Mensch•Mark For Elul 20: Contentment with One's Lot - Samayach B'Chelko
As Henny Youngman put it, Why don't Jews drink? It interferes with our suffering.
About the Mensch•Mark Series
The Talmudic tractate Avot, 6:6 provides a roadmap as to how to live an ethical life. This passage includes 48 middot (measures) through which we can “acquire Torah.” See the full list here. For each of these days of reflection, running from the first of Elul through Yom Kippur, I’m highlighting one of these middot, in order to assist each of us in the process of soul searching (“heshbon ha-nefesh”).
Today’s Middah:
Contentment with One's Lot - Middah Samayach B'ChelkoURJ’s Take
URJ’s Take:
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"Ben Zoma said: Who is rich? Those who are happy with their portion." (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 32a also found in Pirkei Avot 4:1)Commentary
Being content with one's portion is an age-old Jewish concern. In the book of Proverbs, we read, "A joyful heart makes a cheerful face; A sad heart makes a despondent mood. All the days of a poor person are wretched, but contentment is a feast without end." (Proverbs 15:13 and 15)To be truly joyful with one's lot in life is wise advice. It is a wonderful way to live, but how easy is it to adopt this attitude? How many of us are truly satisfied with our portion? How do we recognize our own good fortune? All around us the world advertises the goods and services we all seem to "need." Our world is characterized by material acquisition, and to paraphrase a popular game show "who 'wouldn't' want to be a millionaire?
This obsession with our "needs" is not just a contemporary concern. Solomon Ibn Gabirol, an eleventh-century Spanish poet-philosopher taught: "Who seeks more than he needs, hinders himself from enjoying what he has. Seek what you need and give up what you need not. For in giving up what you don't need, you'll learn what you really do need." (Mivhar Hapeninim 155,161 as found in The Jewish Moral Virtues, Borowitz and Schwartz, p.164)
This is the challenge—balancing what we need and what we want in order to become samayach b'chelko—satisfied with our portion.
Several commentators have suggested a variety of reasons why one should be samayach b'chelko - satisfied with one's portion. Reuven Bulka has written, "Whatever bounty and good one is given in life should be greatly appreciated. Unlike affliction, which one lives with by almost ignoring it and transcending it, that which one has been granted which seems to be beneficial should be accepted in joy." (As A Tree By The Waters p. 256)
As it relates to acquisition of Torah, Midrash Samuel states, "…one must be happy that one can be involved in the study of God's word."
Our personal attitudes affect how we study and what we acquire through our studies. According to Machzor Vitry, if a person spends time worrying and brooding over one's portion of this world's pleasures (i.e., material possessions) one cannot concentrate on learning.
The Ruach Chaim explains that one's lot means one's ability to learn and comprehend. A person should not be dissatisfied if he or she cannot live up to one's ambitions or the standards of others with greater ability, one should do one's best and constantly review until the learning is mastered. In the end the individual will succeed and even excel. (The Pirkei Avos Treasury p. 418)
Samson Raphael Hirsch taught that just as we should be satisfied with our portion of earthly goods, so too should we rejoice in the measure of intellectual talent we have been granted. For one should derive satisfaction from the knowledge that one has faithfully used one's abilities for the advancement of one's skills and learning, for God evaluates the achievements of each of us solely in terms of the extent to which one has made good use of one's intellectual abilities. (Chapters of the Fathers, p. 107)
MY TAKE: Excerpts from a sermon on happiness
As Leonard Fein, a great Jewish pundit who died recently, used to say, a Jewish telegram is one that reads, "Start worrying. Letter follows." Fein goes on, “We worry about everything. We worry about Israel, we worry about anti-Semitism, we worry about demographics, we worry about war, we worry about peace. When someone says "All's right with the world," we know that something must be wrong; he has overlooked the cloud, the flaw, the imminent crisis. He has been lulled; the storm is brewing just out of sight, we can feel it in our ancient bones.”
