Sermon: Rosh Hashanah – 1^st Day

“Are You Having a Happy New Year?”

Metuchen 5769/2008

Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer

Are you happy on this Rosh Hashanah? Do you feel that your life is worthwhile, that is fulfilled?

Not if you fit into the pattern of a recent study by the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School. It’s hard to believe, but we Americans are the unhappiest people on earth. The conclusion found that almost 10% of Americans suffer from depression or bipolar disorder. That is the highest rate of fourteen nations surveyed. We are the “prozac nation.” We have a greater percentage of depressed people than war-torn Lebanon, job-starved Mexico, care-free Italy, and over-worked socially rigid Japan. We even have a higher rate of depression than Nigeria, with its desperate poverty, rampant corruption and violent tribal conflict. How can this be? Well, observes Bret Stephens in the Wall street Journal, maybe if your life is a struggle for clean water and adequate food, you don’t have time to indulge in being unhappy over luxuries and income? Maybe.

Who are the few in the sanctuary this morning who are the exception to this dismal discovery about how unhappy we Americans are? Well, a different study by the Pew Research Foundation identifies that tiny, happy group: in-spite of what our parents told us, those who have more money are happier. Republicans are happier than Democrats. The married are happier than the unmarried. Older folks are happier than younger ones. And this one I like. Those who attend religious services weekly are much happier than those who attend monthly, less, or never.

What about having children? Well, counter intuitively, the accepted truism that having children makes one happier – has been contradicted by recent books and studies. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard Professor of psychology, published a book called “Stumbling on Happiness.” He finds that marital happiness decreases substantially after the birth of the first child. Another professor at Florida State University analyzed data gathered from 13,000 Americans. She found that “no group of parents – married, single, or empty nesters reported greater historical well being than people who never had children.” She’s got a lot of hate mail for that finding. It shakes the foundation of what we’ve been raised to believe is the case. It contradicts all the commercials from baby lotions to Disneyworld.

So much for the scientific studies which tell us that statistically there may be an abundance of unhappy people here at this Rosh Hashanah.

I am not a researcher who can speak scientifically. I can tell you anecdotally what I hear in my study and what I read between the lines outside of my study as your rabbi for so many years. Too many of us are unhappy – read unfulfilled in our lives - Lots of us are unfulfilled in our work; some of us are unfulfilled with our spouses; others of us are unhappy with our parents or children. A few are unhappy with themselves - we may verbalize it; we may not verbalize it, but think it; we may not realize it, but be it. The unhappiness is implicit in any of one complaints we have: “If only I had done this instead of that.” “You are so lucky.” “What did I do wrong?”

Some of you may know the Yiddish expression “Bist Tsefreeden” which usually means “After the incredible fuss you made to get things your own way, are you really any happier?” “Bist Tsefreeden?” Or put in more scientific terms: Why are we Jews overrepresented, as a population, in certain psychiatric diseases? I would guess that there is not a person in this sanctuary who has not experienced a bout or two of serious unhappiness in his life.

Rabbis are not immune either. It reminds me of a comment one of my teachers at Rabbinical School made at one of our annual conventions in the 1960’s – “Will all happy rabbis meet me in the phone booth.”

In awhile, when we blow the shofar, we all say “Ashrei Haam Yodai Teruah” – “happy are those who know the sound of the shofar.” I could never figure out what that passage means. We know that the shofar sound is supposed to stir us, to alarm us, and to trouble us. But how is it supposed to make us happy? I could not figure that out until I read this further explanation in Vayikra Rabba (Leviticus 29:4). “Mai Taam: Oleh - Mai Taam: “Oleh Elohim Batruah?.” What does the Book of Psalms mean when it says: “God ascends a the sound of the Teruah?” “Elohim Batruah? Behsaah Sheyisrael Notlin Et Shofrehen V’Tokin LIfnei Hakadodesh Barudi Hu.” When he sees the children of Israel take the Shofar and sound it, “Omed Mkeseh Hadin, V’Yoshev Mkiseh Harachamim- Omed Mkeseh Hadin, V’Yoshev Mkiseh Harachamim” the Almighty changes his seat from the chair of judgment to the chair of mercy.” So happiness Jewishly has nothing to do with income, age, children, parents or even ourselves. Happiness has to do with concretely contributing to a more merciful and compassionate world by persuading the Almighty to chip in! It has to do with giving, rather than taking. It has to do with moving the locus of our concern away from what comes into ourselves to what goes from ourselves to others. Back to that in awhile.

