Sukkot & Simchat Torah
It's Sukkot- Be Happy!
Thoughts on happiness, excerpted from a Dvar Torah by Dr. Elaine Todres (delivered on first day Sukkot, 5768, Darchei Noam synagogue, Toronto).
One of the descriptors for the Chag of Sukkoth is Chag Simchateynu- our feast of happiness. This festival holiday is the third in a spiritual and rituals-based trilogy in which, the people of Israel, are commanded, advised, urged to be happy and rejoice.
In this day of self-help guru writing on the ten sure fire methods of achieving happiness, thinness, success, meaning or culinary skill, there appear to be long lists of approaches to the attainment of happiness.
What is true happiness? What makes life worthwhile? The Greek word is eudaemia- ultimate good. The Hebrew: osher.
Prayers begin with the very basics of need health and life. Other needs can be given up for a good that goes beyond the needs of our bodies.
According to Isaiah, ashrei is the man trusts in God. Elsewhere ashrei is the man who observes the Sabbath, and avoids evil. The Biblical model is a man who recognizes and accepts God, acts with kindness to the weak, is fair in dealing with others, avoids sin, and spends time in God's place.
Medieval thinkers changed osher into an intellectual goal, and thus hatzlacha, such an objective was eternal success.
Thinkers began to explore the aspect of being a moral person, and doing good things a necessary but not sufficient condition. Being a mensch might not be enough. Ritual and mitzvot were also important.
What are the mitzvot of Sukkot?
In addition to the Sukkah and the four species, the third mitzvah associated with Sukkot is the requirement for joy:
- You shall rejoice in your festival Deuteronomy 16.14
- You shall have nothing but joy Ibid., 16.15
- You shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. Leviticus, 23.40
The medieval commentators suggested:
And you shall have nothing but joy- if one is joyous on the Sukkoth, he will be happy and kind-hearted throughout the year; he who is satisfied with his portion will gain joy and happiness.
But what is happiness? Two psychologists, Dr. Ed Diner, and Dr. Daniel Kahneman, have two well accepted measurement tools. And they conclude in their seminal work that happiness is not just a mood or a feeling. Some statistics on happiness:
- Happiness seems to lead to long life, health, resilience and god performance
- In one study, the differences in the length of difference was nine.
- Richer does not make happier
(Rich countries do tend to be happier than poorer ones. But once you have a home, food and clothes, then extra money does not seem to make people much happier.) - Older people are happier than younger people
- Married people are happier than non-married people marriage tends to add 7 years to the life of a man, and 4 years to the life of a woman- I will let you consider the statistical significance of the variance
- The level where parity is reached is in a country with $10,000 LB a year
Scientists think they know why more money does not make us make us much happier. It is thought we adapt to pleasure and pleasure wears off quickly
We also tend to see life judged as against others; we compare ourselves to others.
Based on these studies, we can conclude on what makes us happy:
1. Family and friends are crucial. One economist at Warwick University, has a formula to work out how much extra cash w would need to make up for friends the answer is L$50,000.
2. Marriage seems to be important. Marriage tends to add 7 years to the life of a man and 4 to the life of a woman.
3. Having goals embedded in your long term values that you are working for, but that you also find enjoyable.
Psychologists argue that we need to find fulfillment through having goals that are interesting to work on and which use our strengths and abilities.
Seligman defined three components of happiness:
- pleasure
- engagement
- meaning using personal strengths to serve some larger end
Dr. David Lykken of University of Minnesota, looks at the role of genes in determining one's sense of life satisfaction. He has been looking at 4,000 sets of identical and fraternal twins.
- 50 per cent of ones life satisfaction comes with genetic programming
- genes influence such traits as having a sunny personality, dealing well with stress, and feeling low levels of anxiety and depression
- circumstantial factors like income, marital status, religion and education only contribute about 8 % to one's overall wellbeing.
Lykken proposes that happiness has a set point- like our weight. No matter what happens in life, good bad or terrific, we tend to return to our set point. However, he suggests that we can change our happiness levels by working on three components of happiness: getting more pleasure out of life, becoming more engaged and finding ways to make your life more meaningful.
Sonja Lyubomirsky has been working with groups and finding significant gains in happiness in her patients/subjects. Here are two techniques she has utilized: (based on the work of Seligman)
- GRATITUDE JOURNAL
- PERFORMING ACTS OF ALTRUISMS AND KINDNESS
- making a gratitude visit writing a testimonial tanking a teacher, rabbi or grandparent, and then visiting the person and reading the letter.- Seligman people who do this just once are measurably happier and less depressed than a month later
Seligman's biggest recommendation for lasting happiness is to figure out your strengths and find new ways to deploy them. His work with colleague Christopher Peterson at Michigan, has focused on finding human strengths and virtues like generosity, humor, gratitude and zest and studying how they relate to happiness. Why do exercising gratitude, kindness and other virtues provide a lift? giving makes you feel good about yourself. Giving puts meaning into your life. You have a sense of purpose because you matter to someone else. Given that family is very important, remember to take pleasure, engage and take derive meaning from activities that use your strengths and whose outcomes wil serve some larger end.
This festival, Zman Simchateynu, is a holiday required to be observed in both the shul and the home, with friends families, and spiritual visitors. We are commanded to take pleasure in our life. There are a number of rituals with which we must become engaged:
- the building and decorating of the sukka
- the acquiring of the four species
- attendance at shul to perform liturgical things and do certain mitzvoth
- creating meals and dining with family
From a behavioural view, all the preconditions are met in the observance of Sukkoth
So should I choose to take pleasure from the holiday and its observance, engage with my family and community I both preparing for the holiday, and observing the holiday as a Reconstructionist, I am well on the way to being happy. Not only are we happy enjoying delicious meals with friends and family outside in the beautiful weather but being happy by engaging in the school of psychology tool kit of pleasure: engagement and meaning.
Chag Sameach!
Thanks to Dr. Elaine Todres for sharing this Dvar Torah with us.
