Today is Day One of Week Three of
the Omer. That is Day Fifteen of the
Omer. The theme of the Week is Happiness.
They say misery loves company, and my life experience reveals this
as truth. The world is full of miserable
people. (We’ll get into why this is so,
in a later installment on this subject.)
When you’re outwardly miserable- and we all have been so at various
times, even those who are happy people – people seem attracted to you. True, some of them may simply be well-meaning
people who want to support you and cheer you up. But more of them are simply miserable people
themselves, who want to share their misery and feed on yours.
In contrast, when
you’re happy – and outwardly so, people give you space. There’s something about a happy person that
is confrontational so many who are, themselves, not happy.
Okay, you may be thinking that those
are awfully grim words for a rabbi to be saying. But if so…glad I got your attention!
Probably no other
state of being in life is more elusive than happiness. That’s not really surprising, since most of
us don’t even know what happiness is!
Happiness is not fun. Happiness
is not excitement. Happiness is not
pleasure. (But one can experience fun,
feel excited or pleasured when happy.)
No, happiness is something far profound.
It involves a sense of deep contentment.
A wholeness. A satisfaction with
one’s life. Happiness is, moreover, not
an emotion or dependent upon emotions.
It is a decision. And finally…it
is an obligation.
Yes, we are obliged
to be happy. Psalm 100.2 tells us: Serve Hashem with joy. Rabbi Nahman taught: It is a great mitzvah to always be
happy. Why would G-d desire for us
to be happy? Why does He have a stake in
whether I am happy or not?
Because G-d has a
stake in the world being full of goodness.
Happy people bring goodness into the world. Miserable people, whether deliberately or
inadvertently, bring evil into the world.
Because, simply put, for a happy person, happiness is normative. For a miserable person, misery is normative. It’s really as simple as that.
We are obligated to
be happy, because happiness brings good and inhibits evil. Happy people do not hurt others. Have you ever heard of a happy suicide bomber? Of course not! Sit and talk – if you can! – with any kind of
extremist, with any kind of revolutionary, with anybody whose goal is to turn
the world upside down for someone else…and you’ll find a thoroughly miserable
person. Look, that’s not to say that
happy people don’t want to change the world!
Happy people want to take happiness – their own and others’ – and increase
it! But miserable people buy into
ideologies that see the world as a dark place that needs to be completely
remade according to some utopian ideal.
That’s why utopian movements never succeed in spreading anything but
misery and evil.
A frequent syndrome
of a lack of happiness, is mental illness.
When we allow ourselves to wallow in unhappiness, a result in extreme
cases is that we can cause actual chemical alterations to our brains that lead
to various clinical disorders:
depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, and others. These are not conditions to be taken lightly,
and I don’t want you to think I’m doing so when I assert that they can and do
result from extreme unhappiness. This is
part of treating happiness as something serious, not as something light.
Happiness, in the
words of the social commentary Dennis Prager, is a serious problem. That is, attaining happiness is
difficult, and a paucity of happiness sustains evil in the world. But happiness does not come as a mass
movement; it can only be achieved one person at a time, through his or her own efforts
and ideally with the support of others.
But each one of us, in addition to being obliged to be happy, is
responsible for his or her own.
Join me over the
coming week, and perhaps beyond, as I write on the subject of happiness. If you’re truly open to a journey or
preparing for accepting the Torah, then happiness is an unavoidable part. Miserable people cannot inherit the Torah.
Speaking of
happiness, I want to wish all a happy Mother’s Day. For most mothers, knowing that their children
– no matter how old – are well and acknowledge the many sublime gifts their
mothers gave them, is a source of happiness.
If you’re a mother, rejoice in your children’s promise and all they may
have become. If you’ve got a mother,
rejoice in what she has given you and take time out to thank her.
Finally: a Good
Month! With sunset today, begins Rosh
Hodesh Iyar. A new month on the Jewish
calendar. May it be Your will, Hashem
our G-d and G-d of our ancestors, that You inaugurate this month upon us for
goodness and for blessing. May You give
us long life – a life of peace, a life of goodness, a life of blessing, a life
of sustenance, a life of physical health, a life in which there is fear of
heaven and fear of sin, a life in which there is no shame nor humiliation, a
life of wealth and honour, a life in which we will have love of Torah and fear
of heaven, a life in which our heartfelt requests will be fulfilled for the
good. Amen. (Translation of prayer
for the new month from Siddur Kol Yaakov.)
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