How do you become a mensch? Don't ask.

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Some folks are born under a lucky star. They have all the ingredients, conferred by nature and nurture, to make them good people: They’re considerate, responsible and kind. In other words, they are born mensches, a Yiddish word of German derivation meaning “human beings.” But the word means so much more, and acquiring menschhood is not easy, but not impossible.

You can grow very old and very wise and still not become a mensch (see Philip Roth). Or you can be just a kid and exude all of the attributes of a fully evolved mensch (see Malala Yousafzai). So, age isn’t the critical factor.

Neither is gender. In the old days, a mensch was always a man, but that concept went the way of the whalebone corset. Certainly, you don’t have to be Jewish to be a mensch (see Warren Buffett).

To my mind, becoming a mensch is the highest rung on the ladder of personhood. So, how do we get there? First, parents must abandon all the self-help books that tell them how to raise smart, competitive, headed-for-Ivy-League children and embrace instead the tenets of menschdom. You want to raise a little kid who offers someone else the biggest piece of pizza or the first lick of the ice cream cone. You want a child who reaches out to the least popular kid in class with an invitation to a birthday party. You want to encourage a teenager who takes on community service, not to pad a college resume, but because he or she feels really good about helping someone in need.

That said, I’m not sure how you accomplish all that, except to model menschlike behavior. In our family life, my husband has been very good at that. In times of crisis he has been uncomplaining and focused. He can almost always summon a generosity of spirit, reaching out a helping hand to others. I’ve called him a lot of things in our 45 years together, but the one that fits best is “mensch.”

I, on the other hand, am still an aspiring mensch. I have to work on the impatience and crankiness first. Also, the cynicism. And the skepticism. And try to mitigate the dark humor. Clearly, I have a challenge ahead.

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