I was watching the ball, and trying to figure out why it kept getting bigger and bigger. Then it hit me! The same can be said of life, there are always so many things happening at us. In our personal life, our community, society, in the news, in our emotional equilibrium. Frequently, the things that are coming towards us the quickest are issues that we have to deal with. Then there is the news that we freebase and react to. Then it hits us! We become unhappy, sad, or even miserable. And we can’t figure out why.
Things that are coming towards us, through our own choice or otherwise, confuse our perspective. We think that these things are all of what life is, and we become unhappy with the depressing result. The fix is simply, if not easy. We must restore our perspective. Here is a simple exercise for you, take 60 seconds (you can time it) and come up with a list of 10 blessings in your life. If you’re ready to move on to AP Happiness, try 5 minutes, 50 blessings. With little effort you will find that the good things in your life far outweigh the negative. (Of course, there are people who are going through horrors and tragedies. This is not the time for such an exercise – I can only hug you, and pray that your situation improves.)
In almost all situations, once we become aware of the preponderance of good in our life we will begin to find happiness.
Scripture does not speak much about being happy, but there is one hidden verse that unveils the foundational importance of happiness. In this weeks Torah Portion, Ki Tavo, the Torah unleashes a horrific description of what may happen to the Jewish People. Why would these nightmares befall us? Because we didn’t observe the commandments? No. It is even more spine chilling. “Because you served not the L-rd your G-d with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, when you had abundance of all things.” (Deut. 25:47)
Happiness is an integral part of our Jewish work. If you are not doing it joyfully, you are doing it woefully wrong. It takes a small contemplation. Imagine the Infinite Light of all existence desires to have a relation with you, up close and personal. Imagine no more! This is what Judaism is. Even when we tap our chest on Yom Kippur, admitting all of our sins – we do it with a joyful tune! (Look up Ashamnu prayer on YouTube.) Even when we are at our moment of deepest heart-break over our failures – we are joyfully contrite.
This week I attended a birthday party, it was for Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. Mazal Tov, he turned 280! But I would like to share an amazing insight I read from his teachings: “When you see a person who you truly love, you become totally overjoyed with great light and happiness. Your countenance shines and you forget entirely any pain or agony that you may have because of your great joy of seeing the face of your beloved. So too, a person can remember at any time one truly loves G-d, for He genuinely loves you. We can feel His countenance at any moment and realize that God is with us and be totally overjoyed.”
If we feel that we are undeserving of this love, or that we are spiritually deficient, how much more so that we should be overjoyed. G-d may love you even more.
These meditations do not fix all the problems of the world (as if your Facebook post will), but it will put you on a path of happiness and allow you to receive the amazing G-dly blessings that accompany this joy.