That's Rich

One of the most frequent and obvious questions I am asked concerns happiness.  The question takes various forms like, “How can I stop feeling so down?” and why can’t my wife be more supportive and sympathetic?” and “When will the good things start?”  The questions all focus on the idea (and ideal) of personal happiness.

Here is what Phyllis Theroux writes:  “Maybe it’s best to treat happiness like a deer in the forest.  Sometimes it will emerge from the woods and pay you a visit.  But it dislikes undue attention.  And if you chase it, it will run away.”

The more we speed up chasing after happiness the greater the distance between it and us.  With the exception of forms of physical emotional abuse happiness is not generated from without; it comes from within.  It cannot be achieved or won as a reward.  It simply is recovered.  Happiness is in being.

A single Hebrew word has always caught and held my attention, Ashray.  Nemesis of all Hebrew school children, the Ashray is the litmus test for Hebrew fluency and occupies a conspicuous part of our liturgy. 

Ashray is usually translated as  “happy,” but I think we can do better than that.  Ashray, the first word in the famous Psalm 145 is recited severe times each day.  And we are all familiar with its first cousin, from every blessing we recite, asher.  Asher means, “that which is.”  “That which is” is happy.  It asks no meaningful questions about our emotional state or childhood experiences.  It simply is.

All traditional fairy tales end with, “and they lived happily ever after.”  Takka??  They never argued?  Had spats?  Stormed out?  Threw dishes?  And where do all the money come from to pay the electric bills?  Were all the children really well behaved, blond, blue-eye kewpie dolls?  Of course not.  “Happily ever after” means living an accepting life.

The Mishna poses a question, “Who is rich?”  In good rabbinic fashion it answers its own question, “The one who is satisfied is rich.”  That is all.