Category Archives: Machshava/Jewish Thought

The Pursuit of Happiness

Posted on October 30, 2009 | Comments Off

The Declaration of Independence acknowledged that mankind is endowed with a number of “unalienable rights,” among them “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” While the first two rights are generally understood in both general and specific forms – government cannot capriciously take another person’s life or encroach on his liberty – it is the third that has proved most vexing to define, categorize, quantify and achieve. Note, as many have, that there is no guaranteed right to happiness; rather the right is defined as the pursuit of happiness – each person in his/her own way. And therein lies the hoary problem: if it is a pursuit, how do we know where to find it? In what direction do we turn in order to commence our pursuit of happiness, and at what point do we say that we have found it?

A traditional Torah definition – happiness is the state of satisfaction of a being fulfilling the purpose for which it was created – is both provocative and accurate, but also requires additional explication. Fortunately, modern man quantifies, analyzes, measures and concludes from an inordinate amount of hard date – even in the realm of happiness – that leaves us capable of finding appropriate guidance. Thus, for the last 45 years, almost a third of Americans have consistently defined themselves as “very happy,” and despite great fluctuations during this time in income, social trends, and national stability (1972-30%; 1982-31%; 1993-32%; and 2004-31%). It is remarkably consistent.

These are the findings of a recent book by Syracuse University economics professor Arthur C. Brooks, entitled “Gross National Happiness.” Of course, the most critically important data delineate exactly what each person should want to know – what makes happy people happy? In what realms should we seek to find happiness, and what aspects of life should be enhanced? His conclusions are illuminating, at first glance somewhat surprising, and, upon reflection, most comforting to the Torah Jew.

For example, political conservatives have always polled significantly higher than political liberals on the “very happy” chart – averaging between 10-15% points higher, with the two groups only intersecting in 1974 and 1985. Equal percentages of secular liberals say they are “very happy” and “not too happy” (22%), whereas religious conservatives are ten times more likely to say they are “very happy” than “not too happy” (50%-5%). These statistics transcend ethnic groups and income levels. Religious liberals say they are as happy as secular conservatives (33%).

There are a number of reasons for this, all instructive. Conservatives generally value the role of the individual in society, and place much more emphasis on individual initiative and personal responsibility. Liberals tend to focus on the collective. Conservatives, thus, usually donate more money to charity than do liberals, volunteer more, and even donate more blood. Liberals generally support government solutions to social problems (health

coverage reform, anyone?), and therefore see their primary role as inducing government to act on behalf of the less fortunate. What is relevant here is not which group is more politically successful or logical, but that it is much easier to feel successful when one can rely on his own actions than when it is necessary to rely on the actions of everyone else, especially since the acts of the collective (even successful ones) do not necessarily reflect any individual accomplishment.

Furthermore, liberals are generally discontented with the state of society, and see injustice, victimization, and discrimination everywhere. They are forever, like the mythical Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill and watching it roll down again, and are therefore less likely to feel happy than conservatives who wish to “conserve” the status quo, for better or for worse.

Even more to the point, and most reflective of America’s divisions today, conservatives are twice as likely as liberals to attend weekly religious services, and liberals are twice as likely as conservatives to never attend religious services. And conservatives are also much more likely to be married (2/3) than liberals (only 1/3), and more likely to have children and to have larger families than do liberals. (Children, oddly, decrease short-term happiness but increase long-term happiness.) Married conservatives are three times more likely to say they are “very happy” than are single liberals. Married people generally are six times more likely to say they are “very happy” (they had better!) than unmarried people. Almost twice as many religious people say they are “very happy” when compared with secular people (43%-23%). (Interestingly, agnostics are gloomier people than atheists.) Why ?

Religious people are more likely to be part of a nurturing community (social integration is a key determinant of happiness) and people who live in religious communities tend also to be more financially successful – because those communities reinforce a culture of hard work and prosperity. Religious people also have an innate purpose in life that affords meaning even to the most mundane aspects of life. It is understandable then that – to take the two extremes – 52% of married, religious, conservative people with children describe themselves as “very happy,” whereas only 14% of secular, single liberals without children describe themselves in that way. That validates, to an extent, Tolstoy’s observation at the beginning of “Anna Karenina” that “all happy families resemble each other; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

In another subset, people who donate money to charity are 43% more likely than non-givers to say they are “very happy,” and volunteers are 42% more likely to be “very happy” than people who never volunteer.

All these numbers are exhaustively and comprehensively crunched in this engaging book – you can literally look it up – and all to tell us what we already know (!).

