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Is It Ever Enough? How the Road to Happiness is Paved with Gratitude

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November 23, 2022
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Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Sarah Pachter decided she had had enough. The Los Angeles-based author and Jewish motivational speaker who has lectured on three continents was pregnant with her fifth child, constantly nauseated, and to make matters more difficult, her children, like millions of others around the country, were distance-learning from home because their school had closed. 

Sarah Pachter
Photo by Gloria Mesa photography

“To keep from becoming overwhelmed, I learned to stop and appreciate the small things,” she reflects about that time in her book, “Is It Ever Enough? A Journey Toward Joyful Living” (Feldheim 2022). For Pachter, those small moments that held hidden happiness included the look of joy in her children’s eyes as they talked or “the rays of light shining through the trees” when she watched them riding their bikes. 

During the pandemic, Pachter had a baby, published her second book and resumed her work and family responsibilities. But one task was visibly absent from her To-Do list: After having her baby, she took a long break from cooking for Shabbat and instead relied on pre-made meals from supermarkets.

“I said to myself, ‘What matters?’” she told the Journal. “What matters is that my home is peaceful, that I have shalom bayit [a peaceful home], I am not too exhausted to talk to my husband and that I have patience for my children. The Torah says it’s better to have plain bread at Shabbat than to have a festive meal in a home where there’s no shalom bayit.”

Pachter, it seems, is obsessed with two tenets that she believes make life undeniably better: knowing when to stop (or to cut back) and maintaining an unflinching commitment to gratitude.   

Pachter, it seems, is obsessed with two tenets that she believes make life undeniably better: knowing when to stop (or to cut back) and maintaining an unflinching commitment to gratitude.   

During the pandemic, Patcher asked herself a vital question: “What is it that I want to do, and what do I feel I have to do?” She drew on her own advice from her first book, “Small Choices, Big Changes” (Targum Press, 2017) and committed to a series of small choices that, in hindsight, preserved her sanity and made life better for her entire family. 

“Ten Minutes a Day”

When “Small Choices, Big Changes” was first published, Pachter, no stranger to recognizing the limits of her own capabilities as well as the realities that surround her, was home with a four-week-old newborn. When asked how she was able to research and author two books in the last five years, she said, “the small choices we make accumulate and create big change. I committed myself to writing for ten minutes a day.”

To know Pachter is to see that she is a force of nature. One of the most sought-after speakers in the Jewish world today, she was born to what she describes as a “traditional Sephardic home” in Atlanta, where she lived until age 18. Her father is French Moroccan and her mother is American, and the family embraced Orthodox Judaism as Sarah and her siblings grew up. 

In high school, Pachter was extremely social and fun loving, but also deeply introspective and spiritual-minded. But there was one problem: Pachter admits she began to observe Jewish mitzvot, or commandments, because she “wanted to and felt it was right,” but she didn’t know “the whys” of practicing Jewish rituals such as observing Shabbat and kosher dietary laws. 

After high school, Pachter moved to Jerusalem for two years, absorbing as much Jewish learning as she could at various seminaries because she hoped to be a teacher in the realm of Jewish kiruv, or outreach. After completing seminary, she returned to the United States and volunteered to teach small classes about Jewish values. Pachter also attended Stern College for Women, where she double-majored in Speech and Audiology and Judaic Studies. 

During her junior year at Stern, Pachter was asked to be a guest teacher at the Jewish Enrichment Center (JEC) in New York City, and that singular lecture changed everything. “When they found out I was only 21, they said ‘No. We can’t have a 21-year-old teaching a class. But they took a chance and allowed me to speak anyway. The women who attended said they loved it.” The topic of that class was the deep power of Passover. 

For several years, Pachter was one of the most popular speakers at the JEC. But four years after marrying her husband, Adiv, the couple moved to Los Angeles when Pachter was 24. Leaving the JEC was difficult, and for the next two years Pachter continued to teach classes by phone to women with whom she had cultivated relationships back in New York. “In New York City, I was at the top of my field, and in Los Angeles, no one had ever heard of me,” said Pachter, who moved to LA in January 2010 after Adiv, who works in real estate, was transferred to the West Coast. 

Today, Pachter is a prominent figure among LA’s Orthodox Jewish community, and her energy and passion for this community makes it hard to believe that she is not a native Angeleno (or at least a true California girl). Unabashedly optimistic and mindfully upbeat, she emanates an air that is, at times carefree but also deeply grounded. It’s easy to see why Pachter seems so at home in The Golden State. But she is nothing if not the consummate professional, a self-assigned protector of every word that she utters and writes. 

