How do you know when to take a complaint seriously?
We often hear whispers – people talking about different issues – and we are not sure if they are truly unhappy about certain things. We may wonder, if it is true that people are concerned, why don’t they just say so clearly? We often find this reticence within a company whose employees may be disappointed with certain policies, or children who are saddened by something at home. Same with students in a classroom.
How do we know when it is real and when it is not?
In this week’s Torah portion, we see how the Jews complained to each other in their homes about whether G-d would bring them into the promised land of Israel or not. Why did they murmur in their homes and not do so publicly?
From this we see that they really did believe that G-d would protect them. Perhaps they were nervous about how it would happen—would the war be successful? Would people die? Yet, they had faith. If they had lacked faith, they would have made a lot of noise and they would have done so publicly.
We see from this that when people complain in public, it means that they are passionate about what they are saying. It does not mean that they are right or wrong. However, it does mean that they are confident. They are willing to stand behind their words. On the other hand, when people walk around quietly and go from person to person and talk, that means that they may be frustrated and unhappy, but deep down they don’t really believe that things are bad or that things will not work out.
A lesson that we can take from this is that we should make an effort to always remain positive and keep our belief strong that things will work out for the best.
Shabbat Shalom.