The keys to happiness are:

Faith: “Serve Hashem with joy, come before His presence with song” (Tehillim 100:2) and “be glad of heart, all who seek Hashem” (Tehillim 105:3).

Marriage:“It is not good for man to dwell alone, I will make a helper for him” (Breisheet 2:18).

Work: “When you eat the labor of your own hands, you are happy, and it is good for you” (Tehillim 128:2).

To be sure, there are plenty of unhappy conservatives, unhappy religious people, unhappy marrieds, happy liberals, happy singles and happy seculars – so none of this affects the life of any individual person who still must make his/her own choices. Abraham Lincoln said that “most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” And, of course, life throws us its curves every now and then that necessitate adjustments, and cause temporary variations in our happiness levels.. But the overall message for us is one that is worth summarizing and internalizing: How does one pursue happiness ? Get married, start a family, stay married, go to shul, do mitzvot, give tzedaka, do acts of chesed, work hard and be a friend to others.

And realize that these are Hashem’s blessings that He bestows according to His will.

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Posted in 1, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Optimism

Posted on September 15, 2009 | Comments Off

Our Sages state (Megila 31b) that Ezra ordained that Jews read the “curses” of the book of Devarim immediately before Rosh Hashana (the sedra of Ki Tavo), so that, symbolically, “the year and its curses will end,” and a new, more joyous year will commence.

Each year has its share of blessings and curses, but the bad tidings seem to linger a bit longer and transform our lives in unanticipated ways. Illness and death, job loss and economic hardship, personal upheaval and psychological dislocation can shatter the way we see ourselves and our world and leave us reeling, groping for some words of comfort or grounds for optimism. But they are there, if only we open our minds and our hearts to them.

My late cousin, Ehud Manor, one of Isael’s greatest songwriters, was commissioned in 2003 by the Zionist Congress convening in Yerushalyim to compose an “optimistic song,” following several years of persistent death and mayhem, and pervasive despondency, in Israel. He wrote one of his last songs, simply titled “An Optimistic Zionist Song” (Shir Tzioni Optimi), but its lyrics (not exclusive to Zionism) are profound, inspiring, and filled with solace and succor for anyone who has experienced difficult moments and remains troubled by the vicissitudes of life. The song breeds a sense of optimism about life – its value, its opportunities – and reinforces what is perhaps one of the essential notions about life that often takes years to learn: we usually cannot control our circumstances; we can only control how we respond to those circumstances.

Herewith follows “An Optimistic Zionist Song” (translation mine; the Hebrew, of course, rhymes, and the melody is upbeat):

“Deep within the winter you will find that there is still within you summer,

deep within the sadness you will find that there is still within you joy,

deep within the night you will find that there is still within you morning,

deep within the anger you will find that there is still within you forgiveness.”

“Deep within the fear you will find that there is still within you courage,

deep within the silence you will find that there is still within you a voice,

deep within the ice you will find that there is still within you a flame,

deep within the clouds, you will again find the blue-white-blue.”

Life can contain within it a coldness that appears relentless, a gloom that seemingly will never lift, a night that never ends, and an anger that people can cling to – long after the causes of that anger have faded into the mists of time. They all stifle our initiative, rob us of our zest, and cheat us out of years on this earth. We become paralyzed by uncertainty, and think that our predicaments are frozen and the good life unachievable.

That is an error, because the means of our psychological liberation usually lie within us – if only we desire to dig deep, to access it, to bring to the fore new, heretofore buried but healthier emotions. That is the choice we are given – in the Torah’s words, “and you will choose life, so that you and your descendants may live” (Devarim 30:19). The person who is embittered by life stops living, and pejoratively colors the way his/her children will view the world, as well. Certainly, not every problem in life can be solved with the right attitude, but every problem can be ameliorated with the right attitude.

“And if you are not an optimist, it is a sign that you are no longer young,

and if you are not an optimist, it is a sign that you must again wake up,

to the chirping of birds, to the gentle winds from the sea, and

to the fragrance of the citrus in bloom.”

“And if you are not an optimist, it is a sign that you are no longer young,

and if you are not an optimist, it is a sign that you must again wake up,

to the laughter of children, to the sun that still rises, and

to the song of several friends.”

