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Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, a Torah Scholar and song composer of the 20th century, would often do concerts in prisons. He would greet all the prisoners in their cells, even the most harden criminals, give them each a big loving hug and invite them to join him for his concert in the prison. One time after a concert, as he was on his way out from the prison, one of the prisoners, a tough looking guy, runs after him calling, “Rabbi Carlebach, Rabbi Carlebach, could I get another hug.” Rabbi Carlebach smiled warmly and gave him a huge hug. The hard features of the fellow melted and he said, “You know Rabbi if someone one would have given me a hug like that 25 years ago I wouldn’t be in a place like this.” Sad but true, one of the major diseases of the world is low self esteem and chronic self-deprecation. People don’t believe in themselves. An egomaniac may believe in himself but only in himself and the source of his self believe is only himself. But a truly humble person believes in himself because he knows that G-d believes in him and seeks to become manifest through him to bring goodness to the world. A truly humble person knows that as a soul s/he is an expression of G-d and therefore s/he could not be anything less then great and forever worthwhile. The great Chassidic Master Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that a person has to be careful to always see the good in himself. If you are feeling plagued with low self, doubting your self worth then you need to remind yourself that you are a soul, nothing less than a manifestation of G-d. Judaism teaches that there is nothing that you can do that could damage that truth. No matter what you do, your inner self is pure divine light. Your wrongdoings cannot change that truth but they can conceal that truth. Take pride in the fact that you are a soul; you are definitely holy. Constantly psyche yourself up to act in a way that will express the truth of your inner G-dly worth. Chant to yourself over and over again, I am a soul, I am holy, I am good and I owe to myself to act holy, do good and affirm who I really am. You may have assumed a negative persona. But that only means that your psychological clothing are dirty but that does not make you dirty. Your dirty clothing makes you look dirty and feel dirty but you are clean. So wash your clothing, clean up your act and then you will feel and reveal the pure beautiful G-dly you. Your true essential self is holy and good and you must convince yourselves of that truth. Do something, even something small and you will feel great results because that good deed is a peep hole into the real you. G-d, the Great I, is waiting to be revealed through you—so go ahead give yourself a huge loving hug, do good and let G-d’s light shine through you.
One night my wife, Chana, and I were walking downtown on our way to a class. All along the street were pubs, bars and discos. There was merriment in the air. Music was blaring from all sides. People were drinking, eating, laughing, dancing and having a great time. Everyone seemed so happy. So I asked my wife, “What do you think about this? People say that if a person is really religious and they have Torah in their life then they are really happy. Do you think that is true? Do we not meet people that seem to be very happy that are not religious, people who are very secular and very materialistic? There seems to be a lot of people who are happy to just party every night, make lots of money and just care about their looks and their sex life. Is it correct to say that they are not happy?” Chana responded and said, “Essentially it all depends on the level of conscious that a person has. If a person doesn’t have a very high level of spiritual awareness, well then they are very happy with very little.” In other words if a person is struggling with issues like “Am I a good person?” “What more can I do to better the world?” “Is my life meaningful?” “How can I be more connected to G-d?” then such questions bear much discontent and sadness in our lives. Don’t let looks fool you. When you see a dog wagging his tail gobbling away his food, he seems very happy and we can understand why because his request is not very big. All he wants is some water and Alpo. All he wants is to fool around with Mimi the French poodle. His expectations are not high nor his desires great. His soul is not struggling with annoying questions about meaning and spiritual growth. He is not pained by the evil and cruelty in the world unless it personally affects him. It is easy to make an animal happy but the more developed our spiritual conscious the greater our potential for sadness because what we yearn for is more than to just wag our tails we want to set our soul free and soar towards endless heights –endlessly thirsting for the endless light. My neighbors were doing renovations in their home so they asked me if I could take care of their aquarium. It was quite a spiritual experience to watch these fish daily. Everyday I would just look at these fish and say, “Thank G-d I am not a fish.” There was one big ugly fish that just lay there on the bottom and hardly moved. His job and joy was to eat the excrement of all the other fish. These fish looked very happy and content. Well, why not? They don’t struggle with the annoying questions about the purpose and meaning of their lives. Every day I would look at those poor little happy fish and felt happy that I was a sad soul longing for G-d and that I could everyday happily come closer and closer to the Endless One - G-d.
