The Unread Email - R. Akiva Rutenberg - TorahAnytime.com

This, there was a teenage girl, she was I think about 12-13 years old in a religious home and she started dressing differently than the family and she was rebelling, which is very normal in teenage years to to do that. And the father specifically was getting unnerved by this and it created tension between the father and the daughter and this tension spiraled and it wasn't going in a good direction. She didn't feel hurt, he didn't feel hurt and it got to a point where they weren't talking to each other. They were saying hi, bye, but like there was no communication. And the father decided he said, you know, I want to send my daughter a message stop this negative spiral and he writes her a beautiful email. And in this email he writes to her how much he loves her, how much he's always going to love her and how like this is just a temporary phase and he writes this beautiful message and he sends it to her. And lo and behold, literally within 24-48 hours, he sees a difference and she starts being more open. And makes him more open and the relationship starts cycling in a different direction. And within 2 weeks they're talking to each other more than they did before the fight and by 2 and 1/2 weeks later before on Shabbat, she walks over to him and she says, can I sit next to you by the table? So he turns to her in a quiet moment and he asked her, he says I feel so much better that we're communicating with each other now. What was it in my email that really got you? What what did I say? What did I say that really got you? And she turns to her father and she says what email? Dad, you know I don't look at email. Email, that's that's for the old people. I don't look at emails. And the father realizes that she didn't change, he changed. He became open to her seeing him differently and he was looking at her with a different eyes. The true story. He was looking at her with a different eyes. Which made which made her look at him with a different eyes. And this is to me probably in a nutshell the secret to relationships. If we can get out of our head, if we can get out of our assumptions, and get out of oh oh you know, if you really you wanted to respect me you wouldn't do this, you would do this, you would do that, and all these assumptions, you know, the possuk says Adam Yada is Hava, that when we talk talks about intimacy, it it refers to knowledge. And if you take the word intimacy, you break it up, it says into me see. A person wants to be seen. And the greatest way we're seen is when somebody wants to know us, when somebody's curious about us, when they're interested in us. But when we make those assumptions, we go into a negative spiral. And what is the what is the prerequisite for all knowledge? I think that Aristotle said this, but it's it's very very true from a Torah perspective as well. What's the prerequisite for all knowledge? Is humility, recognizing that you don't know. If I think I know what every facial expression means, and I think I know what you're thinking, and I think I know all those things, I don't even create opportunity of connection.