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Click here. Rabbi Karp's Sermons ... YOM KIPPUR EVENING 2003 Did you know that there is a movement in modern psychology that is focused purely on the study of human happiness? Well there it. They call it "Positive Psychology." I know this is a fact, for I read about it last December in the Quad City Times.1 Now you might think that it is a no-brainer to figure out what makes people happy. After all, we all know what makes us happy, don’t we? Well, maybe we do and maybe we don’t. For one of the truths that this Positive Psychology has discovered is that many of the things that we think will make us happy really don’t do the job. Take physical health, for example. Many of us assume that health is one of the keys to happiness. But the fact of the matter is that the value of physical health only has impact upon most people if they are ill, especially very ill. Otherwise, most healthy people take their health for granted and are none the happier because of it. As I was reading about these insights coming out of Positive Psychology, I was struck with a rather peculiar thought. For the more I read about the elements that make for happiness, the more I was reminded of this day, of Yom Kippur. Now I suspect most of us do tend to not equate Yom Kippur with happiness. It’s a pretty somber holy day, maybe the most somber in Judaism. It is a fast day. It is a day when we confront our sins and our guilt. It is a day when we immerse ourselves in prayer; all day in prayer. It is a day of saying "sorry" and seek forgiveness for all that we have done wrong during the course of the year. That’s not how most people would describe a happy moment. But still, the more I learned of these happiness studies, the more my thoughts turned to Yom Kippur. And I want to share with you why. According to these happiness experts, the happiest people surround themselves with family and friends. These are the people who spend the least amount of time alone. Well look around you. At no other time of the year do we Jews come together as we come together on Kol Nidre eve. Of all the things we can say about the meaning and impact of the High Holy Days, many of which we could argue and debate, one thing, I believe we all would agree upon. The High Holy Days, and especially Yom Kippur, is a time for the gathering of the clan. It is a time when we Jews are surrounded by our Jewish family and our Jewish friends. And it feels really good to be in this company. Indeed, there are many who, if asked, "Why do you come here?", as we did on Rosh Hashanah eve, would answer, "Because it feels good to be in such a gathering. It feels good to connect with my people. It feels good to be reminded that as a Jew in this predominantly non-Jewish society, I am not alone. For when I am here, in this room with these people, I am no longer in the minority. I am no longer swimming against the tide. We are the tide. And feeling that makes me happy." According to the happiness experts, the happiest people pursue personal growth. The idea that they can be better, that they can make themselves better, does not daunt them. It excites them. It lends their lives purpose and direction. Such a quest transforms their lives into an ongoing series of moments of great personal satisfaction; satisfaction with the achievements they attain as they mark their own growth. Well, if Yom Kippur is not about the pursuit of personal growth then it’s not about anything. For that is what this holy day centers on, that is if you approach it earnestly and take its messages to heart. There is a Hasidic story about Rabbi Bunam. One day, Rabbi Bunam went to the marketplace to purchase some grain. The farmer he was dealing with was not satisfied with the price Rabbi Bunam was offering, and so he said repeatedly to the rabbi, "Do better!" Rabbi Bunam was captivated by this phrase and many times afterward, when calling upon his followers to repent, he would repeat the farmer’s charge, "Do better!"2 Doing better. That is the essence of Yom Kippur. For Yom Kippur calls upon us to examine our lives seriously and critically. Consider our strengths and consider our weakness, yes. But most important of all, consider where in our character there is room for improvement. Consider what it is we need to change in order to make ourselves into the better people we could become. While perfection is an ideal, Yom Kippur calls upon us to strive to draw closer to our perfect selves. And just as the happiness gurus tell us, if we do that - if we travel that road toward self improvement and personal growth - we will, not only in the end but along the way, find that we are far happier with ourselves. It is like my Bar and Bat Mitzvah students. They struggle with the prayers, they struggle with their Torah and Haftarah portions, but if they work at it, from week to week they find themselves getting better and better. And the better they get, the happier they become with themselves and with their studies. The bottom line is that the effort required in the pursuit of personal growth pays