2013-03-15 – Every few weeks I see someone post a kinda new-agey advice on Facebook that goes something like this: “If it doesn’t nourish your soul, get rid of it.”

This is narishkeit! (Yiddish for “foolishness” or “triviality”)

This type of advice may have emerged from addiction recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. And it might have some kind of validity in serious abusive situations. If someone is regularly beating the shit out of you, you need to be rid of the relationship.

Not the rest of us.

You know: I’ve got a good job, but some days it is definitely not nourishing. I love my wife and my boys, but OMG! If you took this advice, you’d never get through the teenage years!

I would go as far as to say that the very definition of love is that you hold on to a person aftselakhis (“for the sake of spite”). Think about it: What kind of mensch loves a person only when they are sweetness and light?

Of course, there are many people in this country that think this way. That’s why we have so many people divorced. That’s why we have so many Republicans.

(Just kidding, Republicans! We love you. Aftselakhis.)

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