The mishnah in Pirkei Avos teaches that we should be the talmidim of Avraham Avinu, not of Bilam Harasha. As descendants of Avraham Avinu, we surely can develop his traits, foremost among them an ayin tovah, but that doesn’t mean transformation happens on its own. It definitely requires real and ongoing work to acquire this middah.
Having an ayin tovah means that when we see other people with positive attributes, with success in their lives, with all the good things that we want for ourselves too, we feel happy for them and “fargin” them. There’s almost no real translation for that word as it’s a Yiddishe middah and one that’s not easy to attain. It’s incredibly challenging to reach the level of truly feeling glad for someone else with no taint of jealousy — yet we still need to attempt it.
As hard as it is for us to achieve this, for some reason, we expect our children to be able to overcome the very same impulses and emotions that we often resign ourselves to never overcoming. When we look at their “petty” disputes and complaints, we see them as trivial and expect, even demand, that they eradicate their jealous feelings.
Finding the right way to address children is key to chinuch. Their jealousy is not unlike our own, and therefore, the best approach is to be realistic about them just as we are about ourselves. Assuming that all it’ll take is a one-on-one lecture about the gravity of jealousy is unreasonable. We must be understanding and validating if we want our messages to be well received, and yet, just as we must avoid resigning ourselves to being less than what we can be, so too must we keep raising our children with not just the hope but also the expectation that they will grow up — and grow.
