Have a HAPPY year

Rosh Hashanah 2018-5779
Rabbi Jeremy Schneider

A doctor of psychology was doing his normal morning rounds, and he entered a patient’s room to find his patient sitting on the floor, sawing at a piece of wood with the side of his hand.

Meanwhile, another patient was in the room, hanging from the ceiling by his foot. The doctor asked his patient what he was doing, sitting on the floor.

The patient replied in an irritated fashion, “Can’t you see I’m sawing this piece of wood in half?”

The doctor inquired, “And what is the fellow hanging from the ceiling doing?”

“Oh. He’s my friend, but he’s a little crazy. He thinks he’s a light bulb.”

The doctor asks, “If he’s your friend, don’t you think you should get him down from there before he hurts himself?”

“What? And work in the dark?”

Each of us sees the world from different perspectives. We all live with things as they are however; these High Holy Days provide us the opportunity to open our eyes to new ways of seeing. And with that new perspective comes new opportunities for Change.

Today, we wish each other a Shanah tovah – a GOOD new year. Yet we also say Chag Sameach – a Happy Holiday. It is one thing to wish someone a good year – but what does it mean to have a HAPPY year?

For many of us, this past year has been anything but happy. It’s been tough. Some of us have faced personal hardships. Some have lost loved ones. Others have encountered illness. Some have struggled with difficulties at work, while others have faced challenges at home. Many have looked at seemingly insurmountable hurdles and have felt the pull of despair. Others of us have faced national tragedies. We have looked at a world filled with suffering and felt our helplessness. We have either experienced the fury of nature and felt utterly exposed, or watched so many struggle through flood and fire, wind and earthquake. We have felt powerless to stop anti-Semitism, racism, bigotry, and hate.

I have heard from so many of the fear and worry they are carrying. Many worry about tomorrow. And, yet, we still look around and see people around us who seem to be happy, content, or satisfied with their lives, no matter what. How do they get there? How are some of our friends or family so very happy all the time? The question of happiness, and the pursuit of this happiness, is a very popular topic in science, sociology, pop culture, health care, and, yes, Judaism.

A few years ago, a man named Alvin Wong received a call from The New York Times. After asking him a few questions about his demographic background, the excited reporter on the line gave Wong a piece of news that would upend his life: He was the happiest man in America. His first response was utter disbelief.

“Who would ever have thought? You’re sitting around in your house, and someone says you’re the happiest guy,” Wong said. “I said, ‘Is this a practical joke that you guys are playing on me?’” The reporter, Catherine Rampell, wasn’t kidding. The New York Times had asked Gallup, the polling firm, to assemble a statistical composite of the happiest person in America, based on its 2011 report on American well-being.

Gallup’s data painted a surprising picture: The hypothetical happiest American would be a tall, Asian-American man over 65 years old, who lives in Hawaii, is married with children, owns a business, earns a household income of more than $120,000 a year — and is an observant Jew.

In other words, Alvin Wong. The 5-foot-10-inch Honolulu senior citizen was born to Chinese parents, is happily married and has two children. A convert to Judaism, Wong is active in his synagogue and keeps a kosher home. At the time, he ran his own health care management business and earned more than $120,000 a year.

The next day, the Times published a small article about Wong, noting that, by his own admission, “he was indeed a very happy person.”

How often can YOU declare that you are feeling HAPPY? Right now, if you were asked, would you answer that you are happy? Does being happy even matter? And does Judaism care if you are happy?

Our culture certainly seems to promote happiness as a virtue. Some even argue that there is something distinctly American about the pursuit of happiness. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Though philosophers, poets, and artists have pondered the question of happiness for millennia, science stayed out of the discussion until relatively recently. For instance, many people want to believe that money is a key to happiness. Certainly those who are financially challenged feel this way – that just having more money would solve so much of their unhappiness.

However, in the 1970’s, economists tried to examine this connection between money and happiness. Economist George Easterlin looked into this question, and he found that while income in the United States grew following World War II, reported happiness in the country did not rise in equal measure. The Economist found that this lack of correlation was not just an American phenomenon, but also applied to other developed nations. Over time, the so-called Easterlin Paradox has been refined – it’s now been found that money does increase happiness to certain degrees — but the data suggests that once basic necessities like food, shelter and health care are secured, income falls out of step with happiness.

What researchers have also found is that we experience happiness through involved relationships that bestow on us a sense of belonging, and activities and lifestyles that engage us. In fact, some psychologists are confident that what makes people happy can be narrowed down to three categories: genetics, the circumstances of one’s life and the choices we make.

Some of us are a lot more optimistic than others. There is no sugar-coating the fact that some people have happy genes and others do not. Geneticists estimate that genes are responsible for about 50% of the differences in how happy people report that they are.

The second category is the circumstances of one’s life. This category, which includes health, wealth, and relationships, only comprises about 10% of what makes us happy. This is certainly surprising, but it shows us that, rather than the events or circumstances of our lives determining how we feel, it is, instead, how and what we think that makes up the rest of the formula.

