40 | DECEMBER 9 • 2021 

I

f someone asked you to summarize 
your life in a few sentences, how would 
you do it? What if you had just one 
sentence in which to do it — what would 
you say?
The truth is, these days, the scenario 
is not just hypothetical. People give pithy 
accounts of themselves 
all the time on social 
media. But that’s more of 
a marketing blurb than a 
forthright answer, which 
we search for deep within 
ourselves.
If we’re really honest, 
thoughtful and reflective 
about this, what is the story 
we’d tell of our lives?
It’s an interesting question to 

contemplate because it touches on one 
of the central aspects of the human 
condition: storytelling. In fact, in many 
ways, storytelling is what makes us human. 
Our sages refer to the human being as 
the medaber, “the speaker.” Animals also 
communicate with one another through 
sounds and gestures, but it is human 
beings alone who construct narratives 
and interpret events. This could be what 
our sages meant when they described 
the human being as the medaber — the 
speaker.
Interpreting events and constructing 
narratives about our lives is something 
we all do, all the time. Things happen 
to us — the basic, factual elements of a 
story — but as humans, we have unique 
perspectives that determine how a story is 

relayed, which give shape and meaning to 
our experiences.
Of course, the plain facts, the raw 
data, what actually took place, cannot be 
changed. But what is in our hands is the 
narrative we draw on to interpret those 
facts, the story we tell ourselves about what 
took place.
Positive and negative experiences 
happen to us all the time, but it is within 
our power to construct the narrative 
around these experiences. We make a 
choice every day about how we tell the 
story of our lives, whether we construct a 
narrative that is pessimistic or choose to be 
optimistic in how we see life. To construct 
a positive narrative is not to deny the 
pain or the difficulties — it is to frame 
those experiences in a broader context, 

Chief Rabbi 
Warren 
Goldstein

What Story Do You Tell?

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

