Jewish Matters No. 4

As promised earlier, here is the fourth of a 6-part series from "Jewish Matters" by Doron Kornbluth.

Simchah, Simchah, Simchah
by Holly Pavlov

HOLLY PAVLOV has been teaching and inspiring Jewish women from around the world for three decades. An expert in teaching textual study skills, she is the founder and dean of She’arim College of Jewish Studies for Women in Jerusalem. There she applies her administrative, teaching, and counseling expertise to the Jewish education and spiritual growth of her students.

“Are we having fun yet?”

It’s a pithy comeback but not a very Jewish sentiment. “Fun” suggests time-bound merriment, joy that has a finite beginning and ending, joy more often than not linked to an activity. This view of happiness is outward-focused, based on things outside the self.

“Fun” is at odds with the Jewish notion of happiness. Simchah, Judaism’s idea of happiness, has an internal focus; it has nothing to do with having and everything to do with being. Simchah is an inner attitude, an acceptance of life’s circumstances.

Our Sages teach that there are two kinds of happiness: “samei’ach b’chelko” (happiness with one’s lot) and “simchah b’mitzvah” (happiness in doing God’s will). In The Ethics of Our Fathers our Sages ask, “Who is rich?” They answer, “One who is happy with his lot.”

Inner Peace

Be happy with what you’ve got. Why? We understand that all one has — one’s self, one’s talents, one’s belongings, and even one’s pain — comes directly from God. God gives each person everything she or he needs. God knows who we are, much better than we do, and gives us what we need in life. This may not include everything we want, of course. It may even include suffering.

The people who are happy with their lot in life appreciate all that is given to them even when what seems to be positive is intermingled with what seems to us to be bad. Such a person understands that painful experiences are just as much God’s gifts as are the blessings he receives. He views the challenges and trials he faces in his life as opportunities for growth and greater self-awareness.

Happiness with one’s lot requires a deep level of self-knowledge. Someone who knows him or herself well is able to set realistic, attainable goals. Not everyone is going to be a world-renowned chemist or a wealthy businessperson; the trick and the challenge is to figure out what special skills God has given you and to determine how you can best use them in the world. To accept your gifts and limitations equally and be content with your lot enables you to use those gifts in a more productive fashion.

By no means does this limit goal-setting or ambition. While it is true that all things come from God, it does not follow that because God has not granted you the fulfillment of a particular goal right now that God intends for you never to reach that goal. For instance, even though you are not married now, it may be God’s will that you marry in the future.

You need not set aside the goal, although it does call for an understanding that your life is to be lived on God’s timetable, not yours (however displeasing that notion might be at first).

Acceptance of God’s will brings with it inner peace and happiness. This avoids the modern pitfall of pinning satisfaction/ happiness on externalities — career goals, financial success, personal relationships.In the modern understanding of happiness, it’s always something else that will finally make someone happy. This becomes an endless pursuit. Once one goal is achieved, the elusive “happiness” will be attained only through the achievement of something else. Happiness seems always just out of reach. Until the cycle is breached, the poor unhappy soul stays stuck on a merry-go-round of always needing just one more thing.The Jewish perspective allows one to enjoy each moment as it comes and to appreciate the little things as well as the big. Since the focus is on one’s attitude, happiness is never far away.

Harmonic Happiness

There is a second level of happiness: joy in doing what’s right.

Every human being is created with a body and soul, two distinct and separate aspects that are often in conflict. What the body wants to do, the soul sometimes says no to and vice versa. The body wants to steal your roommate’s pint of ice cream and gobble it down, the soul won’t let it. The soul wants to get out of bed and visit a sick person in the hospital, the body wants to roll over and sleep.

The fulfillment of mitzvot, God’s commandments, brings into harmony these two dissimilar aspects of being, which in turn fosters a closer connection to God. This is the ultimate happiness. Using one’s body to fulfill a mitzvah utilizes one’s corporeal being to achieve a purely spiritual goal; this brings both aspects of a person into harmony. Both aspects of the human being are working together as they were meant to.

How does this work? Mitzvot are God’s guidebook to productive living, to maximizing each person’s potential. They teach how to harness physical activity to heighten spirituality — which way to eat, to dress, to engage in sexual relations. The Torah tells us how to use this world in a way that is beneficial to the body as well as the soul. It is being in this holistic mode that brings an inner harmony and satisfaction to the Jew.When the body and soul connect, the truest happiness is achieved. And that’s a lot more than just having fun.