Today is Day Four of Week Three of
the Omer. That is Day Seventeen of the
Omer. The theme of the Week is Happiness.
So this week – and
perhaps a bit beyond – I’m writing about Happiness. I agree, based on my own observations, with
the premise that gave Dennis Prager’s 1998 book its title: Happiness is a Serious Problem. That is, the attainment of
Happiness is difficult and eludes so many of the people I know – so many of the
people you know. For the last two
days, I’ve been outlining some of the reasons that we fail to attain Happiness,
why instead we wallow in misery. In
reality, I have been addressing the topic since the first day of the series of
thoughts for the period of the Counting of the Omer – Seventeen days now!
In the First Week, I
wrote about the various ways that we remain slaves, three-and-a-half millennia
after the events we celebrate on Pesach.
The different slaveries I addressed are impediments to our Happiness.
In the Second Week,
I wrote about the ways that we allow relationships to weigh us down, rather
than pick us up. When relationships do
the opposite of what they should do, that certainly impedes our
Happiness.
And for the last two
days, I’ve written about how we feed our unhappiness, rather than reach for
Happiness, by focusing on factors outside ourselves, factors that are
essentially outside our control. Since
we can’t control the Big Issues, or Conspiracies, and they – according
to this flawed reasoning – are the source of our unhappiness, then our
unhappiness is not our fault. It’s not
only out of our own hands, it’s way out of our own hands. At least, that’s what so many of us internalise,
and that – more than anything else – impedes our Happiness.
Do you agree with
me, that for each and every one of us, our Happiness or lack thereof is in our
own hands? If so, let’s focus now on the
things we can do to reach towards Happiness.
I’m giving you fair warning, though; it isn’t easy!
When I say that it
isn’t easy, I don’t mean that it’s complicated, that it requires some kind of secret
or esoteric knowledge to attain. No,
it’s easy in the sense of being uncomplicated.
That is, once we accept several important premises. To me, these premises boil down to
essentially three.
First, we have to understand exactly
what Happiness is, and what it isn’t before we can even imagine
ourselves attaining it. I hope that I’ve
already addressed that premise sufficiently.
Second, we have to prioritise
Happiness above those other ‘things,’ some of which we previously mistook as
Happiness. For example, ‘fun’ while not
being Happiness, can be a distractor.
What time and energy we expend on our pursuit of fun, we cannot
use for the pursuit of Happiness. Not
that there’s anything wrong with fun.
But it’s fleeting, whereas Happiness is enduring. So, whilst it’s okay to have a little fun now
and then, if we focus too much on fun we’ll miss the boat on Happiness.
The third and final premise, is that
we cannot rely on others, or on forces outside ourselves, to bring us
Happiness. Others, and the consequences
of what they do, can bring us many good things.
But not happiness.
All this doesn’t
sound so complicated, does it? I don’t
think so. Not complicated…but at the
same time, not particularly easy. And
why not? Because – assuming you accept
as truth that which I’ve shared – now you have to ignore years of
conditioning. So much conditioning, that
it almost feels like instinct. We’re so
used to mistaking other things for Happiness, and pursuing them instead, and
looking for the route to happiness outside ourselves, that it’s almost as if
we’re fighting our very natures to reach for happiness. That’s the difficulty.
All this, and I still haven’t
addressed the positive question: If I
want Happiness, what do I do? Never
fear; we’ll get into that…all in good time!
But right now, with the setting of
the sun today 10 May, it is Yom Hazikaron:
the Israeli Memorial Day. Last
Thursday was Yom Hashoah: Holocaust
Remembrance Day. Actually, its full name
is Yom Hazikaron Lashoah Velagevurah:
Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism. It is (to me) an unfortunate fact that the
remembrances surrounding this day have come to focus almost solely on Jewish
victimhood. But an important
counterpoint to that is the heroism of those who resisted. In fact, when discussions as to when to
commemorate the Holocaust were underway, a large faction wanted to make it on
the 14th of Nissan because that was the day the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising began. You can see why, in the
end, that day was nixed: it’s the day
immediately before Pesach! In Israel, in
addition to places of entertainment being closed for the entirety of the day by
law, TV programming veers away from entertainment shows and all channels screen
serious documentary and discussion.
Also, a siren sounds nationwide at 10.00AM for two minutes, and the
entire country stops. All traffic stops,
and motorists alight from their cars and stand at attention next to them. Anybody sitting, if they are able, stands
up. It’s an amazing sight to see, and very
moving.
The observance that begins this
evening is similar in ritual. Once
again, all entertainments stop for an entire day. TV programs about Israel’s wars and issues
surrounding the grieving of survivors and the treatment of wounded warriors,
preempts all normal programming. Once
again, at 10.00 in the morning a siren sounds and the entire nation stops
whatever they’re doing to pay their respects to those who have fallen for the
establishment and defence of the Jewish Homeland. The families of every soldier who has died in
service to Israel, go to visit their soldiers’ graves. Soldiers currently serving on active duty,
are assigned to stand at the gravesides of each fallen soldier, to pay the
army’s respects and provide official comfort for the families. My son Eyal is serving in the IDF; although
he is in training now, he has his assignment to go to the cemetery in Rishon
Letziyon and stand by the grave of a particular soldier. It’s a day when the entire country unites to
acknowledge their debt to those who take up arms for the nation.
The day immediately following Yom
Hazikaron is Yom Ha-atzma’ut, Independence Day.
But I’ll write something about that tomorrow.
Yom Hazikaron is not an especially
happy occasion. But that’s not to say
that it isn’t connected with Happiness.
Remember that Happiness is a state in which one has a total sense of
well-being. If remembering the
sacrifices of those who have died for our benefit is not a factor in the route
to well-being, I don’t know what is. So
whilst one would hardly utter the greeting, Happy Yom Hazikaron! It is
irrefutable that remembering, and honouring, is a part of the road to
Happiness.
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