“Everything in this world that you think you own is not really yours”

“Everything in this world that you think you own is not really yours” is Zeidy’s counsel about loss and the limits of possession. He offers it to Devorah as a path toward menuchas hanefesh: an inner serenity that, in his view, can endure even when the things a person values are taken away.

The Counsel of Impermanence

Zeidy explains the maxim through the possibility of sudden loss. A parent, sibling, house, or dress may feel like one’s own, but none is secure; each can be taken away. He speaks from the authority of someone who has lost everything, making the statement not an abstraction but a lesson grounded in his experience.

Inner Peace and Faith

For Zeidy, the point is not simply that possessions are temporary. He identifies menuchas hanefesh, or deep inner serenity, as the only thing of value a person can achieve in life. Faith, he says, allows a person to see individual suffering from heaven’s broader perspective, where it becomes minuscule. When the soul remains burdened by what is immediately before it, that wider view—and happiness—becomes inaccessible.

Devorah’s Tension with the Maxim

The counsel follows a Friday-night scene in which Devorah sobs at the Shabbos table while Zeidy sings hymns. He gently asks what she could have to cry about and urges her to pray for peace in her soul. Devorah cannot explain that her distress comes partly from longing, pride, and the misery of not having; to tell Zeidy would feel ungrateful beside what he has endured. His maxim therefore offers a spiritual answer to a pain she experiences as immediate and tangible. She recognizes the distance between his promise of peace and her own inability to resist the world in front of her.