And that is what is meant by a passage in the Talmud of Ketubot. The Book of Psalms (Psalms – 106:3) also says “Happy are those who keep justice, do righteousness all the time?” The Talmud asks: “V’chi Efshar Laasot Tzedekah Bchol Et?” How is it possible to do righteousness all the time? This, explains, Rabbi Samuel Ben Nahmani, refers to a man who brings up an orphaned child in his house and enables them to marry. This, explains the rabbis of Jabneh refers to a person who maintains his son or daughter while they are young. Continues the Talmud, what of the passage in Psalms “Wealth and riches are in his house forever!” It applies to a man who writes the Torah, the prophets, and the Writings and then lends those writings to others. Did you notice what is the common denominator of all those acts of righteousness which bring happiness and wealth? It is not doing for myself but enabling of others to maximize their lives through raising an orphaned child to marriage, teaching others, or lends the sacred Scriptures to others.

That’s the first point, that we should not strive consciously for happiness or fulfillment in our lives. What should consciously strive to be a worthwhile, contributing human being, well beyond our own personal needs, - like the model of the person who learns Torah in order to teach it; or the person who writes a Torah and lends it to others.

I think many of you instinctively sense that should be the goal of life. I notice when I ask you what you want for your children, you will initially say “I want them to be happy.” But then as I probe you some more you say “That they be moral, worthwhile people.”

Happiness is not the goal. Worthwhileness as a person is the goal. Happiness may then arrive as a by-product.

There is though a second important component to achieving life happiness and fulfillment which is important. A colleague of mine Rabbi Irwin Kula – yes a Conservative rabbi in the same family as the rabbi who for many years served those of you who merged into our congregation from Adath Israel in Woodbridge – wrote a book called “Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life.” Rabbi Kula’s thesis is that most of us define happiness or fulfillment as a state of completeness and wholeness. Life is complete. The happy romance – with a life partner – is whole and complete. The happy work is whole and complete. This is how we define good religion too. Rabbi Kula writes when we hear the word “holy” the synonyms which come to our mind are “pious,” “serene,” “complete,” “untouchable,” “beyond or above the everyday.” A person who is holy is thought to be a person who has arrived at a higher stage. A holy place – like the Wall in Jerusalem – is a site where we go to seek an experience beyond the ordinary, one that is normally inaccessible to us. But, emphasizes Rabbi Kula, the sages taught that holiness is rather in every moment, in every place, and not in the special place and special moment. Holiness is not a state beyond the ordinary, but rather in the ordinary. It is even achieved in the ordinary messes – “The Sacred Messiness of Life.” In real terms, then, happiness is not when we find joy instead of sorrow, but joy and sorrow. Fulfillment is not when we have hope and no anxiety, but hope and anxiety. Fulfillment is not a “time to laugh” rather than “a time to weep.” It is when we laugh and when we weep. That is what Rabbi Kula means by the “embracing the sacred messiness of life.” In his wonderful down to earth example, he talks about preparing an exquisite meal. In order to prepare that meal, the kitchen by necessity will be messy.

Rabbi Kula continues with that mundane meal analogy to illustrate his lesson. How one feels the difference between cooking a tasty meal just for oneself, cooking a meal for oneself and a loved one, or cooking the meal with enough to share with a friend or neighbor who is ill. The food tastes so much better when shared with others. Or have you ever had the experience of reading a good book with the deeper enjoyment of then passing on the book to someone else when we are done?

