Edited by Boruch Leff
We wake up and make ourselves a coffee. We say a bracha loud and clear and enjoy it.
We really feel thankful to Hashem and say “This coffee is so enjoyable, Baruch Hashem!“ That’s a nice mitzvah, right? That's exactly what Hashem wants from us, correct?
Let's open our minds and learn some new Torah ideas which will lead us to an approach which may be quite surprising.
Most Jews assume that the Torah ideal is that we should appreciate the pleasure in our lives and thank Hashem for it. This will foster a loyalty and indebtedness to Hashem, and thereby increase our love and service of Him. Thus, we should continuously be saying “Baruch Hashem” for all the pleasures and comforts in our lives and this will motivate us to be authentic servants of Hashem. Indeed, there are seforim that describe this method of serving Hashem as being appropriate.
But we have to be brutally honest with ourselves.
There’s a basic challenge of trying to enjoy the pleasures of life in order to connect with Hashem, and not merely giving that lip service. All too often, we are actually living for ‘good food and fine wine,’ just enjoying for the sake of our own physical and selfish enjoyment, which has very little to do with Hashem. But beyond that, there’s an even more fundamental issue and real problem with this approach.
If this is the basis of one’s day, and if one is always searching to enjoy Hashem’s world with the next good taste and pleasure, then he will likely continue along his natural inclination to define happiness as an exciting life of pleasures. The problem with defining happiness as an exciting life of pleasure is what happens when those pleasures remain out of reach? Since we are so used to seeking and enjoying life’s pleasures, when we don’t have them, our lives become very difficult to manage and experience.
Furthermore, if we live a pleasure seeking and thanking Hashem type of life, it is most likely that we won’t be so diligent in the mitzvos that are outside our comfort zone. If we are honest with ourselves, most of us aren’t motivated enough to consistently give up happiness in this world in order to receive reward in the next world.
In light of the above, a seemingly better way to live and serve Hashem would be to redefine happiness. Instead of looking at happiness as being an exciting life of pleasures we should view it as an even keeled life of emotional health; meaning, by giving up many physical pleasures and pursuing a life of emotional growth and olam haba, we would actually be attaining more happiness even in this world!
This redefinition of happiness will help us progress in our becoming content regardless of circumstance, and in our becoming diligent even in the mitzvos outside our comfort zone.
Of course, when we discuss giving up our goal to always live for our next ‘fix’ of life’s physical pleasures, we’re referring to pleasure as an end onto itself. But there are many times when we feel depleted, exhausted, or overwhelmed and at that point Hashem wants us to engage in pleasure as a means to replenish ourselves with the energy needed to ‘recharge’ and then serve Hashem better afterwards.
MAKING IT PRACTICAL
We must ask ourselves: what is the ideal way to use the words “Baruch Hashem?”
Saying “Baruch Hashem” can help us reinforce the value of serving G-d, avodat Hashem, which will thereby improve our service of Him and our emotional well-being. Yet saying “Baruch Hashem” on life’s pleasures will only reinforce the value of pleasure, which will likely hurt our service of Hashem and emotional well-being.
Let us discuss some practical applications of this.
When someone adopts the “appreciate pleasure and thank Hashem” approach, which is most common, this is what it looks like:
Scenario A:
Reuven meets Shimon on the street.
Reuven says, "Hi Shimon! How's everything going? How’s your family? How’s your health? Are you enjoying your job?"
Shimon responds, “To tell you the truth, things aren’t going so well. I'm really anxious, worried, frustrated and disappointed with my life. I can’t believe Hashem is doing this to me…"
Scenario B:
Reuven says, "Hi Shimon! How's everything going? How’s your family? How’s your health? Are you enjoying your job?"
Shimon responds, “Thanks for asking Reuven! Everything is going really well, Baruch Hashem!"
The above scenarios reflect the way most people live today because we focus too much on feeling pleasure in order to attain our definition of happiness. When things are going well and we're able to achieve our life goals of an exciting life of pleasure, then we thank Hashem and say “Baruch Hashem," but when things are not going well and we’re not able to achieve our life goals, then we're upset with Hashem and we're not thankful to Him.
The problem with scenario A is that the Torah requires us to be content and thank Hashem in all circumstances, even when one’s needs aren’t being met.
(Though this may seem daunting, in Scenario C below we discuss the mechanics for how one can progress in this area. It may take time to get to this level and when facing a challenge one may not feel this way so soon after the disappointment, but we must strive to reach this goal, even if it takes days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years.)
The problem with scenario B is that it reinforces defining happiness as an exciting life of pleasure, which increases the likelihood of improper service of Hashem and emotional illness.
In contrast with the above, let’s take a look at how the exchanges should ideally go given our redefinition, that real happiness is an even keeled life of emotional satisfaction in our properly fulfilling Hashem’s will.
Scenario C:
Reuven meets Shimon on the street.
Reuven says, "Hi Shimon! How's everything going? How’s your family? How’s your health? Are you enjoying your job?"
Shimon responds, "Things aren’t going so well, but I say Baruch Hashem regardless of circumstance”
(To avoid “Al tiftach peh l’satan”, Shimon thinks to himself, and doesn’t speak out loud, the following: ”Even when things aren’t going well it’s also Baruch Hashem, as my life goals are: X, an even keeled life of emotional heath in this world and Y, an exciting life of pleasure/Olam Haba in the next world, and on occasion when Hashem decides that I have to lose some even keeled emotional health in this world (X) so that I can have more pleasure in the next world (Y), I’m fine with that, as X is merely neutral/even keeled while Y is actually positive/exciting – so it comes out that every result regardless of circumstance is in my best interest – and so I thank Hashem for every result!)
Scenario D:
Reuven says, "Hi Shimon! How's everything going? How’s your family? How’s your health? Are you enjoying your job?"
Shimon responds, "Everything’s going well, but I say Baruch Hashem regardless of circumstance”
To avoid “Al tiftach peh l’satan”, Shimon thinks to himself, and doesn’t speak out loud, the following: ”Even if things weren’t going well it also would’ve been Baruch Hashem, as my life goals are: X, an even keeled life of emotional heath in this world and Y, an exciting life of pleasure/Olam Haba in the next world, and on occasion when Hashem decides that I have to lose some even keeled emotional health in this world (X) so that I could have more pleasure in the next world (Y), I’m fine with that, as X is merely neutral/even keeled while Y is actually positive/exciting – so it comes out that every result regardless of circumstance is in my best interest – so I thank Hashem for every result!”)
The above scenarios reflect how we should be ideally living with our redefinition of happiness and proper even keeled emotional well-being.
The response in Scenario C is necessary in order to fulfill the halakha that requires us to be content and thank Hashem in all circumstances, even when one’s needs aren’t being met.
The response in Scenario D is necessary in order to reinforce that happiness is an even keeled life of emotional health, thus making our life goals independent of circumstance, thereby increasing the likelihood of proper service of Hashem and emotional well-being.
Saying Baruch Hashem can be a wonderful Jewish practice, as long as we know how to do it right!
Samuel Haftspent a decade in virtual isolation and has developed a philosophy on happiness that has been endorsed by rabbinic leadership, and is now disseminating throughout the world to promote authentic Jewish practice and emotional well-being in today's society. If anyone would like to discuss the article further, the author can be reached at [email protected]