Kol Ami News

The best advice Rabbi Samuel L. Spector, of Congregation Kol Ami, ever received from his father came after a pretty girl broke his 17-year-old heart for the first time.

“One day she decided kind of out of the blue, ‘Oh, I don’t like this guy any more, I’m done with him,’” the rabbi said. “I was devastated.”

Feeling his son’s pain, Rabbi Spector’s father, Gary Spector, a successful pediatrician in Seattle, told his son that far too many of his male patients get dumped by a girlfriend, become depressed and lose their direction in life. Then came the lesson.

“If you do something like that,” his father said, “all you are doing is showing that person that she was right not to be with you because you threw your life away for her. The best way to respond to someone who has hurt you in life is to go on, be happy and be successful. Make something of yourself.”

That advice has always stayed with Rabbi Spector.

“Every time I’ve had to face adversity, a setback or somebody didn’t give me a chance, I’ve always pushed myself to overcome, to make something of myself, to be a happy and successful person,” he said. “Instead of people looking back and saying something like, ‘I’m glad I didn’t hire him,’ I want people to look back on me and say, ‘Wow, that guy really turned out to do some amazing things. Maybe I was too quick to judge.’”

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