Admit and Learn

Mrs. Esther Wein

Life Lesson I Want to Impart to My Children: Mechaseh pesha’av lo yatzliach… One who covers up or justifies his sins will not succeed, but one who acknowledges and forsakes them will be granted mercy. (Mishlei 28:13)

In Real Life:

If there’s one lesson I hope my kids carry with them through life, it’s the importance of honesty — not just with others, but with themselves. Growth comes from the courage to recognize where we fall short, and from our willingness to improve. Success isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being real, embracing our flaws, and striving to be better.

I didn’t come to this realization on my own. My grandfather, Rav Shimon Schwab ztz”l, lived by this principle. He even had this pasuk engraved on his matzeivah. My grandfather was a man of integrity, someone who was never afraid to reassess his own views when faced with new insights. His favorite kapitel Tehillim, Chapter 15, speaks of a person who is “dover emes bilvavo” — someone who speaks the truth in his heart. That was him in every way: always open to self-examination, never rigid in his thinking, and constantly growing spiritually. He told me about himself with complete frankness, “I used to be a kanoi [zealot] but now I have mellowed.”

This idea has completely transformed how I parent. When I was younger, I had very specific expectations for my kids. If they didn’t meet them, I took it personally. When they ran off to chat with friends after a Shabbos meal instead of helping clean up — I’d feel hurt, assuming they were being inconsiderate. But in reality, they weren’t intentionally disregarding me. In their minds, they could help later. My husband helped me realize that I was making unfair assumptions, and those assumptions led to criticism that wasn’t even necessary.

When I let go of my assumptions and instead made an effort to see the world through their eyes, I began to see things very differently and our relationships improved immensely. What once would have caused tension turned into an opportunity for communication, and that built love, trust, and a deeper connection between us.

And really, isn’t that the root of all too many conflicts? How many broken relationships are due to the fact that that someone feels unfairly accused and is then forced to justify themselves, all because someone else is seeing them through their own distorted lens.

Being willing to admit that we may be the one who is bringing conflict and tension into our relationships will bring reconciliation and healing to all our strained relationships.

If my kids take one thing from me as they grow up, I hope it’s this: Relationships are life’s greatest treasures, and they flourish when we embrace honesty, self-awareness, and a commitment to growth. The true power of success doesn’t lie in perfection but in the ability to admit our mistakes and learn from them.

Mrs. Esther Wein is an internationally recognized educator and lecturer for over 35 years. She has developed V’nishma — a breakthrough Torah course.

Criticism-Free

Rabbi Avrohom Katz

Life Lesson I Want to Impart to My Children: The one single formula that guarantees enduring friendships, happy marriages, and healthy positive relationships with children and children-in-law is eliminating critical words from your vocabulary.

In Real Life:

Happy relationships with friends and family are like a beautiful porcelain plate. Criticism, however well intended, cracks the plate. People don’t forget critical words, and the crack remains. Eliminating critical words, words like meshuga, crazy, mean, stupid, selfish, incapable, ad nauseam, virtually guarantees that you won’t speak lashon hara.

You go to a chasunah. It’s a long wait until the chassan and kallah make an appearance. You don’t know anyone at your table. The soup is cold and the kneidlach are hard. The music is deafening. You go home. How was the chasunah? Fine! Not a critical word. How many lives have you saved?

You celebrate your own simchah. Not everyone acknowledges the great event or attends the kiddush. What will you say about that? Not a word.

Your grandchildren do things — and wear things — that cause you to raise your eyebrows. What will you say? You’ll find something to compliment. A word of criticism? Never.

Here’s a guarantee: Siblings who don’t utter a critical word about each other will live in peace forever. That is the true beauty of a happy family. Married couples who never criticize each other will live in bliss and tranquility always. Friends who find something positive to say to each other, and swallow their negative observations, will be friends forever.

You can think what you think, and have opinions by the cartload. But here’s my advice: If they’re positive, say them. Anything else? Just keep quiet. No one knows, or needs to know, what you’re thinking.