off; not just in the fact that we as individuals improve, but also in the fact that because of our growth, we are far happier with ourselves. Such happiness is the goal of our Yom Kippur quest. According to Dr. Ed Diener, of the University of Illinois, one of the things that many of us assume will add to our happiness - physical possessions - is actually a dead end when it comes to happiness. Dr. Diener claims that "materialism is toxic to happiness." Studies show that even rich materialists are less happy than those who care less about getting and spending. If there is any Jewish holy day that is purely anti-materialism, it is this day. Indeed, the rejection of the physical world is one of the primary reasons why we fast on Yom Kippur. In our day-to-day lives, our physical needs and desires are continually shouting at us. "Feed me! Dress me! Give me this! Give me that! Satisfy my appetites!" They shout, and in their clamor, they can very easily drown out the spiritual voices within us. They drive us, and all too often they control our choices and our actions. But when we fast on Yom Kippur, we turn off that shouting. We choose not to listen to the voices of our appetites. And in so doing, we assert that we can control our appetites, rather than permit them to control us. And in so doing, with those voices silent, we are better able to listen to the other voices; the voices of our souls, the voices that give expression to our spiritual needs. Yom Kippur reminds us that it is the spiritual voices that we should be listening to. It reminds us that the materialistic world and the pursuit of possessions will never be the road to happiness but only a major distraction. In PIRKE AVOT, the TEACHINGS OF OUR SAGES, we are taught, "Who is rich? Those who are content with what they have"3 It is ironic that it takes the studies of modern psychologists to instruct us in the very same lessons that were being taught by the rabbis of the second century, some 19 hundred years ago; the same lessons that we affirm every time we fast on Yom Kippur. Fasting on Yom Kippur is not meant to be a one-day experience. It is meant to be a lesson, a model, an overstatement of what we can do every day. No, it does not mean that we are supposed to deny ourselves food and drink and pleasure every day. But what it does mean is that as we prove ourselves capable of completely turning off our physical appetites on Yom Kippur, we are equally capable of controlling those appetites, and keeping them in proper perspective, throughout the year. And there is no question or doubt. The person who can control their appetites is a far happier individual than the person who is enslaved by them. According the happiness experts, the happiest people do not care about keeping up with the Jones’. The happiest people judge themselves by their own yardsticks and never against what others do or have. This, too, is an essential part of the Yom Kippur message. There is a famous Hasidic story about Rabbi Zussya of Hanipol. As Zussya was nearing death, his students gathered in his home to be close to their master. One morning he drew them near and told them, "Last night I dreamt that I stood in the Heavenly Tribunal, before the Throne of God. And as I stood there, God did not ask me, ‘Zussya, why were you not more like Moses?’ Rather God asked, "Zussya, why were you not more like Zussya?’"4 The Zussya question, the Zussya challenge, is the question and the challenge we all face on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur calls upon us to take a true measurement of ourselves, but not to measure ourselves against other people - what others have accomplished, what others have, what others are like. No. We are called upon to measure ourselves against ourselves. We are called up to measure the people we are today against the people we could be, the people we should be, if only we lived up to our own personal potentials. It calls upon us to ask ourselves, "Are we living a life of our personal best? Are we giving our lives our all, or are we holding back?" There was a time when I was extremely unhappy. I looked around, only to see so many of my classmates, my peers, serving far larger congregations than ours, in bigger cities, with larger paychecks, and a heck of a lot more support staff. They were taking groups to Israel every year. They were being appointed to various committees and commissions in our movement and invited to conduct workshops at national conventions and serve as rabbis-in-residence at the various campuses of the Hebrew Union College - for sad to say, that is how the politics of our movement works; bigger is better, and if you are a rabbi of a large congregation, you are like Tevye’s image of a rich man, honored and respected, not necessarily because of who you are but rather because of what you are. I was unhappy because I looked at them, and measured myself against their achievements and I considered myself a failure. But then one day, I woke up and realized that the measure of my happiness has nothing to do with the accomplishments of others, and everything