Let me tell you about the adult child of a member of Neve Shalom who achieved happiness, life fulfillment as a by-product of giving, and not by seeking happiness. His happiness as a human being came out of the messiness of life, not the perfection of life. Last June, his story was cited by the President of Columbia University Teacher’s College as he charged 250 doctoral candidates and their families. His name is Ted Kesler. The New York Times described Ted’s efforts to prepare his third-grade students for the city’s first standardized tests in English Language Arts. “But to really understand what Ted is all about, you have to go back further, to when he was 11, and his mother died after a long illness. It was the end of childhood for me,” Ted says. “School couldn’t connect with me – I was left on my own to navigate my emotional turmoil (life’s messiness). As I became an adult, it helped give me an awareness that there are so many children out there with difficult lives – and it enabled me to put myself in their shoes (striving for sacredness in the messiness). When Ted finished his undergraduate work at Columbia, he taught math for two years in the South Bronx through a special citywide program. It was a great experience, but it left him hungering for more knowledge of pedagogy and how to run a classroom, and so he applied and was accepted to TC. As Ted puts it, that the best learning defies categorization by traditional academic subjects. Ted put that idea to work in his own classroom, leading first graders in a study of garbage. He connected the topic to environmentalism – the kids spent time working with the recycling organization We Can; to art - They visited the Whitney Museum to look at Calder sculptures made from recycled objects, and then made their own. They explored the school’s trash cans to understand what people throw out and why (literally, sacredness out of messiness). It left Ted Kesler convinced, first of all, that as a teacher, his job was to “protect kids from the demands of the tests so that they can breathe – and to proceed with inquiry, engagement and everything you believe really connects with kids’ lives and motivates them to learn.”

Ted Kessler returned to TC as a doctoral student. He turned down an offer of full tuition from Harvard because he was worried about losing touch with the practical realities of teaching. He believed that his work at the Project would afford him the best opportunity to ground his research in schools. He wrote his dissertation on the impact of the federal No Child Left Behind Act on literacy instruction in two New York City public schools. Ted is employed now as an assistant professor in the Department of Elementary Education and the Early Childhood at Queens College. He has chosen a career in higher education out of a continuing desire to focus on the bigger educational picture for young children. Ted Kesler is the son of our own Michael Kesler, who is the husband of our own Barbara Kesler. Ted Kesler achieved happiness out of the sacred messiness of life, the death of his mother in his childhood and his loss of childhood. Ted Kesler’s life fulfillment, his happiness came to him as a by-product of giving, not getting.

Let me tell you about some in our own congregation who understood this too. They are stories with which I interface as your Rabbi which have made me understand what we really mean by a happy or fulfilled life. Happiness which emerged from the sacred messiness of life – from giving, not receiving, was achieved by someone in Neve Shalom who when challenged with a serious female illness became a quiet invitation to other women to speak with her about the illnesses nuances in their own lives. Fulfillment in life, inspite of its messiness, was realized by another person in this congregation whose losing a good job because of cut-backs became a spring-board for that person not to complain, but to resourcefully find other work at a lesser salary which he accepted in order to put three children through college. Happiness in the sacred messiness of life was found by a teen-ager who grieved over the death of a friend’s parent, but discovered in that overwhelming teenage experience the means to commemorate her friend’s parent through concrete acts of generating large scale fundraising for the illness from which that parent died. Fulfillment in the sacred messiness of life was achieved by a widow who told me of the total devastation and empty loneliness over her spouses death after 50 years of marriage, but then told me of the joy she experienced daily at realizing daily the privilege of having lived with a truly united and collaborative marriage, over long years with that spouse.

I like what John Stewart Mills said about happiness. He said “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

I like what Hannah Senesh wrote as she parachuted into “Ashrei Hagafrur Shenisraf V’Heizit Lahavot” “Happy is the match consumed in kindling flame…Happy is the heart with strength to stop beating for honor’s sake.”

So that is my Rosh Hashanah lesson – Never mind if you have a happy New Year. “Leshanah Tova” – have a good new year. May personal happiness and fulfillment come to you as a by-product.