A documentary film called “Happy” came out last year, following a considerable amount of research and writing on the newly popular field of Happiness studies. It explores what it is that makes people happy. In a little over an hour, it tells an inspiring story of the path to happiness.
I watched it a recently in preparation for the Days of Awe, the High Holy Days. The film shows people who not only appear to be very content, but joyously proclaim how happy they are. This is contrasted against pictures of many of Japanese workers who are literally working themselves to death. Those who are happy are typically of modest means, and some are poor – that is – economically. But they are rich in a very important way – they are happy with who they are.
The keys to happiness documented by the film include:
- Being content and grateful for what we have,
- Having plentiful time with friends and family – indeed, lives that center around close and nourishing relationships,
- Close connections within community – and a shared communal life,
- Regular experiences of helping others.
All this contributes significantly to happiness.
In our often overworked, overstressed, sometimes fragmented lives, these lessons are important. The question is – how to get there?
The day after I watched the documentary, I went to the post office to mail a homemade Rosh Hashanah cake to my son who is in California. I was a little stressed because I didn’t have time to get packing supplies in advance. I asked the clerk behind the counter for help, and he grabbed everything I needed and offered to pack and seal the box for me. As he did, he started to tell me about how happy it made him to be helping people, and he was really glad to do this for me. And he went on to tell me how he holds three jobs and struggles to make ends meet, but he really does have enough, and he is grateful for it. All he really needs, he went on to say, are his wonderful family, especially the joy he gets from his kids. I just stood there nodding, nearly gaping at him for his perfect recitation of the themes of the “Happy” film. I asked him if he’d seen the film “Happy” and he said he hadn’t, but was so grateful for the suggestion. “Tonight,” he said, “is family TV night. I can’t wait to watch it with my kids.”
During the season of Jewish holy days, I am thinking about happiness as a Jewish value, experienced as wholeness and contentment. How does Judaism help us to achieve this sometimes-elusive goal? One significant way is through the weekly celebration of Shabbat. Another is through the rhythm of time marked by the festivals of the Jewish calendar, offering us an opportunity at the start of each season to feel and express gratitude, and to be fulfilled through community celebration. All of these days offer us a separation from the stresses and pulls of ordinary days, and a chance to truly “be” in our own quiet space and in the pleasure of company with family, friends and community. How much more joy can be experienced when we stop to experience this wholeness that comes from the cessation from striving!
This week we are celebrating the festival of Sukkot. It is a time to share meals in the Sukkah, the fragile hut reminiscent of the wilderness tents our ancestors inhabited. Sukkot customarily is a time for invited guests to share meals in the Sukkah. As I enjoyed my first two meals with community and family in the Sukkah at our synagogue and at my home, I was filled with contentment. This is what happiness is about – gratitude and sharing, relationships and memories.
No wonder the Sukkah is a symbol of peace. With a little more time together for Shabbat, and our years punctuated by joyous seasonal festivals like Sukkot, we can palpably feel that we are all part of one family. On this Sukkot, that is my hope and prayer. May the source of Peace spread over us all a Sukkah of peace.
Sukkot
Pronounced: sue-KOTE, or SOOH-kuss (oo as in book), Origin: Hebrew, a harvest festival in which Jews eat inside temporary huts, falls in the Jewish month of Tishrei, which usually coincides with September or October.
