the first blessing we say in the morning is to ask us to distinguish between night and day (אשר נתן לשכוי בינה להבחין בין יום ובין לילה), so that we can discern between such concepts as right and wrong, and good and bad, or helpful and harmful.
Rather than take in the bitterness from the Israelites, I think we can learn to be optimistic realists. We cannot ignore the harsh realities of life, but we cannot ignore the beauty, wonder, and joy that life has to offer. Judaism teaches us to focus on the positive because we are prone to the negative. It is a work in progress, but we need to be in a mindset of abundance, gratitude, and overall optimism if we are to make life better. To quote filmmaker George Lucas, "Your focus determines your reality." What sort of reality would you like to have: one where bitterness is all around you or one where you can learn to appreciate what life has to offer?
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