Get Beyond the Mask
It's easy to be intimidated by mean people. See through their mask. Underneath is an insecure and unhappy person. They are alienated from others because they are alienated from themselves. Have compassion for them. Not pity, not condemning, not fear, but compassion. Feel for their suffering. Identify with their core humanity. You might be able to influence them for the good. You might not. Either way your compassion frees you from their destructiveness. And if you would like to help them change, compassion gives you a chance to succeed Love Yehuda Lave A Prayer for Today:
'Hashem our Father, walk through my house
and take away all my worries and illnesses
and please watch over and heal my family
in your name,
Amen.'
Bill Clinton as Father of the Year
Why inadequate husbands can still be great dads
By: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Published: January 13th, 2013
 They're wrong. A man can be an imperfect husband and still be a great Dad. In fact, it's become something of a national crisis. There are way too many men who love their kids more than their wives when, in truth, a healthy marriage dictates that the relationship between the parents always has to come first. Countless wives who have come to me for counseling complain that they are married to indifferent, unromantic, selfish husbands. Yet, when I ask them, "Does he neglect his kids the way he neglects you?," the majority of the time they say, "Actually, no. He's a great Dad." Even women who have divorced their husbands and told me what miserable marriages they were in will then tell me that, remarkably, their ex continues to be an engaged and loving Dad. I'm reading The Patriarch, David Nasaw's magisterial book about Joseph Kennedy. What the biography shows is that Kennedy was a deeply anti-Semitic, compulsively adulterous, misogynist. But boy did he love his kids. A man who put making money before almost all else, the exception was dropping everything whenever his kids were ill. To be sure, there were horror stories like the lobotomy of his daughter Rosemarie. But by and large, though he was an awful, philandering husband who his wife with endless affairs, he was extremely attached to his kids. Which brings us to Bubba. A few months ago, while I was sitting at the JCC in Manhattan at a lecture that featured my friend Rabbi Marc Schneier of Westhampton and was moderated by Chelsea Clinton, I was suddenly disturbed by a rush of men with noodles coming out of their ears. Bill Clinton came in and sat in the seat right in front of me. His daughter was on stage and he wanted to see her. He arrived very quietly and was clearly there to show his daughter support. Then, this past Summer, Clinton toured a country very close to my heart, Rwanda, for his Clinton Global Initiative. In so many of the pictures he is walking around with one hand on his daughter's shoulder. Not even his biggest critics deny that he is a loving and involved father who has given his daughter great confidence in herself as a woman, even as he has, most assuredly, caused her pain by acts of unfaithfulness that hurt her mother, all the more so because they were so public. The two are not incongruous. You can be a great father even if you're not exactly the greatest spouse. Of course, it's best to try and be both. About the Author: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi" whom the Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America," is the international best-selling author of 29 books, including The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. |
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