The young have a boundless sense of optimism. They see a world of limitless potential, as the tableau on which they will implement their dreams. As we age, we realize we will not fulfill half of our quests in life (probably, for the better). But the sense of hopefulness must remain – as we appreciate the carefree chatter of children and grandchildren, the beauty of the world around us, the deep and abiding relationships we have with family and friends that enrich our lives, and the opportunity to serve Hashem at every stage in life. On Rosh Hashana, we are again all children, davening with our parents and grandparents even if they are not physically present, and standing before our Father in Heaven: “Have compassion on us, as a father has compassion on children.”

“Deep within the silence you will find that there is still within you a voice,

deep within the clouds, you will again find the blue-white-blue.”

We can thus dispatch “the year and its curses,” and usher in “the new year and its blessings” – that our lives will be filled with good health and bounty spent wisely, that our voices will resonate with Torah and tefila, that the people of Israel will be blessed with tranquility, that we will all find solace and hopefulness in the pleasure of friends and our community, and that we will be worthy this year of beholding the redemption of Israel and all mankind.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Holidays, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Repentance and Ted Kennedy

Posted on September 13, 2009 | Comments Off

We are all about to be judged by the King of Kings, as “all inhabitants of the universe pass before Him like a flock of sheep.” That is both good news and bad news.

The good news is that our Sages teach that we are judged by the preponderance of our deeds. In Rambam’s words (Laws of Repentance, Chapter 2) “every human being has merits and demerits. If his good deeds outnumber his sins, then he is deemed righteous; if his sins outnumber his virtues, then he is deemed wicked.” In other words, majority good, we are meritorious; majority evil, we are guilty. By that calculation, most of us fare very well, because most people are casual sinners but basically good.

The bad news is that we are incapable of making these calculations, as Rambam continues: “There are some individual merits that outweigh even a multitude of sins, and some sins so heinous that they outweigh even a multitude of merits, and only the knowledge of the Knower of All can assess these individual acts.” Ouch.

The question that I have been pondering is: do we judge a person based on one or two atrocious acts ? Can they overshadow even a large number of good acts ? Are we defined by the one big thing, or by a host of small things ?

In truth, the recent death of Ted Kennedy started me thinking along these lines, because he is an excellent example of this conundrum. Obituaries always tend to glamorize and exaggerate a person’s virtues, and most of the tributes to him were glowing, even if they did acknowledge (sometimes in passing) the one bad deed. It was, as if, “even though, Chap-a-qui-dick, nevertheless, he was a great legislator, the liberal lion, etc.”

Let’s face it – he killed a woman (directly or indirectly), drove off a bridge (probably while intoxicated), ran past four houses at which he could have summoned help, made no timely effort to rescue her, didn’t report it to the authorities for ten hours, allegedly tried to get a friend to claim that the friend was really the driver, was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor because of the peculiarities of Massachusetts politics, and re-elected seven times because of the peculiarities of Massachusetts voters. (And I omit some of the more lurid rumors associated with this episode.) The penance, we are told, was that he did not become president – as if he had some prior claim to the presidency because his brother had been president and had been killed, and a second brother had been killed while running for office.

And yet… By all accounts, he was a very decent person. People who knew him, privately, even political opponents, or strangers with whom he had casual encounters, reported that he was decent, humble, generous, kind and sensitive. Certainly his politics, not my cup of tea or bowl of chowder, represented the old-school noblesse oblige – that those of noble origin are obligated to help those less fortunate. He was a strident political partisan, to be sure, but was always personally gracious to staffers, underlings and others not of his social class – even assisting strangers who would only later realize that it was Ted Kennedy who had helped them.

So now G-d judges.

But our question is: can a person overcome the effects of even one hideous act through a multitude of good acts ? And the answer is, perhaps surprisingly so: yes. In this morning’s Torah portion, we read (Devarim 29) that the covenant was ratified, the sojourn in the wilderness was almost complete, and life in the holy land was about to begin – and only one thing could derail G-d’s plans for the Jewish people, the one weak link: “lest there be among you a man, woman, family or tribe whose heart will turn away from our G-d in order to go and serve the gods of the nations.” The heinous crime of idolatry – of ascribing divine powers to nature or the creations of our own hands – has the capacity to ruin everything. But then the Torah adds something else “lest there be among you a root flourishing with worm and gall wood,” a poison, a rot, a bacteria in the body politic of Israel. What does this add to the mix ? Idolatry stands by itself ?

There is no worse sin than idolatry; it destroys our whole reason for existence – but it is not the simple act of idolatry that the Torah cautions against, but “a root flourishing with worm and gall wood.” The real measure of each person is whether evil has taken root, whether it is ingrained, habitual, a pattern of odious conduct – or it is aberrational, a bizarre exception to the person’s normal mode of conduct. That is the key. A person is defined by what he does consistently – what his personality is – and not by his momentary lapses.

