Just before Pesach, I found a building inspector—uninvited and unexpected—standing outside our Chabad House.
“Can I help you?” I asked, trying to look calm.
“We’ve received 35 complaints about your building in the last 12 hours,” he informed me.
Thirty-five?! I was astounded.
Had someone created a group chat called “Let’s Report the Rabbi”? My mind raced as I tried to think what I could have done that was so egregious.
“What exactly is the complaint?”
“Apparently, you’re doing construction without a permit.”
“Construction?” I said. “We’re changing a few windows—not building the Third Beis Hamikdash! We checked, no permit needed!”
He shrugged.
“Also ... there’s a lot of garbage outside.”
Ah. Now things were starting to crystallize.
“Sir,” I replied, “Passover is about to begin. Of course there’s garbage! We’re purging every crumb of chametz and doing a general deep clean at the same time. We’re tossing broken chairs, that weird table with only three legs, and those random items that keep being moved from place to place but never actually get used.”
Apparently, bureaucracy doesn’t account for spiritual debris, and we were slapped with three violations. We now have an upcoming court hearing where I have to explain to a New York judge why Jews clean so aggressively before a holiday that happened 3,000 years ago.
But somewhere between the mess of paperwork I now have to deal with and my passive-aggressive neighbors, I had a realization: this is human nature.
People like to complain. It’s human nature. All of us: New Yorkers, Upper East Siders, Jews … We share our complaints like family heirlooms. We see something annoying, we snap a picture and send it around with six exclamation marks or a two-minute voice note.
But what if we turned that energy around? What if, instead of reporting us for putting out extra garbage for a few days, all those people had “Look how hard this Chabad House is working to prepare for Passover. Good for them!”
Unrealistic? Probably. But as we head into Shavuot, I can’t help but think about the way the Torah was given to us. We gathered at Mount Sinai, so deeply united, Rashi explains we were like one individual with a single shared heart.
Not 35 hearts firing off complaint forms.
Shavuot is not just about cheesecake and blintzes and late-night learning (as enjoyable as they are!). It’s about Torah and unity and giving others the benefit of the doubt.
As much as this whole episode has been a headache, it’s also been a good reminder for me. To pause when something seems off. To ask before assuming. To compliment before complaining. To remember that I never know what someone else is going through. Maybe they’re not doing illegal construction; maybe they’re just trying to make their home ready for the Divine.
So yes, we got 35 complaints. But I’m hoping that next time we get 35 blessings. And in the meantime, I’ll be the first one out there searching for opportunities to bless others.