to do with how satisfied I am with what I have accomplished for myself. That day - the day I woke up - was just prior to a Yom Kippur, as I was preparing for the holy day; as I was engaged in my own personal inventory taking. The happiness experts tell us that the happiest people are those who lose themselves in daily activities. They tell us that life satisfaction occurs most often when people are engaged in absorbing activities that cause them to forget themselves, lose track of time, and stop worrying. In fact, they even have a term for this type of absorption into activity. They call it "flow." Living a life in such a flow of activities is yet another aspect of the Yom Kippur message. For Yom Kippur calls upon us to get into the flow of a life of mitzvot. Yom Kippur reminds us that in Judaism, the road to self improvement is to race down the path of mitzvot. Mitzvot lend structure and direction to our lives. As it states in one of the children services that we do with the students of our religious school during our weekly assemblies, "Mitzvah is doing what we know God wants us to do."5 For the Jew, a life dedicated to the performance of mitzvot, both ethical and ritual, is a life that draws one closer to God. It is a life of extreme self-satisfaction. For contrary to what some people may think, the performance of mitzvot are not a burden. Far from it. For it is in the performance of mitzvot that we discover who we are, not only as good Jews but also as decent human beings. It is in that discovery that we add meaning and purpose to our lives. And if we commit ourselves to performing mitzvot, not mechanically, but with a wholehearted attitude; if we commit ourselves to immersing ourselves into the performance of mitzvot, while the modern psychologists may call that phenomenon "flow," for millennia the rabbis had another term for it. They called it "kavanah," "intentionality or focus." And they called upon us to pray with kavanah, to seek justice with kavanah, to pursue mitzvot and live our lives with kavanah. And finally, the happiness experts tell us that the happiest people forgive easily. They say that forgiveness is the trait most strongly linked to happiness. According to University of Michigan psychologist Christopher Peterson, "Forgiveness is the queen of all virtues and probably the hardest to come by." Repentance, atonement, forgiveness. These stand at the very heart of Yom Kippur. However, unfortunately, for many of us on Yom Kippur we are so focused on ourselves and our receiving forgiveness that we ignore the other side of the coin; our granting forgiveness. For it is as important for us on Yom Kippur to grant forgiveness as it is to seek it. Indeed, it is more important. When we offer the "Al Chet" prayer, the confessional prayer, we do not confess individually or privately, in silence. Rather we confess as a group and we do it aloud. There is a reason for that. We offer the confessional in this way to awaken us to the fact that we are sinners in the company of sinners. We offer the confessional in this way to remind us that just as we hope for forgiveness from others for whatever wrongs we may have committed against them, that there are others who are just as hopeful, and maybe more so, of receiving forgiveness from us. We offer the confessional in this way to charge us with our responsibility to grant forgiveness to others if we ever hope to receive forgiveness for ourselves. And when it comes to forgiveness, yes there is great happiness to be found in our receiving the forgiveness of others; in our being able to wipe own slates clean and start afresh, but though we may not realize it, there is even greater happiness to be found in our granting forgiveness; in our being able to let go of our anger and our pain; in our taking a pro-active stand in the healing of wounded relationships. For that which keeps us from granting forgiveness also tears and rips at our hearts and souls. It injures us brutally. More than the person who seeks forgiveness from us, we victimize ourselves by refusing to grant it. But once we grant it, we heal not only the penitent who stands before us. We heal ourselves. And in such healing there is joy. Tonight we have gathered for this most somber of holy days, Yom Kippur. Yet if we resolve to take to heart the powerful messages of this day; if we resolve to incorporate its lessons into our lives, then as somber as this day’s observance may be, its reward - its long term reward - will be that of a life of happiness. Happiness born of our renewed sense of self. Happiness born of our renewed sense of connectedness to others and to God. Happiness born of the healing of wounded relationships. If we resolve to bring to our observance of this holy day a special sense of kavanah which we will carry out of the sanctuary and into our daily lives, then we will have uncovered the true essence of Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur, the happiness holy day. AMEN 1 "What Makes Humans
Happy: Psychologists Think They Have Found the Answer", Quad City Times,
December 9, 2002, C1 & C3. |
