Aaron Machbitz

How do you how do you think about those things?

So I do look at other people.

Yeah.

Is there a personal moment in your life where you learned kind of how to toggle between both of those worlds of maybe joy and sadness or gratitude and understanding suffering?

Was there something that happened to you or was this kind of your practice as a rabbi and talking to a lot of people that you learned that?

Yeah, I have a similar experience about, you know, having a loss in my life that really kind of made me focus on what's important and trying to understand that these mutual emotions can exist at the same time.

I lost my sister back in 2018.

And then you go through these like milestone moments, right?

For the first couple of years, I was kind of just like drinking too much and, you know,

doing some of those things.

But then when I kind of got my stuff figured out and dealt with my grief and things of that nature, and I met my wife and kind of the first moment I realized that two things can exist at the same time was when I got married.

And I got married and I said, wow, this is so fucking incredible to have all these people that I love, my wife, who I want to spend the rest of my life with and all these great things.

And then at the same time, I think, wow, wouldn't it be really, really, really, really cool if my sister was here?

And so then you learn like, oh, I can, those are fine to have at the same, in the same moment.

I feel the same day when I see my son, just like randomly when I'm holding him, I'm like, man, my sister would have loved this little creature that I have in my hands right here.

And so I think going through something personally

helps you realize that.

Because we can look at the suffering in the world and think, okay, I feel for those people.

But then I scroll on social media, then I see a cat video, and then I see a fucking other video and it's like, I kind of forget about it.

And then I'll also lose track of my own life about what I'm grateful for because I'm kind of so distracted all the time.