I’d like to share a lesson from when my son was 4 years old and my daughter was 2. (They are currently 7 and 4.)
Emmett was in my lap crying inconsolably, because Annie had the beads he wanted.
I knew his real issue wasn’t the beads. See, my wife, Jane, was out of town. She needed some time off. (I had taken the week prior off.) But we hadn’t prepared the kids for her trip as we did with mine.
It’s hard for a 4-year-old to accept a parent disappearing, even for only a short time.
So in a moment while Emmett was quiet enough from his wailing to hear me, I said, “Em, maybe you’re upset because Mama isn’t here?”
Looking at me through tear-filled eyes, he screamed and wailed, “No! Annie has the beads!”
Really, truly, I don’t think he was upset about beads – but that’s what he thought he was upset about. So that’s what he was upset about.
Many times, we look at somebody and with an outsider’s perspective and can easily see their underlying problems and concerns more clearly than they can.
But in reality, if they can’t see it, then they can’t see it.
We all know this in our lives. When you have a family member or friend who blames others for their problems, it doesn’t matter how you try to point this out to them – they just won’t see it. If they can’t see it, they can’t see it.
Spiritual-religious advice:
Don’t try to fix people’s problems that they don’t want fixed. Let them be where they are.
With love,
Rabbi Brian Doesn’t Understand
August 10, 2026
In the 18th century, in Hannipol, a small district of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, in present-day western Ukraine, there was a rabbi known as Reb Zusya. Zusya, a pious man, taught about humility and had a strange habit of referring to himself in the third person. Instead of saying, “I am hungry,” or “I don’t understand,” he would say, “Zusya is hungry,”
