Archive for November 2024

In the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “the highest status is not to care about status, and that influence is more powerful than power!” How many times have we taught by telling others to do as I say, instead of what I do? True power and true education come from influence, which is doing as…

When is it okay to lie? Or for that matter, is it ever really okay to lie? In the Torah, we see that Joseph’s brothers lied to him when asking for forgiveness. They told him that their father’s dying wish was for Joseph to forgive his brothers for the horrible misdeed of selling him into…

  When it comes to ethical boundaries, the obvious ones are pretty clear: don’t transgress against others, don’t steal, don’t kill, etc. Yet, when it comes to transgressions of a lesser level, how do we hold ourselves accountable? When boundaries aren’t as obvious, how do we keep ourselves on the straight and narrow? A simple,…

I’ve been thinking about when someone you love—or for that matter, someone you supervise, specifically a child—messes up. A simple example would be a child literally ignoring a test, not preparing at all, and scoring a bad grade. The first thing that comes to mind for me is consequences. Yet I want to motivate my…