I asked Pachter, who lectures in L.A., throughout the U.S. and abroad, how she prepares for her classes, or shiurim, which are often exclusively for women. “It takes a very long time,” she said. “People don’t realize the amount of energy, effort and learning it takes. I have to learn for hours and hours to pique my interest and tie in to whatever theme I’m trying to create. I start with something that seems random, find a hook, then add other elements.”

The greatest strength of Pachter’s books and lectures is that they offer a striking blend of Torah wisdom, hard-to-forget true stories, and psychological (and quantitative) data to support her arguments. 

A Daily Dose of “Vitamin G”

Anyone who reads “Small Choices, Big Changes”  and “Is It Ever Enough?” will not be surprised to learn that Pachter is, first and foremost, a deeply gifted teacher. But she is also an eternal student, constantly drawing from sources that span various disciplines, sciences and even millennia. The greatest strength of Pachter’s books and lectures is that they offer a striking blend of Torah wisdom, hard-to-forget true stories, and psychological (and quantitative) data to support her arguments. 

Pachter is particularly adept at asking deeper questions about why we often feel that we are not enough. In her second book, “Is It Ever Enough?,” she writes, “We often view life through a lens of scarcity. Even upon waking, these thoughts can creep up. How many of us wake up, yawn, and think, I’m so tired! I didn’t get enough sleep? Or, I have such a busy day today. I don’t have time to get everything done. The key phrase is: I don’t have enough, which creates a scarcity mentality. How could we expect ourselves to want to give when we don’t feel we have enough time or resources?”

In a chapter titled, “Vitamin G Cure-All” (“G” is for “gratitude), Pachter suggests that “the best way to experience happiness is to have something called a low appreciation threshold … Individuals with low appreciation thresholds experience joy much sooner and faster than those with higher thresholds.” Put simply, this means that someone who is moved to feel gratitude by the small things has a much higher chance at accessing happiness.

Pachter is a unique blend of motivational thinker and hardened realist.

The second section of the book, “I Am Enough,” offers three four-letter words that “could literally change your life.” Pachter is a unique blend of motivational thinker and hardened realist. In confronting a human tendency to complain over our unrealized dreams, she writes, “Forget excuses. For every smart individual out there, there are ten less-smart individuals who are more successful. It’s not about what you have. It’s about making the choice to commit to what it is you want and then taking action.”

And in case we attempt to rationalize our own behavior, Pachter writes, “We know what decision we should make, and we may even have resolved to do it. But we often resist that action because we don’t feel like doing it. Well, I’ve got news for you: We may never feel like it.”

“A Walking Miracle”

Pachter is the first to openly discuss her own life challenges. At 18 months old, she survived an emergency mastoidectomy to remove an infection in the mastoid — a bone in the inner ear that is attached to the skull. It was not until she was enrolled in an audiology course in college that her professor, utterly shocked upon hearing her story, informed her that she is “a walking miracle.”

“He said that back in the ‘80s, when I was born, many people died from a mastoidectomy,” Pachter recalls. Her professor then looked her in the eye and said, “If someone by chance survived, it was impossible not to sever the facial nerve, and half of your face would be paralyzed. The fact that you’re alive and that your face is functioning normally is beyond me.” The mastoidectomy was performed shortly before Thanksgiving, which has imbued Pachter and her family with a unique sense of gratitude for this particular time of year.

“I believe that gratitude swims us through sadness and keeps us afloat from depression; it is the antidote to not feeling enough.” 

“The main part of facial paralysis occurs in your mouth,” Pachter said tearfully. “Part of my promise to Hashem is that I will use my mouth for the good, to teach and inspire myself and others in Torah. I believe that gratitude swims us through sadness and keeps us afloat from depression; it is the antidote to not feeling enough.” 

When asked why she felt compelled to write “Is It Ever Enough?” Pachter said, “I believe that one of the greatest issues that we are dealing with today is the lack of satisfaction, the desire for more, to be perfect in every arena of our lives; we just want the best of everything, always. We should strive for greatness, but are we feeling satiated with what we have? Are we happy with who we are and content with our current life?”