Can’t we ever be happy?
Yes we can. For while Jews may not score well on the happiness scale, Judaism provides us with the keys to happiness. True, we are glass half empty people, but ours is a glass half full tradition. So let’s learn from it. Here are nine quick lessons Judaism teaches us:
Lesson one: Recognize that Happiness is a worthy and attainable goal.
It’s OK not to feel burdened and guilty all the time. Sometimes we feel guilty when we feel good. Alan Cohen defined guilt as “punishing yourself before God doesn’t”.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav said, “Mitzvah g’dolah lihyot b’simcha tamid.” “It is a great mitzvah to be happy always.” “He understood, way before Freud, that sadness could lead to sickness – even though Nachman himself struggled deeply with depression. Aristotle called happiness "the chief good," the end towards which all other things aim. And in full agreement, Moses Chayim Luzzato, who in the 18thcentury wrote “The Path of the Just,” begins the first chapter saying, “Man is created to take pleasure.” For him, there was no greater pleasure than seeking closeness with God.
Which brings us to Lesson Two: Come to Services.
I believe that religion has an enormous role to play in combating the incessant negativity, cynicism, alienation and depression that surrounds us. Surveys show a distinct correlation between happiness and frequency of church attendance in America. But oftentimes, religion is accused of fostering a false sense of happiness by denying harsh realities. I can’t speak for other faiths, but that’s not true for Judaism. Judaism is not a religion that teaches us to comfort someone on his deathbed by saying that he is going to a “better place.” Judaism does not promote the kind of saccharine happiness that denies life’s struggles; but rather a deep, rich affirmation of life, with no denial, recognizing our mortality. And it’s a life that connects – a life of Hesed.
Lesson three: Remove the Masks.
Happiness happens when we get real. Rav Kook, in his classic work on Teshuvah, stated, “The primary role of penitence is for the person to return to himself, to the root of his soul.”
This implies a deep acceptance of who we are.
Lesson Four: Let it Go.
With apologies to Idina Menzel.
The Talmud tells of a drought, when Rabbi Eliezer prayed for rain, but nothing happened. Rabbi Akiva offered a short prayer and the rains fell. A Voice from Heaven called out, “Not that Akiva is any better than Eliezer, but Eliezer carries a grudge against those who slight him, while Akiva forgets it and moves on.”
The Talmud is clearly telling us – if you don’t let go of your anger or your pain, it will only compound your troubles and make you less able to live a productive life. So let it go.
Lesson Five: Cultivate He-sed-ic Communities
Not Hasidic – but Hesed-ic. Communities filled with Hesed. Rabbi Israel Salanter, the 19th century founder of the Mussar movement, saw a scholar with a forlorn look on his face during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The scholar said he was worried because these are the days when God is judging us. To which Salanter replied, “But other people won’t realize that that’s what’s bothering you. They might think that you are upset with them.”
In order to be truly happy, we’ve truly got to care about the happiness of others.
Not long ago, PBS aired a film called “Happy,” tracking the phenomenon all over the world. The producer spoke about how he had heard that happy people tend to be healthier, get sick less often and live longer than unhappy people – and that for some reason, the oldest people in the world came from Okinawa in Japan.
He went there on a whim and found that it was a resounding YES, they were happy. The key is was how different generations come together on a regular basis. One day, he noticed a group of elderly women visiting a preschool as the kids were having a footrace. The grandmothers convened at finish line. They hugged all the kids as they finished. The producer went to congratulate a grandmother about having such a grandkid.
She said, ‘That’s not my grandchild. None of these are my grandkids.’ She was asked, ‘Is this your friend’s?’ She said, ‘None of the women here are related to any of these children.’
I would love to see that happen at every bar mitzvah here. Total strangers of the older generations hugging all the kids as they cross the finish line. That is a culture that promotes happiness.
Lesson Six: Fake it
Nachman of Bratzlav also said, “If you are not happy, pretend to be. Even if you are totally depressed, act happy. Genuine joy will follow.”