What is the difference between having fun and being happy? Happiness is not dependent on an event: it is an inner state of being that does not happen to you but that you must achieve. Happiness is not a happening that you wait to happen, it is a choice – you have to work to achieve happiness. Once you understand this you realize that you can always be happy, regardless of the events that are happening around you. Happiness is your choice. Fun, however, is an event. It does not affect your inner being. You cannot always have fun. Fun can only occur from time to time. Even if you could have fun everyday, it would not necessarily make you happy. It would be great if you could have fun while being happy. But life is sometimes not fun. It is even painful at times. However, even in those times you can choose to be happy. The Torah teaches that the way to happiness is to choose the path of truth, apply your intelligence and skills to do the will of Hashem. When the soul is in harmony with the whole divine symphony of life then it feels a deep and lasting happiness. When such a person experiences painful events, his inner constant state of happiness is untouched. Therefore a good person, even when he encounters suffering, maintains his inner happiness. The evil person, however, chooses a life of dissonance. He is not interested in coordinating his actions with the values and ideals of Hashem. Even if the evil person is having fun everyday, none of it affects his inner self which is actually broken and depressed. A good person may have more painful events and yet be happy because s/he is committed to the ways of Hashem, to do His work on earth. The evil person, however, could be having a ball, s/he may be enjoying wine and wealth, but when the music stops playing, when the game is over, when the fun ends, his/her inner self is left impoverished. S/he is having fun, but s/he is not happy. You can have fun but you can only be happy. What you have you can lose. But who you are is yours forever.
Very often religion is presented as offering the secret to ultimate happiness. I have heard religious leaders try to entice people towards a religious lifestyle promising them that through the synagogue or the church they will find happiness and bliss. This approach is really no different than any other marketing strategies. People want to be happy and are looking for the magic formula. Marketers bombard us daily with promises for a better life. Blondes have more fun, toothpaste gives your mouth sex appeal, lose weight and feel great. It is too easy to point to a million things that we are missing that are the cause of our unhappiness. People think that all they need is the more and the right. If only I had more hair, more muscle more, more shape, more money, more, more, more. If only I had the right person in my life, the right job, the right apartment, the right, the right, the right. People are hoping to find a quick and easy formula for happiness. They want to just add water and stir. They want to pop their problems into a microwave and happiness is ready in just seconds. And there are religious leaders who make that very promise. They claim all you got to do is believe. All you got to do is learn Torah, do the mitzvoth and you’ve got it made. God will take care of you and your life will be blessed with bliss. Although I agree that faith, study and practice are a lot better products to buy than a new car, nicer clothing, or more expensive perfume. But if you think religion is going to give you a quick fix you are wrong. And if you think that religion will put you on easy street you are deluded. Did Abraham have an easy life? Hardly. The Torah teaches us that Abraham was challenged with ten difficult tests. Jacob had an even more troubling life than Abraham. For years he lived as a fugitive running from his brother who sought to kill him. His daughter was raped. His wife dies while giving birth to their son. Jacob’s sons sell their younger brother Joseph as a slave but lead Jacob to believe that he was killed. Jacob mourns for years over the loss and is never able to overcome the pain until he is finally reunited with Joseph in Egypt. Jacob did not have a blissful life. The life of David, who authored many of the psalms, was definitely not a merry-go-round either. Many of the psalms David wrote capture the depth of a person who struggled with and faced the most trying of times. Millions of people for thousands of years have turned to the psalms in their most painful moments finding solace in the words of a man who surely experienced their troubles and was able to express their pain, fears and hopes. The general history of the Jewish people has certainly not been a barrel of laughs. Has any other nation on earth suffered as much as the Jews? And yet the Torah refers to the Jewish people as the chosen people. They are described as the first born of God and a treasured nation. People are looking for happiness in all the wrong places. And they will never find it. Because happiness is not something you find outside -- it lies within your soul. You cannot find happiness you have to learn to be happy in whatever is happening. The Torah does not give any dispensations from the challenges of life. It does not promise an easy life but a meaningful life. It does not offer an instant solution to sadness but it does offer a soulution to sadness and the secret to happiness. Through its’ wisdom and guidance, Torah empowers you to be soul and enables you to make I contact with the Ultimate I – God. Now please don’t misunderstand me, I have seen plenty of people jump into a Torah life and they are not happy. But that is because they thought it was a quick fix and the road to bliss. They were not willing to really embrace the challenges of life and do the inner soul work that the Torah is expecting and guiding us to do. These miserable souls are only practicing Torah but they are not living it. They may keep the Shabbat but they are not celebrating the Shabbat. They may observe the mitzvoth but they are not immersed in the mitzvoth. Torah life is like a song. But to make music you need to be more than just a technician you need to be a musician. You have to play the song with more than just your fingers. You have to play it with your soul.