There is a phrase for this in Hebrew – “ba’al” – meaning, “master of..”. “Ba’al” means that one is in control, one dominates a particular area. One can be a “Ba’al tzedaka” (defined as charitable), a “Ba’al chesed” (defined as kind), or conversely a “Ba’al lashon hara” (an habitual slanderer), a “Ba’al dibur” in shul (a persistent talker, who comes to shul only to socialize), the latter two in contradistinction to the occasional gossiper or the talker). Persistent patterns of conduct define the person, not the exceptions. Just like we are not judged by what we say during moments of great stress (Bava Batra 16b) – so too we are not judged ultimately by anomalies, but by the norms of our lives, to what we are dedicated, about what we are passionate, by our persistent patterns of conduct.

The flip side of this – and because of this principle – is that we are taught never to despair, never to feel that we have sinned so grievously that repentance is impossible or unwelcome, never to think that we are too far gone ever to return. Certainly every sin and every bad act has to be atoned for, but there are no obstacles to repentance. Man sins. But man is given the mitzva of repentance as well.

That is why Ted Kennedy could be, properly, rehabilitated (even if his politics remained irredeemable !) – and that is why as we look at some of the miscreants of the past year who disgraced our world, we might wish to gaze a little more benignly, and recognize that there is a difference between the sinner and the “root flourishing with worm and gall wood”, that we too are in need of divine compassion and that the challenge is before us is not to gloat or condescend – but to cultivate good traits and deeds, to keep our aberrations to a bare minimum, and to uproot entrenched areas of rebellion – in our personal and family lives, professionally and spiritually, in our shul or community, so that we may be defined as “masters of good character and good deeds, of charity and kindness.”

And then we will merit life and all of G-d’s blessings, and soon behold the day when all will perceive us as a holy people, worthy of divine redemption.

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Posted in Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Modiin Journal #4 – Religious Life

Posted on August 14, 2009 | 4 comments

This piece also dates from my mini-sabbatical in 2007, and… I wouldn’t change a word !

The most noticeable change in the daily davening routine is the Birkat Kohanim that occurs every morning (twice on Shabbat) in Israel, except in a few isolated places. As a Levi charged with hand-washing duty, I step outside during every Chazarat Hashatz to take care of business, and, aside from the occasional bout of Carpal-tunnel syndrome (one shul had 18 kohanim !), I enjoy it immensely. The daily blessing is a feature of life that we do not have in the exile, and for reasons that are entirely unclear.

While there are scattered Sefaradic congregations in the exile that duchan every day, the prevailing custom follows the opinion of the Rema (Shulchan Orach, Orach Chaim 128:44): “It is customary in these countries that the kohanim do not lift their hands except on festivals, because then people are immersed in the jubilation of the festivals, and [only] the good-hearted person can bless. On the other days of the year – even on Shabbat – people are overwrought with concerns about sustenance and losing time from work …” And in Israel they are always cheerful, and not running off to work ?!

This inference, needless to say, has been the source of enormous controversy – especially since Birkat Kohanim is incumbent on kohanim, one of the 613 commandments, and essentially not at all related to happiness or joy. The Gemara, for example, never mentions that the fulfillment of this mitzva is dependent on a joyous state, any more than any other Mitzva, or that an absence of joy precludes its observance. There have been several attempts among Ashkenazim to restore the daily practice even in the exile – and all have failed. Most famously, the Gaon of Vilna endeavored to do it, finding the traditional custom unsubstantiated, but the night before the practice was to have been reinstituted in Vilna, the Gaon was arrested on unrelated charges. He interpreted this as a sign from Heaven to desist.

The Aruch Hashulchan (128:64) says there is no good reason why we do not duchan, calling it a “minhag garua” (terrible custom) – but says that it is as if it has been decreed from Heaven that in the exile we refrain from this daily blessing. The question is why, and what does all this have to do with happiness ?

