School is in Session
When my oldest son, Eliyahu, was beginning elementary school, and for the first time the girls' department and boys' department had different schedules, we used to run into a major problem whenever there was a day off. You see, sometimes the boys had school when the girls didn't, and vice versa.
When Eliyahu experienced his first school day on a day when his sister didn't have school, he flew off the handle. “Why does Hadassa (his older sister) not have to go to school and I do?!” he complained. I tried to explain to him that the boys' school and the girls' school have different schedules sometimes. This scene repeated itself many times and it took a lot of coaxing, bribing and not-so-gentle prodding to get him to go each time.
What was interesting to me was that there were times he thought the girls were off only to find out that they indeed had school. In that moment his behavior changed from his usual complaints to quiet acceptance. Apparently, the fact that his sister also had to go to school was enough to pacify him.
I observed this phenomenon and the next time he had school while his sister did not I mentioned it to him. “Why don’t you mind going to school when Hadassa also goes and you only get upset when she stays home? After all, you are going anyways so why does it matter if she goes too?” His reply always was something to the effect of “I don’t mind going as long as she goes.”
This gave me an insight into human behavior. That is, by nature we can tolerate inconveniences and nuisances. When however someone else has something that I don’t have, however, it becomes intolerable.
We spend so much of our lives looking at what others around us have and what we don’t. We can tolerate not having things so long as our neighbors don’t have it either. If only we would look at our own gains and losses and not worry about how it relates to others we would lead much happier lives!
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Yosef Koval