People want to be happy and are looking for the magic formula. Marketers bombard us daily with promises for a better life. Blondes have more fun, toothpaste gives your mouth sex appeal, lose weight and feel great. It is too easy to point to a million things that we are missing that are the cause of our unhappiness. People think that all they need is the more and the right. If only I had more hair, more muscle, more shape, more money, more, more, more. If only I had the right person in my life, the right job, the right apartment, the right, the right, the right. People are hoping to find a quick and easy formula for happiness. They want to just add water and stir. They want to pop their problems into a microwave and happiness is ready in just seconds. And there are religious leaders who promise the same. They claim all you got to do is believe. All you got to do is learn Torah, do the mitzvoth and you’ve got it made. G-d will take care of you and your life will be blessed with bliss. Although I agree that faith, study and practice are a lot better products to buy than a new car, nicer clothing, or more expensive perfume. But if you think religion is going to give you an instant fix you are wrong. And if you think that religion will put you on easy street you are deluded. Did Abraham have an easy life? Hardly. The Torah teaches us that Abraham was challenged with ten difficult tests? Jacob for years lived as a fugitive running from his brother who sought to kill him. His daughter was raped. His wife dies giving birth to their son. Jacob’s sons sell their younger brother Yosef as a slave but lead Jacob to believe that he was killed. Jacob mourns for years over the loss and is never able to overcome the pain until he is finally reunited with Yosef in Egpyt. Jacob did not have a blissful life. When you look at the history of the Jewish people in general it certainly has not been a barrel of laughs. Has any other nation on earth suffered as much as the Jews? When you read the Torah you see that it does not promise a life free of challenges. There are no instant solutions to sadness and there are no dispensations from the challenges of life. You cannot find happiness you have to learn to be happy in whatever is happening. There are no instant easy solutions but there is a soulution and that takes time, and that takes inner work. I believe that the Torah, through its’ wisdom and guidance, offers the soulution to happiness because it empowers you to be soul and helps you make I contact with the Ultimate I – God. Now please don’t misunderstand me I have seen plenty of people jump into a Torah life and they are not happy. But that is because they thought it was a quick fix and the road to bliss. They were not willing to really embrace the challenges of life and do the inner soul work that the Torah is expecting and guiding us to do. These miserable souls are only practicing Torah but they are not living it. They may keep the Shabbat but they are not celebrating the Shabbat. They may observe the mitzvoth but they are not immersed in the mitzvoth. Torah life is like a song. But to make music you need to be more than just a technician you need to be a musician. You have to play it with your soul.
Imagine that, once upon a time, a fellow is sitting under an apple tree when an apple falls on his head. “Isn’t that strange?” he says surprisingly. “Apples fall!” He had never really given the phenomena much attention. “What about my pencil? What about my book?” he wonders, as he picks them up and lets them go. “Ah ha! Apples, books and pencils fall! There seems to be a consistent force that draws things down,” he realizes. Did he invent gravity? No, he just discovered it. Gravity is a physical principle that has been guiding the movement of physical bodies since the beginning of time. Having finally understood it, this fellow was able to articulate a principle that had always been the force through which Hashem directs the world This is, in fact, what all scientists attempt to do. Judaism teaches that the spiritual and moral dimension of life is no different than the physical dimension. And, like gravity and other laws of nature, there are spiritual laws, which govern the nature of spiritual life. And these laws have been guiding the universe since its very inception. The Midrash teaches that Hashem, so to speak, looked in the Torah and created the world according to its principles and laws. The Talmud states that we all knew the Torah when we were in our mother’s womb, it is encoded in our souls, but we forgot it as soon as we were born. 3,200 years ago the entire Jewish were positioned for a revelation of the Torah that they already knew and we all know subconsciously. The experience at Mt. Sinai was a revelation of the universal principles of spirituality and ethics, with specific instructions regarding the Jew’s particular role and responsibility. What were revealed at Mount Sinai are the divine principles and laws that had always directed life. The Laws of the Torah have always directed life—they are a given. The question is whether we are willing to receive it. —Rabbi David Aaron, author of Endless Light, Seeing G-d, and The Secret Life of G-d. |