Thus, the remaining 40% of our happiness is found in the choices we make – and what is fascinating is that this is the part we control. This 40% is made up of how we behave, how we think about our lives, and how we go about making choices. This is the happiness that comes from returning a lost wallet, being a good friend, or just doing a menschy thing. Studies indicate that most of us overestimate the pleasure we’ll experience from major events (buying a Lamborghini) and underestimate the joy we’ll feel in smaller moments (sitting by a relaxing stream).

Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, surveyed two wildly different groups – recent lottery winners and recent amputees. Initially, the winners felt a dramatic rise in happiness; the amputees, a notable loss of happiness. Within three years, though, most winners and amputees had adjusted to their circumstances and were roughly as happy as they had been before their “life-changing” event.

Is there, in fact, a secret to happiness? If you go home tonight and ask “Rabbi Google” the phrase, “The Secret to Happiness,” you’ll find pages and pages of links that purport to share with you THE secret.

Some may dismiss happiness as shallow or silly. Some might even view it as irrelevant. But happiness is woven into the fabric of Jewish tradition.

First, words for happiness and joy appear often – we sing Yism’chu on Friday nights – meaning “we will rejoice” or “be happy.” The root word is Sameach – the same root in Simchah, the word we use for good occasions. It is telling that our life celebrations are referred to as “Happy Times.” Some interpret the word Sameach as a combination of the Hebrew words, Sham (which means “there”), and Moach (which means “your brain”). Putting these words together, you get “Where your head is at,” or the idea that happiness is filled with purpose and meaning.

Sukkot, a holiday we celebrate in a couple of weeks, is also known as Z’man Simchateinu, the Time of our Happiness. It is immediately followed by Simchat Torah, the Happiness of the Torah. We wish each other chag sameach – a happy holiday, on each of the festivals. Also, we go into the social hall after Shabbat services, and we call it the Oneg. Oneg does not mean cookies, brownies, or a euphemism for “Costco dessert”. Rather, it means “joy,” in that noshing and talking together brings us a special Shabbat happiness.

The most illuminating text on happiness is found in the Mishnah, the Jewish rabbinic text from the 2nd century CE, in the group of writings known as Pirkei Avot. There, we find the wise words, “Who is rich? One who is happy with his portion.” Here, rather than suggesting that wealth leads to happiness, the rabbis believe that happiness and contentment lead to a feeling of wealth and abundance.

It is as if they anticipated our scientific studies that showed that 40% of our happiness is how we feel about the world – it is all in our perspective. Don’t get me wrong – Jews have certainly earned the right to be pessimistic, grouchy, or fatalistic. And, yet, look at our history of humor, success, philosophy, creative arts – we somehow have found a way to remain optimistic and grateful, even when the entire world seems turned against us.

Feeling blessed, feeling satisfied, feeling content – no matter what or how much we have – this is what our tradition teaches us. Acknowledging this contentment also leads to a sense of gratitude. We can be grateful for what we have and who we are, right this very minute.

So, remember Alvin Wong, the happiest person in the world? Huffington Post re–visited him a few years after he was told that he was the happiest person in America. According to HuffPost, after being given the label of the country’s happiest man, Wong says he felt a certain responsibility to be more introspective about his happiness and good fortune. He considers the title both an honor and a duty, and has since pursued a second career in motivational speaking.

Wong found himself saddened by how many people, from all over the world, called him seeking the secret to happiness. He even took a phone call from a rabbi who spent 30 minutes telling him why, as a Jew, he couldn’t possibly be the happiest man in America due to our tragic history! “Since being named the happiest man in America, I’ve done a lot of reading and research on this stuff,” he says. “I learned about myself … And I think, for my own sake, I’ve come to terms with what is the secret to my happiness. It’s attitude.”

Wong says that, for him, clarity comes the moment you realize that it’s OK to not be the smartest or even the happiest person in the world, and when you learn to accept your mistakes. “I guess my attitude has always been, you’ve got to go forward,” he said. “When you have a failure, when you have something that happens to you that is traumatic, what you have to do is learn from it, but move on and not let that happen again.”

Another key to happiness, according to Wong, is learning to laugh at yourself. “Happiness is, I don’t think of myself too seriously,” he said. “If you can’t laugh at yourself — at all your problems [and] mistakes — then you’re going to go through life a very unhappy person. This has always been my philosophy.”

Thus, in the wisdom of our ancestors, and the wisdom of today, we find the secrets to happiness. Optimism. Courage. Connection. Humility. Spirituality. Faith. Altruism. Perspective. Humor. Purpose. Love. Choice.

Might this be the year that we find a little bit more of this? Might we choose to make 5779 a HAPPY new year?

So I leave you with a short conversation from Mitch Albom’s book, Have a Little Faith: So, have we solved the secret of happiness? I asked the rabbi.

“I believe so,” he said. Are you going to tell me?

“Yes. Ready?” Ready. “Be satisfied.” That’s it? “Be grateful.” That’s it? “For what you have. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you.” That’s it? He looked me in the eye. Then he sighed deeply. “That’s it.”