Six parents share the one life lesson they would impart to their children

Happiness No Matter What

Mrs. Sara Siemiatycki

Life Lesson I Want to Impart to My Children: A woman can radiate happiness no matter what happens.

IN Real Life: I learned this from my mother and my mother-in-law. As a child, my mother left Berlin when World War II broke out, so she never had the opportunity to go to a Jewish high school and seminary, never learned any Ramban or philosophy. She spent her teens in Shanghai, then married my father, Mirrer talmid Rav Dovid Bakst, when she was 18. They lived in a one-room apartment, and her first baby was born there, without any comforts or conveniences. Nothing was easy, but she told me, “Those years were wonderful!” Her inner happiness didn’t depend on any externals. Simply, she had Hashem and felt connected to Him.

I was 14 when my father was niftar, and my sister just ten. I remember that during the first year, making Kiddush was very difficult for my mother. But that was the first wave of grief. My main memories are of her sitting at a beautifully set table with us, enjoying the seudas Shabbos with a smile, and the content appearance of a woman who appreciates being at a Shabbos table with her children. Shabbos was Shabbos, enjoyable and beautiful. Yom Tov was Yom Tov, anticipated with special cakes, apfel kuchen and pflaumen kuchen. It was a life lived as a Jewish woman with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, with independent strength and depth, without dependency on being a wife.

My mother-in-law, Rebbetzin Siemiatycki, was also widowed young, and raised her children alone. Her path wasn’t rose-strewn, but like my mother, she faced it with simple closeness to Hashem. Her life was very full, as an educator who taught kallos and gave shiurim. She took care of herself, her health and her appearance, and focused on the times of the Yiddishe year as mainstays of her life. There were years when my mother-in-law led her own Pesach Seder with her children, made Kiddush, did Urchatz and Karpas and Yachatz and Maggid properly the whole way to singing Hallel and Nirtzah, because that was the situation Hashem put her in. Other years, women who had nowhere to go came to her Seder table, and she created such an uplifting atmosphere, that at the end, the women stood up and danced.

I daven that I can give over some of what I saw in my mother and mother-in-law to my children.

Mrs. Sara Siemiatycki is the Founder and Director of Bishvilaych Women’s Health Center in Yerushalayim.