Do You Know Your Family?

Prepared for print by Rabbi Eran Freuchter

One of our biggest problems in family life today is that we don’t really know our own children, or even our spouse. We’re sure we know them inside out. But I can’t count the number of people I’ve met who don’t understand their own kids. Some of those kids are off the derech, some are still frum, but their parents’ contribution to their personal and religious development is superficial and frail. And much of the marital strife that’s so rampant today is rooted in mutual misunderstanding.

A person has no barcode to scan. No external sign can tell us who he is. Research shows that even someone’s facial expressions aren’t reliable indications of what’s happening beneath the surface. So how can we really understand another person?

Every human being is a mystery, and we have to approach each of them as such. If you’ve ever read a detective story, you know that at first, all the facts point in the same direction. You quickly come up with a convincing explanation of the crime. But that initial hypothesis is never correct. So how do you know if a clue is the key to the puzzle, or just a red herring? The answer is: You keep thinking. Drawing conclusions prematurely is the surest way to miss the mark.

Every great discovery is born of surprise. The truth is always deeper than it first appears. The only way to reach the truth is to keep thinking, even when you’re sure you have it all figured out.