The Pursuit of Happiness
Erev Rosh Hashanah
October 2, 2024
Rabbi Alan Cook
Sinai Temple, Champaign, IL
In a small village near Warsaw, there lived an artist named Chayim. He was much renowned in his own village, and in neighboring communities, for the beauty conveyed by his paintings. Day after day, he would sit at home in front of his easel, creating masterpieces on his canvas.
One day, Chayim awoke to a quiet house, as his wife and children were still sleeping soundly. He prepared to begin his painting for the day. He placed a fresh canvas upon the easel, took up his brush, and…nothing. His muse had left him. He glanced around the house hoping that something would spark his imagination, yet nothing he cast his eye upon inspired him or struck him as beautiful enough to reproduce in a painting. He decided that he needed a change of scenery, so he set aside his paints, grabbed his sketchpad, and went for a walk.
As he walked, he heard a beautiful melody. Investigating further, he came upon two young people who were singing love songs to each other. He took up his pad and began to sketch them, happy that he had found new subjects for his art. He began to head back home.
Soon he came upon a boisterous group of soldiers, shouting and laughing. The war had ended, and they were relieved to be returning home to their own families. Chayim noted the beauty in their peacefulness, and their gratitude to God for the end of the conflict. As he continued to make his way home, Chayim happened to glance through the window of a house on the edge of his village. There he noticed an elderly man engrossed in his afternoon prayers. The man had a beautiful smile, and his face was buoyant as he recited the words from the siddur.
Chayim walked into his house and found his wife and children putting the finishing touches on setting the Shabbat table. As the Shabbat candles were lit, Chayim not only reflected upon the beauty that he had discovered on his journey; he also recognized anew the tremendous beauty present in his own home.[1]
Jewish folklore is replete with stories such as Chayim’s, reminders that the grass is not really greener in our neighbors’ lawns, and that we have much in our own lives for which we should give thanks. Like Chayim, sometimes it requires a change in our perspective for us to truly realize how deeply we have been blessed. But as Rabbi Ben Zoma reminds us in Pirke Avot, a collection of proverbs found within the Mishnah, “Who is rich? Those who find happiness in their own portion.”[2]
For many of us, acquiring the “wealth” of which Rabbi Ben Zoma speaks is challenging. The pursuit of happiness is a significant enough endeavor that our founding fathers chose to mention it as an inalienable right which all Americans have been granted by our Creator.[3] But happiness often feels all-too elusive. We have a difficult time being satisfied with what we have. Author Arthur C. Brooks notes that we often find ourselves on a sort of “hedonic treadmill,” chasing after the dopamine rush that we get each time we accomplish a longed-for goal or acquire something which we may have been craving. The problem, however, Brooks writes, is that “satisfaction requires not just that you continuously run in place on your own hedonic treadmill, but that you run slightly faster than other people are running on theirs.”[4]
Even those blessed with seemingly inexhaustible wealth and power can have difficulty achieving true satisfaction. Abd al-Rahman III, the emir and caliph of Córdoba in 10th-century Spain, wrote, “I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call. I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen.”[5]
If satisfaction and happiness are so fleeting, what can we do to give these feelings staying power in our lives? How do we get ourselves off of the hedonic treadmill; how do we avoid the constant swing of the emotional pendulum from the high of feeling content and fulfilled to the low of waiting for the next good thing to come along? As we stand poised to enter a new year, how can we best position ourselves to make the best of these brief moments we have been granted upon this earth? How do we show ourselves to be truly worthy of being inscribed in the Book of Life and Blessing?
“Everyone has dreams,” Brooks writes, “and they beckon with promises of sweet, lasting satisfaction if you achieve them. But dreams are liars. When they come true, it’s fine, for a while. And then a new dream appears.”[6] Research has shown that intrinsic rewards lead to fare more enduring happiness than extrinsic rewards.[7] Any money, property, or flashy toys that we may be fortunate enough to acquire in this life will not accompany us to whatever existence lies beyond.