This one might leave you skeptical, but Reb Nachman believed that when we activate joy, it ignites a spark inside us, it opens up our aliveness and lets us see the world from a God’s eye view. As Rabbi Mark Novak put it in a recent issue of Moment magazine in a section about happiness, “Putting on a smile is not intended to cover over anything, but to make room for what is here – the divine presence – in each breathing, sacred moment. The smile, which leads us to joy, which leads us to wonder, calls upon the child within us to live with curiosity and creativity.”
In that same issue, Rabbi Gershon Wimkler wrote, “Happiness should not be something we strive for. It should be entrenched deeply within us.” And he’s right. Despite the unimaginable tragedies we have faced, we are a people known for our ability to rise above our sadness and smile. Happiness for us is much more than an emotion. It is a divine imperative.
Lesson Seven: Laugh your way through the tears.
When we ask, Mah Hasdenu, what causes us to smile even when we don’t feel like it – it’s our sense of humor.
Henny Youngman put it in the form of a joke: says I go to the doctor and the doctor says I have six months to live. I told him I can’t pay him. So he gave me six months more.
That is the quintessential Jewish joke. We all have six months. We’re all up against literally a dead-line. But if we can laugh at it and stand up to it, it will give us a reprieve from the sadness – and that’s like bargaining for six months more.
Writer Jay Michelson calls the uniquely Jewish form of happiness “unhappy happiness,” “a kind of happiness that lies beneath the surface; beneath, that is, what we ordinarily understand to be sadness or joy. A middle path between two unsatisfactory alternatives: what he calls “the Botox-smiling cheer of the American Dream on the one hand (in which unrelenting peppiness coexists with some of the world’s highest levels of depression and dissatisfaction), and the self-defeating “Oy Vey” of Jewish irascibility.”
Can we talk? Joan Rivers, made us laugh right up to the end, when she made us cry. She once said, in a moment not intended to draw giggles, “I enjoy life when things are happening. I don’t care if it’s good things or bad things. That means you’re alive.”
Lesson Eight: Stay in the moment
There’s an app, Track Your Happiness, which allows people to report their feelings in real time. Its developer discovered that we're least happy when we allow our minds to wander from the task at hand. That’s because when our minds wander, we tend to obsess about things that worry us.
So if your mind is wandering now, you’re probably worried. If you are focusing on me, you are much happier.
But even as we focus on that task, we can also get immersed in it – lost in it. I know that I am often happiest when I look up at the clock and can’t believe how much time has elapsed. Having a direction, a goal, really helps, even if we may never finish what we’ve started. The sages were onto something when they stated that it is not ours to complete the task, but neither is it ours to desist from it.
Lesson Nine: Embrace your brokenness.
The Hebrew word for happiness, “Simcha” was found adjacent to signatures at the bottom of medieval legal documents found in the attic of a Cairo synagogue. Now legal documents don’t typically ask us to express emotion. So scholars concluded that the real meaning of the Hebrew word “simcha” is not “joy,” but “acceptance.” And that is what, for Judaism, happiness is all about. Acceptance of what we can’t change and learning to live with it.
There’s that famous story that was first reported years ago in the Houston Chronicle, about Itzak Perlman once breaking a string during a performance in 1995. Rather than waiting for a new string to be attached, he just kept on playing. When he finished, the newspaper reported, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said -- not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone -- "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."
You might notice that when I send out death notices, I use the traditional Hebrew response to tragic news, “Baruch Dayan Emet,” “Blessed be the truthful Judge.” You might wonder how we could possibly say a blessing for bad news. A student asked that very same question of Rabbi Elimelech. He was instructed to go to the study hall and ask that question to Reb Zusya.” When the student laid eyes on Reb Zusya, he could have easily imagined the suffering this man must have experienced in his lifetime. The pain of illness and poverty was etched on his face. The student proceeded to ask: How is it possible to bless God for bad news with equal fervor as for good news? Reb Zusya’s reply: “Why are you asking me? How do I know the answer? Nothing bad has ever happened to me!”