People train themselves to perform exercises, which are good for the body. People train themselves to eat healthy food, which is good for their health. Dearest children, train yourself never to complain or criticize and you’ll enrich your lives, and those you love — forever.

Rabbi Avrohom Katz is the Principal of Bais Chaya Rochel Seminary, Gateshead

For the Good

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Life Lesson I Want to Impart to My Children: Kol mah de’avid Rachmana, letav avid. All that Hashem does is for the good.

In Real Life:

I think I first came across this lesson from looking at my father’s life. As a teenager, he was banished by the Soviets to Siberia, with other members of his Novardok yeshivah branch. Those boys could easily have felt hopeless in the bitter, remote wilds of the Siberian steppe. Yet they grew in unimaginable ways during their Siberian ordeal. And, while the Germans annihilated their families and the rest of the Lithuanian yeshivah world, they survived the war and went on to marry and raise families, who in turn raised families of their own.

I saw this in my own life, too, in less dramatic ways. After my marriage, we moved twice. Each time, the exodus was from a wonderful community, where we and our children felt comfortable and had friends in school. I was devastated to be leaving, and the new cities loomed depressingly. They were difficult times, yet each move turned out to be a brachah in disguise.

Years later, I suffered from an unexpected seeming professional downturn, which I bemoaned at the time. But the change ended up being an incredible brachah.

This lesson that has become concretized in my life is what Rabi Akiva famously said when he found himself sleeping in the wild, with the candle he had lit blown out by the wind, his rooster alarm clock devoured by a cat, and his donkey killed by a lion (Berachos 60b) — “All that the Merciful One does is for the good.”

I still need to fully internalize that truth; it’s one that needs constant chazarah. But I have experience of it. And I hope that our children will come to appreciate it as well.

Rabbi Avi Shafran is the Director of Public Affairs at Agudath Israel of America.

Keep Going

Mrs. Miryam Swerdlov

Life Lesson I Want to Impart to My Children: Keep going, no matter what.

In Real Life:

I learned this, of course, from my father, Reb Shneur Zalman Butman a”h. My father was a Lubavitcher chassid. He walked with two canes since an accident at the age of three, but that never limited him. He did everything he had to do, no matter what. His motto was, “Nem di shtekens in di hent, un gei veiter — You pick up your sticks in your hand, and go further.

When my mother passed away just four days before my 15th birthday, I would never have been able to get myself up if not for my father’s motto. I grieved deeply, but somewhere deep within, I knew I had to get up and keep going forward in the land of the living. When life wasn’t easy, when our shlichus destination wasn’t a bed of roses, when our special needs child was born, when I became very overweight and had to face whispers, stares, and prejudice, when my children faced a family tragedy, and anytime something was hard, I knew I had to pick up my sticks and keep moving forward.

Everyone has their “shteken,” their challenges, their problems, but we have to rise through them and move forward. For a woman, it’s sometimes the small things that can help us gei veiter, move on. Any time that you’re feeling down or not enough, find the strength to put on your good sheitel, call a friend, and go have coffee. Invite people over. Go out into the world and don’t give up.

I was born in Frunze in Kyrgyzstan, where our family spent World War II. After the war, my father brought us to Lvov, where he saved hundreds of people from the Soviets through his involvement in the “eshalons,” the railroad cars full of Lubavitcher chassidim who posed as Poles in order to be “repatriated” to Poland and get out of Communist Russia. From Lvov, it was possible to “ganveh the grenitz,” be smuggled across the border, and together with many others, we made our way first to Poland, then Austria, then France, then the United States.

My father never made excuses for himself. Whatever happened to him, he took those sticks, put one foot in front of the other, and walked onward, to follow Hashem — and the Rebbe. He taught me that there is no “Ich ken nit.” (I can’t) There is only “Ich vill nit” (I don’t want to). Du kenst! You can do it. We each have a G-dly part inside us, a cheilek Eloka mi’maal mamash, and if we reach down into that part which is a part of Hashem, He helps us.