Jewish life here has a natural rhythm to it – part similar and part dissimilar to our experiences. We all have shuls, the davening is the same (except for the above), the noise during davening is about the same, and the forms of mitzvot are identical. There is an ease to the observance of kashrut here – restaurants and marketplaces – but, truth be told, it is easy in Teaneck too. But there is a welcome change in Israel that has happened so gradually that it has taken some people by surprise, and left others in denial. Here is a headline from last Friday’s Jerusalem Post: “Drastic Decline in Israelis who define themselves as Secular.” The Israel Democracy Institute reported that whereas in 1974, 41% of Israelis saw themselves as secular, that figure has decreased to 20% – with the religious population at 33% (but 39% under the age of 40 !) and the traditional at 47%. That is a sea change, and, of course, completely unreflected in the public persona of the state. That 20% secular population controls – with a stranglehold through manipulation of the law and the political system – the government, the army, the media, the police and the judiciary – and partly explains their current desperation to surrender to the Arabs at any cost and in defiance of all logic. But the effect of the demographic shift has a ripple effect on the rest of society. The ubiquity of religious Jews here is a sharp contrast to what we are used to – even in New Jersey.

Modiin is a mixed city, and we live on an especially heterogeneous street – with religious and not(-yet?) religious Jews, Israelis and Anglos, Ashkenazim and Sefaradim. Of the many reasons we chose to live in Modiin, one was my desire not to live in an exclusively religious neighborhood as one finds in most parts of Israel. The cloistering of religious life is not a healthy development, and pleasant interactions in a mixed neighborhood can only bode well for co-existence and harmony among all Jews. “Live and let live” sounds reasonable to us, but, trust me, it is a revolutionary concept in the Middle East. On Israel Radio’s Reshet Aleph, the evening’s all-religious programming is termed Reshet Moreshet (literally, Heritage Network), with the catchphrase: “L’kal Yisrael yesh moreshet achat – All Israel has one heritage”. Indeed.

That is not to say that there aren’t tensions that arise from two divergent world views. But the local disputes, such as there are, are understandable even in an American context: competition for slices of the municipal pie. Should vacant land be used to build a library or a shul, should another plot be a Chareidi elementary school or a religious-Zionist high school, should a temporary shul housed in a school be dislodged so the school can have a computer room ? The reality is that Modiin began 12 years ago with a tiny religious population that has grown exponentially in the last few years (including a disproportionate number of Teanecker’s !), and the current religious population is woefully underserved in terms of its religious needs. But that will surely change in the years ahead, as the politics and the politicians adjust to the new realities – and this is true not only in Modiin but elsewhere in Israel as well.

What Israel lacks most is the sense of religious community that we have, for example, in Teaneck. Whereas our lives can revolve around the shul, and there is a community rabbi to whom we turn, that institution is mostly lacking in Israel, and American expatriates always tell me that is what they miss most. There is a nearby shul located on Shabbat in a school (known to the Israelis as the “American shul”), where they are trying to replicate that American-Jewish experience, with a fine young Rabbi, social and youth activities, shiurim, ruach, etc. – and they are in the early stages of what will surely be a successful endeavor and hopefully a template that other communities can emulate.

But without a central Rabbinic figure, most shuls remain lay-driven (with all the positives and negatives that portends). They exist as a place to daven, period. (A Yemenite Jew, who had duchened – I had washed his hands – was called up for revi’i. When I inquired, the gabbai said he had wondered the same thing, and perhaps the Yemenites have a custom that the kohen can get any aliya. I responded that perhaps the Yemenites have a custom that a Yisrael can duchan too !) Without a central authority, strange things can happen.

The bright side is that people become more involved because the success of each minyan depends on every person. While the local shul here remains to be built, there are minyanim on the street, and an especially beautiful Maariv minyan every night at 9:30 P.M. under the stars in the park on our corner. Literally out of the darkness within a minute from 9:29 P.M., approximately 25-30 people materialize, face Yerushalayim, and daven in the crisp evening air. In addition to a Monday night shiur in English, I have been asked to speak in several shuls (in Hebrew) on a number of occasions – and I have, surely coining a few heretofore unknown Hebrew words in the process.

Religious life, then, is suffused with normalcy, except for the realization – by most people but especially olim – that to build Jewish life in the land of Israel is historic, momentous, and – there is no other way to say it – the way it is supposed to be. And perhaps that is what the Rema meant. Simcha is a sense of contentment and completeness about life, in which an aura of purposefulness and meaning prevails. The Birkat Kohanim reflect that state of being, and when we abstain from Birkat Kohanim in the exile – except when immersed in the joy and sanctity of Yom Tov – we recognize that we either can not or should not have that sense of completeness – the full blessings of Jewish life – on a regular basis.

That feeling is limited to when the Jewish people live in Israel, fulfill the Torah and serve G-d in all aspects of life – as will be the destiny of all Jews, we pray, in the near future.

Shabbat Shalom from Modiin !

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Halacha, Israel, Machshava/Jewish Thought, Minhagim