I know that in my speaking, I tend to return to the same themes,
over and over. I imagine that when you
hear me winding up to address a topic you’ve heard me address in the
not-so-recent past, you cringe. Or at
least, roll your eyes! But this is an
occupational hazard. Of my occupation,
that is. And it was anticipated.
In my third year of
rabbinical seminary, I took a year-long class in homiletics. This is a fancy name for the art of the
sermon. The drasha, in
Hebrew. Now on the first day of our
third year, we had already been giving sermons for at least a year, in
conjunction with our second-year student pulpits. The seminary faculty must have hated the
people in those congregations where they sent us, to have us preach to them for
a year before teaching us how to preach…
So on the first day
of that year-long class in homiletics, my teacher, Rabbi Michael Cook, told us
something very jarring to our young, idealistic minds. He told us that each one of us had One Sermon
(upper case ‘S’) in us, and that we were going to struggle most of our careers
until it came out the way we intended.
And then we would retire! Along
the way, we would speak on other topics, but The Sermon would always be there,
trying to get out the way we wanted to say it.
I’m not yet
retired. That should tell you that I
have not yet succeeded in telling The Sermon the way it’s supposed to be
told! And since I speak over and over
about one concept, you can tell that that’s the subject of The Sermon, and you
can critique what I say in light of knowing its subject.
And of course, the
subject is Sufficiency.
I told my children
over and over, when they were growing up, Count your blessings! In other words, take a good look at what
you have and be thankful for it.
This, rather than ruing that, which you do not have. Because the list of the latter will always be
far longer than the list of the former. And
that holds true, no matter who you are and how much you have.
I know of a couple
who, by conventional measure, should be the happiest people I know. They live in a palatial home. They own both Rolls Royce and Jaguar automobiles. They have a 107-foot superyacht, with a professional
crew, at their beck and call. They can
have just about any luxury that the rest of us dream about. But they are one of the most unhappy couples
I have ever met. And out of that
unhappiness, they manipulate and exploit others to make them unhappy. This, because they can’t allow themselves to
be ‘bested’ by anybody in anything.
Everybody knows
someone like this. Oh, the one you know
might not be quite so wealthy. Because
unhappiness does not discriminate according to socioeconomic status. But its source is usually, essentially the
same. Not counting one’s blessings. And as a result, allowing oneself to wallow
in the unhappiness that comes from not being satisfied by what one has. From not recognising the sufficiency that one
already has.
Now, before you
excoriate me for over-simplifying the sources of unhappiness. Yes, I’m aware of the existence of mental
illness. You can’t tell someone
suffering from clinical depression, or bipolar disorder, or any number of
deeply debilitating disorders, to simply get over it. I’m not here to obliterate entire disciplines
of healing. But I will say this. Most mental disorders do not have organic
causes. A lot result from choices
people make. Drug and alcohol addictions
are probably the most obvious. Such
addictions, when one develops them, must be treated as the illnesses they are. But most times their root is that basal
unhappiness that I’m talking about. That
unhappiness that comes from not finding sufficiency in what one has. A person who is happy does not find it
necessary to anesthetise his mind with recreational drugs or alcohol. These addictions so debilitate their victims,
that they lead to other disorders as one becomes less and less capable of
coping. And when one descends into the
dark world of addiction and resulting mental illness, it is a difficult climb
back into the light. It takes far more
than just a positive attitude. But it is
impossible without a positive attitude!
And a positive attitude from the start, an attitude of count your
blessings, may have averted the abuse that lead to the descent.
Dennis Prager wrote a book about happiness. He called it:
Happiness is a Serious Problem. Why is happiness, according to Prager, a
problem? \precisely because it is so
elusive, for so many. Prager makes a
very provocative statement in his book. He
asserts that we are obliged to be happy.
Not that being happy is something we should afford ourselves, but he
does make that point as well. He
writes that being happy is nothing short of an obligation. And he further asserts that the obligation to
be happy, comes from no less a source than the Torah.
In this week’s
portion, Re’eh, we find a glimpse into the Torah’s formula for
happiness. Moses instructs the
Israelites to enjoy the bounty of the land.
To eat until satisfied. And not
just eat anything: to eat meat in
abundance, the meat of all permitted species, to enjoy an ongoing barbeque of
plenty as long as they do not consume flesh with its life-blood in it. Sorry, vegetarians! Hashem has told us that we can eat meat: the meat of the beasts of the field, the
meat of the fowl of the air, and the meat of the fish of the sea. Wonderful, glorious meat!
But then, after the
instructions that might make one think that one should eat until one’s wallet
is empty, we are told something else. We
must pay our tithes to sustain the worship of Hashem and the teaching of His
word. And we must take care to share
what we have with the orphan, the widow, and the destitute.
In other words, we should
consume and enjoy. But we must keep
things in perspective. Eat, drink and be
merry! But leave enough so that, if you
see someone suffering, you have something left to help them. Because that’s the key to sufficiency. Enjoy, do not practice self-denial. But do not consume as if there’s no tomorrow,
because somewhere there is someone who needs our help.
The couple whom I
mentioned earlier is an extreme example. Many of us think ourselves poor, or of modest
means. Since we have so little,
then we’re not guilty of thinking ourselves deprived…because (of course)
we are! But each one of us enjoys
blessings that we often do not see. Yet
we don’t, because our mindset is to focus on that second list, the one that’s
always longer. The list of the things we
lack. The list might include material
things. Wealth. Good looks.
Good health. Smarts. Time in abundance. If we’re honest, we know that we tend to
count, and count, and count, the things that we don’t have.
This hints at why we
emphasise Shabbat so much in Jewish life. On Shabbat, we are told to go out of our way
to take delight. And so we eat lavish
meals. And drink. And sleep in.
And don’t run the dishwasher. Or
boot up the computer. And find time for
the things we deny ourselves the rest of the week. I’ve just described the ideal. If that does not sound like even a partial
description of your Shabbat, then you’re denying yourself something precious. The closer we approach that ideal, the more we
achieve a feeling of well-being. And the
more we learn to reach for that well-being all week long. Shabbat shalom.
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