OK. If this is supposed to be about happiness, why does it feel like the most depressing sermon of all time?
Because, I have a secret to tell you. Life is really depressing.
And so many of us have learned, the hard way, that happiness does not come automatically from wealth, fame or power, or the instant gratification of our every whim or desire, or an addiction to what feels, smells or tastes good. Revenge does not bring about happiness, nor does unlimited freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, without any obligations or responsibilities. Happiness does not come from the indulgence of the self at the expense of others. If you live this way, you will soon understand why Oscar Wilde said, “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
Happiness also does not come from the avoidance of risk or adversity.
Instead, it comes from…. This. (Put on Pharrell hat)
I said that “Let it Go” the most repeated and reinterpreted song of the year, except one. Well, this is the one: Pharrell Williams’ irresistibly infectious song “Happy” is one of the best selling of all time. Last month it became the most downloaded track ever in the UK. Including Scotland.
And literally just about every country on earth has created a video using this soundtrack. And I mean everywhere. From Abidjan to Zagreb. Both Tel Aviv AND Gaza did “Happy” videos this summer. Efrat too, right after the three Israeli teens were abducted near there. It inspired uplifting tributes from the typhoon-ravaged Philippines. How about Iran, where six young people were arrested for making a completely harmless “Happy” video. They were sentenced to lashes and forced to recant on television.
At last count, there are over 1900 versions of the video online from 153 countries. There’s a site online where you can find them all. The happiest website on earth. The creators of the site explained that their purpose is:
To display happiness all around the world… a beautiful humanity needs to be protected in such times of crisis, and for that we must talk about the good things rather than dwell on what goes wrong.
Sometime this coming week, go onto that site and dance from place to place, randomly, or deliberately. Go from Abu Dhabi to Albuquerque, from the Bahamas to Johannesburg, from Madagascar to Moscow. It is powerful to see. Who knew Poland was so happy? Or Morocco? There’s one in sign language from a camp for the hearing impaired in upstate New York, and a fun one from New Zealand senior citizens. This song transcends language. It is truly universal. This year, “Happy” became the new lingua franca – the language we all speak.
It’s as if, in the midst of Ebola and Ukraine and the two Malaysian planes, Gaza, Syria and Iraq, the Nigerian girls and Ferguson, some inner driving force that propels the world decided to remind us that beneath all the superficial differences, beyond the politics and craziness, we’re all the same. (Take off hat)
In a big square in Copenhagen, there is an enormous interactive wooden pixel screen called the Happy Wall. When I first saw it, I said to myself: Perfect: We’ve got the Wailing Wall and the Scandinavians have the Happy Wall. That’s just the way it is.
But as I drew closer to the Happy Wall, it drew me in. There are 2000 wooden boards of all different colors, and people are invited to write messages on individual boards or, create patterns, animals, words or statements grouping many of the boards.
I looked at some of the messages close up.
“Happy marriage for 30 years: Andrea and Gunnar.”
“My family is my everything: Isabel.”
“M.L: The answer is yes.”
Now I’ve never read the messages that people put into the Kotel, but the messages I saw on the Happy Wall were probably very similar – only happier. At the Happy Wall we might see, “I love my great aunt Sylvia’s potato blintzes more than life itself. I’ll love her forever.”
At the Kotel we might see, “My great aunt Sylvia was bitten by a mosquito in the back yard. Please keep her from dying of malaria.”
The messages at both walls are about caring about something beyond ourselves. And that’s what make us happy. It’s Hesed. It’s unbounded love, the kind of love that makes not only makes forgiveness possible – it makes it inevitable. It’s warm puppy happiness. It’s Hesed: the key to God’s happiness, and the key to ours.
Happiness definitely is a warm puppy!