On Joy, Accomplishment and Being Like God
One of my favorite Jewish authors is Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. Over Shabbat, I reread his book If You Were God.
On this reread, there was a section that particularly spoke to me. Note that any parts in bold are ones I have chosen to emphasize:
In order to make man a vehicle to accept His good, God created him with the capacity to enjoy. There are many things that give man pleasure. There are bodily pleasures, such as eating and drinking. There are mental pleasures, such as looking at beautiful art, reading a good book, or listening to fine music. But above all these is the pleasure of accomplishment. There are few human pleasures greater than those of accomplishment- of completing a job well done. Whether it is in doing good to others, solving a difficult problem, or simply doing the right thing, man experiences a certain glow of pleasure that is beyond comparison. The only thing that might come close. is the spiritual pleasure of the mystic vision. Indeed, we find that many people are willing to forego the greatest physical pleasures in order to pursue a meaningful goal.
For most of us, there is a glow of accomplishment that accompanies the meaningful act itself. If we are praised for it, the pleasure is all the greater. If an important person were to tell us that we had done something good, we would experience an even greater pleasure in accomplishment. To win, for example, a Nobel prize and be recognized by the world, is indeed one of the great pleasures of life, and there are people who would work a lifetime toward this end.
Accomplishment and recognition are among the natural pleasures of man. They are not physical pleasures, but delights of the spirit. The wise Solomon spoke of them when he said (Proverbs 13:12), “Desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” He reiterates this several verses later, saying (ibid 13:19), “Desire accomplished is sweet to the soul.”
If the President were to summon you and tell you that you had done something good, you would feel great pride in accomplishment. How then would you feel if you were told this by One much greater? What if God Himself were to tell you that you were doing something good and beneficial? How great would be your feeling of accomplishment?
In a sense, man’s ultimate reward for doing good is this sense of accomplishment. God Himself tells us what is good, and the reward is in ultimately knowing that one has obeyed God’s direct command. What greater accomplishment can there be than to act as a partner in the very purpose of creation?
It is for this reason that God revealed His will to man. He revealed the Torah to us, telling us what is good. When man then lives by the Torah and does what God Himself has defined as good, he can feel that he has accomplished one of the most meaningful things possible. God teaches us the way in order that we may achieve this everlasting bliss. This is what the Psalmist means when he says (Psalms 16:11), “You make me know the path of life; in Your presence is a fullness of joy, in Your right hand, everlasting bliss.”
[…]
The opposite of pleasure is pain. Here again, we have both physical pain and mental anguish. Among the worst possible kinds of psychological pain are the feelings of guilt and shame. In one place, our sages say that the pain of shame is as great as that of death.
A number of our great teachers write that the fire of Gehenom, the ultimate punishment for evil, is actually the burning shame that one experiences when he stands naked before God with all his sins revealed.
Imagine standing before God, with your memory wide open and with no way to escape. We all know the terrible shame and humiliation of being caught doing wrong. Imagine what it is like when the One who catches you is God Himself. This is shame without comparison.
[…]
As we have said, one of the ultimate goals of man is the imitation of God. We do this in every good act, paralleling God’s own creation of good. The most direct way that we can do this, however, is in our actions toward our fellow man.
[…]
In the previous section, we quoted the Talmud as saying that we bind ourselves to God by imitating His ways. But in what way does the Talmud say that we imitate God? Look at its words carefully:
Just as God clothes the naked, so shall you.
Just as God visits the sick, so shall you.
Just as God comforts the bereaved, so shall you.
In another place, the Talmud says that we must also imitate God in His mercy and compassion. The general lesson is that we resemble God most in our relationship with our fellow human beings.
This concept is best exemplified by the famous story of Hillel. The Talmud tells us that a non-Jew once came to Hillel and said, “I wish to convert to Judaism, but only if you teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot.”
Hillel replied, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the core of Judaism. The rest is mere commentary.”
Many of the commentators find this story very perplexing. The commandments dealing with our relationship toward our fellow man are certainly very important. But there are also many other important commandments that apparently have nothing at all to do with other people. How could Hillel have dismissed these as mere commentary?
What Hillel was teaching us, however, was that the main reason for all the commandments is the imitation of God, and that this is exemplified by our relations with our fellow human beings. We must deal with our fellows just as God deals with us. In doing so, we fulfill His purpose in creation. The imitation of God is ultimately the purpose of all the commandments.