Better, then, that we heed the advice of Rabbi Ben Zoma that I shared with you a moment ago: be content with what we have. Build skill sets that you are proud of; immerse yourself in causes and institutions (including, perhaps, a synagogue?) that uphold your values; develop a legacy for which your family, friends, and community will remember you. Most importantly, make an effort to live in the moment, rather than perpetuating the hedonic treadmill in quest of the next thrill.
When Moses is called to ascend Mount Sinai and receive the Torah, God instructs him, “Come up to the mountain, v’heyeh sham, and be there.”[8] Moses is being prepared for the gravity of the experience of revelation through this reminder to focus all of his faculties on the matter at hand.
The Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh [pronounced Tuk Nat Hahn] further illustrates the concept in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness, “If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes.’ What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus, we are sucked away into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.”[9] In Thich Nhat Hanh’s understanding, life can only be fully appreciated—and thus happiness and satisfaction can only fully be achieved—when we train ourselves to be fully present for each moment.
None of us has a crystal ball; we don’t know what the new year will bring. The machzor invites us to dream big and imagine the dawning of 5785 as the gateway to glorious possibility and infinite opportunity. If we are able to embrace each moment fully, to open ourselves to taking that leap into the unknown, we may find that any anxiety or trepidation about what lies in store gives way instead to happiness and contentment.
Rabbi Sidney Greenberg taught, “In the middle of the word ‘life’ is the smaller word, ‘if,’ a little hinge on which the door of destiny swings.”[10] Life is full of “if” moments. What would have happened had the generations before us not come to the United States? What would have happened if we had chosen different career paths, different fields of study? Rabbi Sally Priesand, building on Rabbi Greenberg’s teaching, notes:
There is an “if’ at the center of every life, an “if’ that places conditions on the way that we live, no matter how much we choose to love life unconditionally. Our world is one of cause and effect, where every action has a reaction. If we want a harvest, we must plant seeds. If we want good health, we must watch what we eat. If we want friends, we must be friends. If we want to be successful, we must try our best and learn from our mistakes, knowing that the world moves forward every day because someone is willing to take the risk.[11]
Embracing the “if” at the center of our lives can often seem daunting. It is human nature for us to prefer order and routine; “if” moments require us to allow for a bit of chaos and uncertainty to intrude. But I’d argue that “if” moments also leave us more room to be fully present and appreciate the world around us. They ask us to imagine other possibilities than those for which we have meticulously prepared and planned. And by occasionally following those “roads less traveled,” we may manage to detour from the hedonic treadmill into paths that will bring us true joy and satisfaction. Moreover, these “if” moments may help to open our eyes and hearts to the needs of others. If I stop to lend this person a hand, how will I positively impact her day? If I give to this cause, what benefits will our community reap? If I look beyond my own needs and desires to heed those of my friends, family, and neighbors, might I work toward tikkun olam, partnering with God to perfect the world?
For I believe strongly that forging a relationship with God is a key component in achieving satisfaction. Many Western religious traditions encourage followers to strive toward this connection by leading a life that will merit entry into heaven. As Arthur Brooks, a practicing Catholic notes, “Heaven grants us the ‘beatific vision’: God showing [the Divine self] to us face-to-face, making us know [God’s] true nature—and thereby granting us the ‘fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.‘ Or, as the English mystic Juliana of Norwich wrote of heaven, ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ In other words,” Brooks concludes, “heaven is pure satisfaction that lasts.”[12]
Though Judaism does not share this Catholic conception of heaven, we can still achieve the closeness with God of which Brooks writes. Rabbi Sally Priesand notes, “The Hebrew word for life is also a four letter word, ‘chayyim,’ but unlike its English counterpart, it has in the middle, not that little word ‘if,’ but two ‘yuds’ which spell the name of God, Adonai. If we put God in the center of our lives, and help others to do the same, then we can meet any challenge without being defeated or overwhelmed, and we can live with the certainty that life has meaning and purpose and that God depends on us, even as we depend on God.”[13]
