A Passover Message from Chuck Berk

I’ve always felt that I was fortunate to be born in and live in the USA, a country where we are liberated with few, if any barriers to succeed and live a worthwhile life. I’m reminded of a video I watched last year of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas being interviewed by the Library of Congress. When he was a young child, his father told him “Old man ‘can’t’ is dead”… teaching him that with a positive ‘can do’ attitude and hard work you can achieve anything.

Recently a video was sent to me of a girl who was abandoned at birth by her parents … because she was born without legs. Another couple adopted her and raised her with the same ‘can do’ attitude, convincing her that there was nothing she “can’t” do. The result? Almost unbelievably, she became a championship gymnast.

In today’s world there are far too many leaders who, in effect, enslave people by convincing them that they are victims and not free to succeed. We would have a much healthier society if everyone passed over that rhetoric, removed ‘can’t’ from their vocabularies and liberated themselves to find ways to succeed.

Chuck Berk is a national Israel Bonds board member, Georgia Commission on the Holocaust member and co-chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition.