| Family First Inbox |

Family First Inbox: Issue 974

By Family First Readers | December 23, 2025

“I feel your pain, single sisters. But please find a way to live your life, and live it to the max”

Self-Care Needed [To Be Honest / Issue 972]

When I read the front cover text — “Are we confusing self-care with a free pass to wound others?” — I said to myself, yessss. Self-care and boundary setting are crucial and important pieces in many people’s personal growth journeys (including mine), but often can get taken to an extreme.

I had a friend whose therapist indoctrinated her in self-care above all else, who told me, “I don’t need to be there for you if it’s too much for me,” in the context of us having a casual conversation about self-care. While I respect that she doesn’t need to be there for me all the time, the fact that she expressed this so nonchalantly shows where the values are turning nowadays.

That said, I felt that in the cases discussed in this piece, the people lashing out and hurting others when they were going through something tough wouldn’t have done so if they were doing more conscious self-care. An employer going through a chronic hard time could take a mental health day or ask to lighten her workload, or maybe find a therapist or a good friend to speak to, instead of taking out her emotions on an employee. A teacher who has a child in the ICU shouldn’t be teaching — she should take off until the situation stabilizes.

Name Withheld

Who We’re Talking To [To Be Honest / Issue 972]

To the writer of the To Be Honest article asking if people going through a difficult time can blame their display of poor middos on their stress... I think the answer looks different depending on who we’re talking to: the person going through the tzarah or the person being lashed out at. The person going through the tzarah doesn’t get a free pass to behave the way they want. Yes, it absolutely may be harder for them to hold themselves together, and that’s part of the nisayon. It’s not an excuse for treating others badly.

On the flip side, the person being hurt needs to ask themselves: What does Hashem want from me now? And the answer to that is to have an ayin tovah and be dan l’chaf zechus without borders.

May we know only good things!

Mazal S.

Don’t Feel Pressured [Words Unspoken / Issue 972]

I felt compelled to write a response to the painful and poignant piece from an older single who was crying at her friend’s chuppah because she was worried her friend had married someone unsuitable just to be done with the shidduch stage.

I started dating at 21, while living in Brooklyn, far away from my out-of-town hometown. While I didn’t think I’d get married right away, I also didn’t think it would take until I was 28 to make it down the aisle.

From post-sem until 25 life was busy, fulfilling, full of adventure and learning on the fly. Then year 25 came around. That’s when things became challenging. I could no longer feel feelings of joy and happiness, but only feelings of pain. I realized this wasn’t a good thing and started a journey in the world of therapy. Over the next few years, with some very skilled and talented therapists, and a lot of self-work, I began to make sense of what I was feeling (or not feeling) inside myself.

My breakthrough came when I was approximately 27. I went on a trip to Poland with one of my kiruv groups. While in one of the crematoria, and uncontrollably sobbing, I could think of only one thing: Hashem. Hashem is the only Being that can understand the existence of such a place. It’s beyond human comprehension or understanding.

I came to a glaring realization about my own life. All this time I had thought that Hashem “made a mistake with me.” I was a good kid. Doing the right thing, staying strong in my Yiddishkeit, while navigating a challenging time period in my life. So why was He making me suffer so much pain? I realized He most certainly knows what He’s doing when determining the events of my life.

I was suddenly liberated. I came back from Poland and I felt my inner world of stone, cold, anger, and pain begin to melt. My feeling of resentment toward Hashem began to fade, and I stopped fighting Him and His Will for me. I entered the world of acceptance and I was finally was able to start feeling feelings of joy and happiness again.

I returned from my trip in January, and by February of the next year I’d met my husband. I was in the best place I had been in years.

Although I’ve been married for ten years, I’ll never forget the pain of that time. I feel your pain, single sisters. But please find a way to live your life, and live it to the max. And when Hashem says it’s time to fulfill your tafkid of wifehood and motherhood, you’ll be able to, knowing that you made the most of your time during your single years, and you’ll be able to bring all that knowledge and wisdom to create a solid, rich, and meaningful, married life, im yirtzeh Hashem.

Name Withheld

Only One Response [Quick Q / Issue 972]

I’m writing regarding the Quick Q question: When you get an invitation, do you make sure to send back the return card?

The only menschlich answer is: “Of course I do.” To you it’s a piece of paper, but there’s a real family excitedly opening your responses. Your lack of response is essentially saying to them, “I don’t value your simchah.”

Malky

Correct Kindness [Quick Q / Issue 969]

Since the Quick Q asking readers if they would do a chesed for another when that person could do it for themselves first appeared, I’ve considered writing in.

As with any issue, it’s always important to remember what the Torah has to say.

The pasuk in Devarim (22:4) says: “You shall not see the donkey of your brother, or his ox, fallen on the road, and turn away from them. [Rather] you shall surely pick up [the load] with him.”

Why is the “with him” necessary?

Rashi (quoting Bava Metzia) explains: You should load the fallen load along with the owner. But if the owner goes aside and sits down and says, “Since it is a duty for you to load it, if you want to load it, go ahead and load!” you’re exempt from doing it.

Of course, the foundation of our nation is chesed. However, the Torah doesn’t encourage atzlus, which is considered a middah megunah ad me’od. Chazal teach that when a mitzvah comes your way, don’t delay!

If someone can’t do something for themselves, for whatever reason (whether financial, emotional, physical, social, cognitive, familial, etc.), it’s absolutely incumbent upon each one of us to try to assist and “load the fallen load onto the donkey.”

On the other hand, we should also try to do whatever task we can ourselves and not rely on others to do it for us. On the occasion of the shloshim of Rav Moshe Twerksy Hy”d, who was murdered in the Har Nof terror attack, I was zocheh to hear his brother yblch”t, Rav Mayer Twersky shlita, speak in the White Shul in Far Rockaway. One of the many things he said about his brother is that he never asked anyone else to do anything for him.

Hillel teaches us: Im ein ani li, mi li? — If I am not for myself, who will be for me? K’she’ani l’atzmi, mah ani — but if I’m only for myself, what am I? V’im lo achshav, eimasai — and if not now, when?

Michal Horowitz

Woodmere, NY

Am I Engaged Yet?

Dear Esther Shemtov,

Since you started writing about your dating escapades and adventures, we’ve been laughing (and crying) with you, rooting for you and davening for you.

In honor of the announcement of your engagement, my 19-year-old and I wrote you a story-spoof in your inimitable style, with much love and tremendous mazel tov wishes. Here goes:

Esther came home (from seminary) early in June. She looked at her mommy and asked, “Am I engaged yet?”

“No, Esther,” said her mommy. “First we have to renovate the house.” So Esther helped her mommy make the plans, design the family room, and hire the contractor.