It’s true that I make my living as a faith leader, and therefore I’ve got “skin in the game” in promoting a God-centered life. But throughout Jewish history, we have found the notion that God and humanity have a certain interdependence. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the pre-eminent Jewish theologians of the modern era, even titled one of his books, “God in Search of Man.” (Heschel was publishing in 1955; today we might use a more egalitarian title, such as, “God in Search of Humanity.”). Heschel embraces the idea of a personal God, and emphasizes that humanity must partner with God in the continual creation and renewal of the world. He writes, “There is no reverence for God without reverence for [humanity]. Love of humanity is the way to the love of God.”[14]
Progressive Jewish movements in the twentieth and twenty-first century have similarly embraced this notion by echoing the prophetic ideal expressed in the Hebrew Bible and emphasizing how we are divinely directed to perform acts of justice. We speak of our obligation l’taken olam b’malchut Shaddai[15]– to bring about the perfection of the world according to the Divine plan. Such acts manifest themselves through our expression of love and compassion toward our neighbors. As Victor Hugo put it, nearly a century before Heschel, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”[16]
This love, this interaction and intertwining of our lives with one another in the pursuit of godliness presents us with another opportunity to remove ourselves from the hedonic treadmill and to enjoy lasting satisfaction. For among the many rewards that come from helping others is the intrinsic blessing of knowing that we have changed someone’s life for the better through our interaction with them. As Brooks suggests, “Satisfaction lies not in attaining high status and holding on to it for dear life, but in helping other people.”[17]
An unattributed story circulating on the internet provides an illustration of the principle:
A teacher gave a balloon to every student. The pupils were instructed to inflate their balloon, write their name on it and throw it in the hallway. The teacher mixed all the balloons, and the students were then given five minutes to find their own balloon. Despite a hectic search, no one found their balloon.
At that point, the teacher told the students to grab the first balloon that they found and hand it to the person whose name was written on it. Within five minutes, everyone had their own balloon.
The teacher said to the students: “These balloons are like happiness. We will never find it if everyone is looking for their own. But if we care about other people’s happiness, we’ll find ours too.”[18]
David Mikkelson of Snopes.com, an internet fact-checking site, notes that the story is likely apocryphal, since it seems unlikely given the mechanics of the exercise that the second scenario was any less chaotic than the first and that the balloons could readily be returned to their rightful owners. Yet the teacher’s conclusion still resonates: when we help others to know happiness and satisfaction, we can know it as well.
On a personal note, I will underscore that I think we’ve done a pretty good job within this holy community of striving to support one another and guide one another to physical, emotional, spiritual, and interpersonal happiness. Often, particularly in this past year, it can feel like we’re George Jetson at the opening of his eponymous cartoon, except instead of the conveyor belt automating life’s tedious moments to bring ease to our lives, it’s merely transporting us from one hedonic treadmill to the next, even faster-moving one. Being part of a supportive and nurturing community is refreshing and soothing to our souls and our minds. It takes a village to raise a rabbi, and I am exceptionally grateful for this beautiful village.
Like Chayim, whose story I shared at the outset of these remarks, we can find beauty and fulfillment right at home. We can find it in our relationship with God, and in seeking out the godliness in others. WE can find it by working to bring others happiness, doing our small part to bring healing and justice to our world. As we stand on the cusp of this new year, satisfaction and contentment are within our reach. May we each have the wherewithal to find them.
[1] A paraphrase of “The Artist’s Journey” as told by Peninnah Schram in her collection Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another
[2] Pirke Avot 4:1
[3] In the second paragraph of the Delcaration of Independence of the United States of America.
[4] Quoted in Brooks, Arthur C. “How to Want Less.” The Atlantic, March 2022
[5] ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] Exodus 24:12
[9] Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Miracle of Mindfulness: The Classic Guide to Meditation by the World’s Most Revered Master. United Kingdom, Rider, 2008.
[10] Quoted by Rabbi Sally J. Priesand in a commencement address at HUC-JIR, May 12, 2022.
[11] Ibid
[12] Brooks
[13] Priesand
[14] Heschel, Abraham J. God in Search of Man
[15] Found in the traditional prayer Aleinu L’shabe’ach
[16] Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables
[17] Brooks
[18] Retrieved from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/teacher-fills-hallway-balloons/ August 23, 2024.