Readers would do well to know that the book does not offer easy answers about how to believe we have enough (or are enough). Rather, Pachter, in true lecturer style, takes her time in setting up a beginning, a middle and an end — a foundation of Torah and psychology-based lessons that reward the patient reader with a denouement that truly brings it all together at the end. Some chapters do not directly address our need for more, and that’s part of Pachter’s strategy. True to form, she sees the bigger picture, even as readers may wait impatiently for simple answers. The third section of the book, “I’ve Had Enough: Inspiration for the Holidays,” offers readers a holiday-by-holiday blueprint for healthy thoughts and behaviors, but it is the fourth section (“That Is Enough: Difficult Relationships, People, and Kids”) that is particularly relatable. 

“Ça Suffit”

In “Is It Ever Enough,” Pachter writes, “I am often asked by my students: ‘What can we do when we don’t feel satisfied with our lot in life? And, isn’t wanting more a good thing? Isn’t it a sign of ambition? Where is the balance?’” Pachter has discovered that balance in a French phrase her mother would often say to her and her siblings: “Ça suffit,” which translates to “That will suffice.”

And Judaism, it seems, is obsessed with teaching gratitude and its connection to holiness and experiencing joy. One of the most famous teachings of Pirkei Avot (“Ethics of Our Fathers”) asks, “Who is rich? He who rejoices in his lot, as it is said: You shall enjoy the fruit of your labors, you shall be happy and you shall prosper” (Psalms 128:2). Even the Hebrew term for a Jew (“Yehudi”) is derived from “hodaya,” or thanking God/thankfulness. To be a Jew is, in essence, to be grateful; in Judaism, to live in reality is to recognize God as the source for all that renders one grateful. 

Pachter directs readers’ attention to the Passover seder recitation of Dayenu (“That would have been enough”). In “Is It Ever Enough,” she writes, “Regarding Dayenu, of course the Jewish nation needed more than just the Sea splitting to survive, but in that moment, we were so awestruck and appreciative that worrying about what was coming was not in our schema.

“This is what we are recounting when singing Dayenu,” she continues. “We’re not saying that it would’ve been enough. We are expressing that the moment felt ‘enough’ while it was occurring. The experience was appreciated fully. There are two ways to experience life. We can constantly be thinking about what’s coming next, or be satisfied with our current situation.”

The Wise CEO

For Pachter, her day begins at 6 a.m. as she helps her children prepare for school, takes care of her baby (she writes, prepares classes and conducts interviews for her own articles while the baby naps) and makes certain that she has time to pray each day. Her choice of what to wear on her feet when she is at home says it all: Pachter tries to wear sneakers, rather than slippers, around the house to help her remain in a much-needed Get-It-Done mindset.

The Pachter Family
Photo by Pacific Dream Photography

Pachter’s advice for working women who are also raising families is focused on solutions and delegation: “Cut back or be willing to delegate, even if it’s asking a friend for help,” she said. “Find a young girl in the local Jewish community to watch your kids for an hour. And to mothers of young children who feel particularly overwhelmed: Give yourself a weekly break of some sort, even if it’s an hour, so that if your kid is having a tantrum on a Thursday, your mind can remind you that a break, even if it’s just one hour, is coming.” Pachter stresses that dedicating one hour a week does not have to cost money. One of her favorite ways to enjoy a break is to curl up with a book. 

“Part of the problem is that we don’t know what we want,” she said. “We have to first figure out what we want, and that’s half the battle.”

In the 16 years since she began speaking, Pachter’s catalog of research and inspirational ideas has ballooned beyond notebooks to include hundreds of e-documents. She does not have it all (no one does), but she does seem particularly masterful at keeping it all together. Her secret, of course, is knowing when to stop, when to politely say “no” and to recognize the role that she plays in her own life. When I tell Pachter that, in one of her publicity photos, she resembles an assertive CEO, she responds, “I am a CEO. I run a small business; it’s called my family.”

And just as we would never expect to run a corporation alone, we must be honest with our capabilities, our limitations and our needs. “There are two types of people in the world: those who feel controlled by life, and those who try to control life,” Pachter writes in “Is It Ever Enough?” She recalls a time when she was worried whether she would have enough food for [last-minute] extra Shabbat guests. Pachter called a friend who told her, “Sarah, whatever amount you have, it’s enough.”

 Ultimately, Pachter has found a simple, but deeply wise practice as she tackles the demands of five children, family life and career ambitions: “There are some things I can’t control, but I try to schedule my day so I’m not completely overwhelmed,” she said. “I’m just getting it done. That’s my stage of life right now, and that’s okay.” 

For more information about Sarah Pachter, visit sarahpachterspeaks.com


Tabby Refael is an award-winning, LA-based writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter @TabbyRefael

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