High Holy Days 5775: Jewish community shares life advice

Rabbi Lisa Edwards and BCC member Stephen Sass are among thoughtful people in the Jewish community whose words are worth remembering. Edwards and Sass gave life advice for the new Jewish year, published on this week’s Jewish Journal.

Rabbi Lisa Edwards: “When I was young and a tomboy (before the days of unisex/no gender fashion), my mother’s friends would sometimes ask her why she let her daughter dress like a boy. “She doesn’t dress like a boy,” my mother would reliably say, “she dresses like Lisa.” The message I received from her has served me well, and I often share it with others:

Be yourself, and don’t try to look like or be or become someone you are not.”

Stephen Sass, vice president of legal affairs at HBO, president of the Jewish Historical Society of Los Angeles: “A pearl of wisdom from my mom, Pearl: ‘There’s good and bad in everyone; try to bring out the good in yourself and others.’ ”