What Do You Hope People Say About You When You’re Not There?

Liran Brosh, my wonderful friend, and I are sitting together over coffee. Earlier, we also shared a rather generous plate of creamy mushroom pasta, which will probably require a cardio workout that I’ll somehow have to fit in this week.

During a family vacation, it is so important to find time for small, quiet breaks, private moments for mothers to recharge. They don’t take up much time, but they are worth their weight in gold.

While the children are still sleeping, Mom can pray at sunrise with a beautiful view, drink coffee on the balcony, read a few lines from a book, or simply enjoy the quiet. These small moments of solitude can do so much good for the entire family.

We love being with our families, but sometimes we also need to be alone.

Wise husbands understand the value of giving their wives these little pockets of freedom within a larger family vacation. A few peaceful moments enjoying the view can be enough to return to the family refreshed.

What Do Other People See in Us?

I ask Liran about this because she is a fascinating friend who, for years, has introduced Haredi women to the experience of playback theater. This form of theater requires a remarkable ability to absorb what another person is saying, right there onstage, and truly listen.

A playback performance is built around the experiences of the women in the audience. One woman comes onstage and shares a story from her life. The playback team listens, feels, and tries to hear what lies beneath her words. Then, within seconds, through acting, melody, and dialogue among the performers, they give voice to the inner world of the woman who has just shared her story.

“How do you do it?” I ask Liran. “How do you listen, absorb, process, and then spontaneously give each woman an accurate reflection, one that shows her from the outside what she has brought from within?”

The question interests me personally. As someone who has stood on stages for years, I want to understand the ability to recognize not only what I want to say, but what the women in the audience need to hear, so that a woman leaving a lecture takes with her an idea or insight that can bear fruit in her own life.

Liran explains the power of reflection.

“You should know that these vacation days, when we are immersed in family and spending more time together, are also when we encounter more reflections. Reflections are essentially how our children see us, how the people closest to us perceive who we are, and how we can sharpen or improve what they see.”

My thoughts turn to the woman sitting in the audience who, just moments earlier, bravely shared something personal onstage. How does she feel after the performers reflect her story back to her?

Seconds after she shared something from her life, they portrayed it onstage. In a sense, they portrayed her.

It leads to an important realization: People form all kinds of impressions of us. Some see us exactly as we hope to be seen. Others may perceive us very differently, and sometimes we are not even aware of it.

What If You Could Read Your Own Obituary?

My friend Sivan told me this past Shabbat about Alfred Nobel, the famous scientist who reportedly read his own obituary in a prominent newspaper. He was able to read not only about his supposed death, but also what people thought of him and his work.

Nobel, who invented dynamite, had not actually died. The newspaper had mistakenly reported his death.

What reportedly transformed his perspective was seeing, while he was still alive, how people would remember him, or rather, how they already perceived him.

He did not like what he read. He was portrayed as a man whose invention had contributed to tremendous death and destruction.

That reflection caused him to reconsider the legacy he wanted to leave behind. While he was still alive, he decided to change how he would be remembered. Today, the Nobel Prizes that bear his name are awarded to people whose achievements and contributions have had a profound impact on the world.

“Reflections are important,” Liran continues, “but sometimes, in order to receive them, you need to know how to ask the right questions. Not in order to judge, but to peel back the layers and discover something new.”

10 Questions That Can Bring a Family Closer

Here are ten examples from Liran’s “Three Things Cards,” simple questions designed to encourage reflection and genuine connection:

• Three things you are really good at.
• Three compliments you would like to hear from someone at home.
• Three moments when you felt that someone truly saw you.
• Three less pleasant things that happened to you.
• Three things we did at home that made you feel loved.
• Three words that describe the atmosphere in our home this week.
• Three places you would like us to visit during vacation.
• Three things you would like us to do together as a family this week.
• Three foods you love most.
• Three things you wish for yourselves.

And one final question for reflection:

What would you most want others to say about you when you are not there to hear it?