This is also the meaning of what God told His prophet (Jeremiah 22:16), “He judged the cause of the poor and the needy, and it was well. Is this not to know Me?” As discussed earlier, we can only know God by drawing close to Him through imitating Him. God is telling us that the main way in which we know Him is by imitating Him in doing good to others.
There is a commandment in the Torah (Leviticus 19:18), “You shall love your neighbor like yourself.” One of our foremost leaders, Rabbi Akiba, said, “This commandment is the core of the Torah.” Rabbi Akiba is teaching us the same lesson as Hillel. We imitate God’s love for the world through our love toward our fellow man. In this way, we draw ourselves close to God and fulfill His purpose in creation.
In a deeper sense, the concept of love itself is the archetype of spiritual closeness. Where a bond of love exists between two people, they are close- even though they may be separated by vast distances. On the other hand, people who hate each other are far apart, even when they are sitting right next to each other. Love and hate exist in a spiritual, rather than a physical dimension. Love between two people implies a harmony and complementarity between them. It is this harmony that makes them close, irrespective of physical distance. In obeying God’s commandments, we seek to bring a similar harmony and closeness between ourselves and God. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” is therefore indeed the prime rule of the Torah. It not only leads us to a closeness to God, but also teaches us the meaning of such closeness.
-pages 223-234 in The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology I
I was thinking about the verse in this week’s parsha that emphasizes how important it is to serve God with joy. Indeed, if we do not, we open ourselves up to the curses.
תַּ֗חַת אֲשֶׁ֤ר לֹא־עָבַ֙דְתָּ֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ בְּשִׂמְחָ֖ה וּבְט֣וּב לֵבָ֑ב מֵרֹ֖ב כֹּֽל׃
Because you would not serve your God יהוה in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything,
וְעָבַדְתָּ֣ אֶת־אֹיְבֶ֗יךָ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְשַׁלְּחֶ֤נּוּ יְהֹוָה֙ בָּ֔ךְ בְּרָעָ֧ב וּבְצָמָ֛א וּבְעֵירֹ֖ם וּבְחֹ֣סֶר כֹּ֑ל וְנָתַ֞ן עֹ֤ל בַּרְזֶל֙ עַל־צַוָּארֶ֔ךָ עַ֥ד הִשְׁמִיד֖וֹ אֹתָֽךְ׃
you shall have to serve—in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything—the enemies whom יהוה will let loose against you. [God] will put an iron yoke upon your neck until you are wiped out.
Joy is complex. But it is something I think Hasidim have mastered- and understand- much better than those who affiliate differently. (Who knows? Maybe this is why I needed to marry a Hasid.)
Here is the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who lived through incomprehensible pain and hardship, speaking about joy.
Western culture supposes that joy is based on things. The more material things you possess, the more you can do. You can have fancy houses, go on vacations, eat expensive meals, and travel to beautiful places. All of this is well and good. None of it- alone- fills you up inside.
What does fill you up is what Rabbi Kaplan mentioned above. The feeling of accomplishment. The idea that God Himself looks at you and thinks to Himself, “I’m proud of her.”
I think serving God with joy comes from recognizing that you have literally been placed on earth to help make it better. You are meant to imitate God, which means you are meant to help other people. Every time you do that, every time you assist your fellow man, it’s a win.
Serving God with joy means serving God through recognizing your own value. You’re here for a reason; you’re here to be His partner. When you can make someone else’s day brighter, you’re imitating Him. Joy comes from feeling like you are living a meaningful life, which goes beyond accumulating as many possessions as possible. Joy is something you can access even when you are unhappy in your own life. You can be having problems in your own life and relationships but when you do something good for someone else, you feel a spark of joy. (Current research, including Dr. Seligman’s work Flourish, supports this.)
The best way to get yourself out of a slump is to find a meaningful project and volunteer. Go play guitar for children at a preschool. Sort shoes at a thrift shop. Donate clothing to a shelter. Organize a food bank. You yourself may feel small and useless, but the act of doing something, of giving something, of being part of something larger than yourself, sparks joy. You may not personally feel happy in that moment. But the joy that comes from imitating God is bigger than you.
The key is to remember we do not exist the way we see ourselves. We exist the way God sees us. So even on the days when we are unhappy, angry and miserable, we can get up and perform actions where we resemble God. We can still play with our children. Visit a nursing home. Make a meal for a new mom. And surprisingly, the outcome of those actions will be to increase our joy, which acts as a powerful feedback loop to encourage us to engage in such actions again. Eventually, perhaps, our default setting might switch. It might no longer be sorrow, or anger, or pain. It might- astonishingly- become joy.