[Aspaqlaria] Aspaqlaria

Fri Jan 16 11:00:21 PST 2009

Aspaqlaria

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The Pursuit of Happiness

Posted: 16 Jan 2009 10:09 AM CST
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/514116079/the-pursuit-of-happiness.shtml

Rabbi Noah Weinberger of Aish haTorah, in the summary of his 48 Ways to Wisdom (an elaboration of the 48 steps to acquiring Torah listed in Avos  on aish.com, writes:

Did you ever begin a stimulating physical activity and then discover you somehow cant extricate yourself? You pick up a bag of potato chips, and start eating two, three, four, five. Before you know it youre at the bottom of the bag. You didnt really want any more, but you couldnt stop. You passed the point of diminishing returns and now you feel sick.

While physical pleasure is an essential part of enjoying life, at the same time, we have to know how to control it and harness it. Way #18 is bmiut taanug - minimize physical pleasure. You cannot just eat chocolate bars the whole day long. That is not living.

Human beings are pleasure-seekers. The more pleasure, the more power. Figure out how to transform raw physical sensation into the deeper pleasures of love, meaning, creativity. Dont worry - you wont lose the physical pleasure. Youll actually enhance and appreciate it more.

And:

Human beings are pleasure-seekers. Most people seek pleasure in careers, vacations, cars and homes. In our generation, many people grumble about obligations as unpleasant aggravations. Perhaps thats why many today wait so long to get married. Imagine being tied down with responsibilities and children to support!

This is a shallow view. It may be difficult to fulfill obligations, but theres tremendous pleasure in getting done what has to get done. Youre actualizing your potential. Thats real meaning, real pleasure. Its energizing.

Way #33 is Ohev et hatzedakot  literally love righteousness. Once you realize the pleasure of fulfilling obligations, its much easier to carry them out. And if you have to do them anyway, you might as well take pleasure!

I find I can not agree with the concept that human beings are pleasure-seekers. Not so much that its wrong as that I think that if we think about what gives us pleasure and makes us happy, the statement loses content.

This ties directly into my previous post Who is wealthy? Ones lot in life is a process, not a particular static state. The wealthy person is one who accepts their process, their curriculum, their mission in Hashems plan for the universe  to give three very different sounding descriptions of the same thing.

Similarly, happiness is in the process. As creative beings, we want to constantly be heading toward something new. Valuing pleasure is fleeting, the goal is aquired and life goes on. He who has a maneh [a coin worth 100 zuz] wants 200 [zuz]. The amount necessary to acheive taanug, contentment, moves ever upward because we need the pursuit in order to be happy.

Its not that people seek pleasure, its that pleasure is the emotion associated with searching.  We are depressed when things didnt go as we wished. We are worried when we reason to believe they may not. We assign pleasure with the goal of pursuit, and happiness is the feeling that our pursuit is succeeding.

Bitachon is trust that our lifes process and the events and changes in it are part of Hashems plan. And thus the key to happiness is aligning our pursuit with that process as He guides it to play out. For someone with bitachon, happiness is inevitable.

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Who is wealthy?

Posted: 15 Jan 2009 05:27 PM CST
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/513435271/who-is-wealthy.shtml

Ben Zoma would say:  Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his lot. As it is said: When you eat from the toil of your hands, you are fortunate and it is good for you (Psalms 128:2). You are fortunate  in this world; and it is good for you  in the World to Come.
 - Avos 4:1

When speaking publicly, I often use this story from the Kotzker Rebbe, a Chassidic master known for his sharp wit.

The Kotzker Rebbe once asked his students: There are two people on a ladder, one on the fourth rung, and another on the 10th, which one is higher?

The book where I saw this thought doesn’t record his students’ answers. I assume some recognized it as a trick question, and answered that it was the one on the fourth, some answered the 10th figuring the rebbe was leading them somewhere, and others were silent. But the rebbe’s answer was succinct, “It depends who is climbing the ladder, and who is going down.”

What is relevant isnt our state at any point in time, its how were changing.

Given that idea, I think ben Zomas notion of my lot in life is the path Hashem placed before me to travel. Not where I stand now physically, socially, psychologically or spiritually. Not even where G-d is leading me. My lot is the trip along the way. The whole roller coaster ride, the peaks and the dips.

My lot isnt what I have at any particular point in time. Not in the physical sense, although someone who makes $25,000 a year and is content is certainly wealthier than the millionare who is consumed with craving his next million. My lot, in ben Zomas sense, isnt even my current spiritual state. Its the road Im to travel.

I think this understanding is reinforced by his choice of proof-text and its image of eating by the work of ones hands. Fortunate in this world, along the way, and it is good for you in the world to come in terms of what you accomplish. The verses language can be taken as one of process, working toward a goal.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if youre alive, it isnt.
- Richard Bach

The Alter of Kelm (R Simcha Zisl Ziv 1824-1898, Lithuania) says something similar in Chomkhmah uMussar, but nothing I could figure out how to reduce to a sound bite. Self perfection is the work of a life-time, but thats exactly why we were given a lifetime.

The whole being-vs-becoming distinction is central to existentialism. Kierkegaards central problem was that of becoming a Christian, in explicit contrast to being one.

Sartres Existence precedes the essence is about the fact that the essence of a person is the process his existence follows. And thus a person exists before his essence does. In contrast to a building, where the essence inhabits the architects mind and blueprints before it exists. You could know everything there is to know about a table just by knowing how it will be built and what its from. Essence precedes existence. Not so for people.

[M]an first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world  and defines himself afterwards.
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

Heres a related thought from R Samson Raphael Hirschs (1808-1888, Germany) commentary on themes from Mishlei:

Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal, but in an eternal striving for perfection.

The Alter of Novhardok (R Yosef-Yoizl Horowitz 1849-1919) studied under the aforementioned Alter of Kelm. (Alter is a title meaning elder; the intent of their students in using this title was to connote a grandfather-grandson relationship.) Heres a related quote, also from my signature generator, from his Madreigas haAdam, but written in the reverse:

Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, and he wants to sleep well that night too.

Last, a thought from the Mussar Movements founder, R Yisrael Salanter (Lipkin 1810-1883, Lithuania), along the same lines as R Hirsch (above):

One doesnt learn mussar to be a tzaddik, but to become a tzaddik.

The knowledge that this process is what constitutes my curriculum, something tailored specifically for the needs of my soul is quite comforting. The notion that there is something that Hashems plan for the universe needed me to do  and only I can do it.

When I start to feel like Ive been treading water too long and my arms are getting tired and Im scared that my head will soon go under, I try to return to the mental image that epiphany gave me. (And I hope I relayed, as its hard to convey an epiphany, as I cant share that Aha! feeling, just paint the ideas.)  It doesnt always work, but overall the idea helps keep me sane.

My lot in life is the ladder that I alone can climb. This is climbing the ladder, the process of becoming, Rav Hirschs eternal striving, the work of a lifetime, not a single night (with a good nights sleep fitted into it, to boot!). It is the job for which G-d created me as I am, when I live and where I live, with the people I know, the responsibilities I face, and the challenges He throws at me, solely because this is something His great plan required that required his having a Micha Berger to do it.

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