I taught Historia / Toldos Yisrael for 50 years, emphasizing the nitzchiyus of Am Yisrael. I was recently in Rome, where I saw the Arch of Titus. The Romans are long gone, but we Yidden always learned our lessons and went further, and we are still here.

I’m now sitting in Venice, Italy, enjoying a special Shabbos with my children, who have taken me away to celebrate my 80th birthday. I hope I have passed on to them the courage to continue our mesorah as Yidden and Lubavitcher chassidim.

Find hope, even in the middle of despair, make a cheshbon hanefesh if you have done something wrong, and keep going forward.

Popular lecturer Miryam Swerdlov has taught Jewish History at yeshivah high schools for more than 30 years and directs a camp for American teenagers to Eretz Yisrael and to Poland every summer.

Look Beyond Yourself

Dean Robert Goldschmidt

Life Lesson I Want to Impart to My Children: Lead a life which isn’t self-centered but contributes to the klal.

In Real Life:

It was in the early 1980s, less than a decade after our marriage, when I first saw my father-in-law, Reb Moshe Sherer a”h, in his finest form.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 meant that many people were fleeing Iran. Commonly, young Jewish people would take the risk of smuggling themselves out alone, leaving their parents and grandparents behind. They would arrive in Vienna, Austria, and from there, work to get visas to the United States. These young Jews were completely alone, lost and unmoored in a strange environment, and my father-in-law, together with his partner in this venture, Rabbi Naftali Neuberger a”h from Ner Yisroel in Baltimore, became absolutely consumed by this crisis, day and night.

Rav Sherer initiated a project where the Agudah established a center in Vienna to welcome and host and guide these young refugees. The center offered services including shiurim, not for a month or two, but for an extended period. My father-in-law and Rabbi Neuberger involved some young Agudah representatives and sent them to Vienna to guide the refugees. I can remember his devotion to helping out these Iranian Jews in any way he possibly could, so that his time was completely taken up by phone calls and meetings.

Of course, I knew that the function of Agudath Israel was to help the klal, but here my shver was reaching out to a totally different segment of the community, who weren’t part of the established Agudah world or affiliated with it. There was no calculation other than to help vulnerable young Jews.

Most of these Iranians refugees eventually came to the United States, where a large number learned at Ner Yisroel. Many of them came to Touro, where Dr. Lander a”h, the founding president of the institution, generously provided scholarships for their studies, and I was involved in guiding them toward careers. In a sense they were like orphans, because their parents remained behind in Iran.

Although many people taught me many things about life, including of course my dear parents a”h, and my rebbeim in Torah Vodaath, chiefly my rebbe muvhak, Rav Avrohom Pam ztz”l, perhaps this lesson I learned from my shver was the most impactful lesson of all.

Rav Sherer was known to the public as the President of Agudth Israel of America for more than 30 years, and to me as a most welcoming and devoted father-in-law. For 27 years after our marriage, we did not make a Seder. My in-laws always invited us.

When I entered the professional world, his words to me were “to lead a meaningful life as a frum Jew, you have to focus not only on yourself and your family but be of some service to others and the community.”

I knew he didn’t mean that I also had to serve as the president of a large public organization. It’s fine to lead a private life and pursue your professional goals. He meant that I should use my talents and skills in some way to assist others and contribute to the greater good of Klal Yisrael.

I don’t mean to belittle the goal of parnassah, of growing in a career, and of supporting your family nicely. These are very important. But in a society so focused on wealth accumulation, I would still like to leave my family this message the shver drilled into me by example: That isn’t really what we are here for.

Each person, no matter their profession or skill set, can look for ways to help others, both Klal Yisrael as a community and individuals. You don’t have to wait for people to approach you with their needs. There are volunteering and klal work opportunities all around us. Look beyond yourself and live your life directed toward assisting others and doing chesed.

Dean Robert Goldschmidt is a Vice President and Dean of Students, Touro University

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 945)