The other day my five-year-old daughter came running to me in tears. She had been running around the house, full of energy, when she bumped into a chair. She came crying, "Daddy, the chair hit me!" I looked at her and asked, "Do you really think the chair hit you, or did you bump into the chair?" But she was adamant. "No, no, the chair hit me."
I laughed at how cute it was, but at the same time it struck me how deeply true it is for us as adults as well. So many times in life we take the role of the victim. We like to say, "It was my parents, my teachers, my boss, the economy, the circumstances." When I coach people, I find that many of their struggles come down to this mindset. Instead of taking ownership, we shift blame outward. Just like my daughter with the chair, we tell ourselves stories that allow us to remain victims.
Of course, there are things in life that are beyond our control. But God gave us the power to choose how to react, and how to shape our response. That is what Parashat Re'eh opens with:
רְאֵה אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה
"See, today I set before you the blessing and the curse." (Devarim 11:26)
God is saying that life brings us many situations, some that feel like blessings and some that feel like curses, but the way we interpret and respond to them is our choice.
This is something I learned not just from books, but from my own mother. My mother was born with limited eyesight, and as she grew older she lost more and more of it. Yet somehow she always managed to see my messy room and knew exactly where I was hiding my dirty laundry under the bed. But in truth, what stands out most about her is how she never allowed her eyesight to define her or limit her. She raised five children and today has sixteen grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all nurtured with her remarkable creativity. She has designed beautiful dresses, sewn hundreds of blankets for newborn babies, filled her home with arts and crafts, and continues to find new ways to express her boundless imagination. Her life has been one long testimony that we can either sit in the role of the victim or rise with creativity and joy, finding solutions and moving forward.
So much of life is exactly this choice. I have friends who were injured in the army, who lost limbs or mobility, yet continue to inspire everyone around them by the way they live, create, and build. They remind me that if they can choose to live fully, then so can every one of us.
So next time you find yourself saying, "The chair hit me," stop and ask: am I playing the victim, or am I taking ownership? God gave us the incredible gift of choice, the power to transform curses into blessings, to change not only our future but also the way we experience the present.
Life does not happen to us, it happens through us.
Shabbat Shalom Rav Shlomo