In one of his recent talks, Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto offered a powerful message about emotional clarity and forward momentum. Instead of dwelling on past pain, he urged listeners to remember their life experiences - successes and failures alike - but not to live inside them. “Carry your past like medals,” he said. “But keep walking forward.”
In one of his most recent lessons, Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto spoke about the proper way to move forward in life without getting stuck in the past. He called for a clear-eyed view of both success and failure, but emphasized a crucial distinction: one must remember - but not remain.
“Everyone has things in their past - reasons to be angry at others,” he said. “But that’s why a person needs to take a candle and look only forward.” Rabbi Pinto stressed that constantly looking backward leads to emotional heaviness: “Don’t look back. Whoever lives in the past - his life is difficult and not good.”
Still, he clarified that this doesn’t mean denying the past. “A person must live forward - yes, forward. But always remember the good and the bad.” He described memory as a symbolic medal: “If you succeeded at something - hang a medal. Don’t live from it, but keep it to remember. If you failed - hang that, too, like a medal on the wall. Remember that you failed - but don’t enter it. Don’t live inside it.”
He ended the lesson with a direct call: move forward. “Keep the medals in your heart,” he said, “but walk toward what’s ahead.”
This article was written in cooperation with Shuva Israel