"Attitude of Gratitude" in Marriage (Video)

Excerpts from Attitude of Gratitude by Rabbi Bentzion Greiper 

(Click below to view the entire video free — 8 min)

There's a story about Rabbi Miller that one of his grandchildren, before he got married, went to Rabbi Miller and said “Zeidy I have to ask questions”.

So the zeidy, Rabbi Miller , listened to the questions and then after a few minutes he said “I need a few minutes.”

So the einekel was shocked; “Zeidy knows everything!” The family knew zeidy knew everything. 

Rabbi Miller answered that “I was thinking, I needed a few minutes to think of the kindness of Hashem, the chessed of Hashem, having a grandchild getting married,” because he appreciated that moment....

Laundry and cooking and food... she’s cooked for you hundreds of meals. You walk in you complain the house is all messy? 

The Chofetz Chaim said a person has two eyes for a reason. Left and a right. One is the negative eye and one’s a positive eye.

So you can come into your house and see a big uproar, and clothes all over. And then the negative eye shoots out and says things you shouldn’t say, or your positive eye can come out and say business is booming.

The Rabbi who went to a sweater factory, he saw wool all over the place, a royal mess and he said this is business is booming. So when you're going into your house, it’s alive, business is booming, it’s hard but business is booming….


You have a wife, she gave you children. Without her you wouldn’t have children. You might be in someone’s house on a shabbos afternoon, sitting there, fifty five years old, sitting there by yourself.

It’s Hakoras hatov, the attitude of gratitude. You have to have a focus, a focus. And plus whatever else your lady gives you. The home, is today shabbos table without a wife next to you, you're alone.

And laundry and cooking and food... she’s cooked for you hundreds of meals. You walk in you complain the house is all messy? You have to be thankful to have a wife. You have a wife, you have a life….


Without a husband you're not going to have children either. You can be at someone’s shabbos table also sitting there, your parents or someone else’s.

I know a woman who called me, she called me every three months about getting divorced, twenty years married. And she’s saying to me, “my husband comes home, he yells, he grumps” and she had a whole thing. A whole plan of why he was evil.

So I said “when he comes home, what do you do?” so she said to me, “I say hello”.
“Do you smile?”
“No”
“Do you offer him anything?”
“No”

So I said “when he comes home tonight, you just give him a big big big smile, you want to adorn yourself a little bit too, to look nice, smell nice. And something on the table”.

She called me back that night, she said, remember the day before she wanted to divorce she called me back and said “we had such a nice night together”.

So her way she can overturn it. A man coming in also should have a little bite to eat or a cold drink to feel refreshed. But the point is, that positive eye.