Living in Joy

Yitro 5778 / 3 February 2018

Last week, at seudah shelisheet with Joey Weisenberg, we sang the Shabbat song מנוחה ושמחה, “Rest and Joy.” It’s a great zemer, Rebecca’s favorite and the first one we taught our kids. As we sang, Joey observed that while we generally think of fast tunes for joyful songs, in fact there are at least as many slow, contemplative melodies for the very same songs. Hearing that, I remembered a passage from Massekhet Berakhot, which describes the ideal state of mind for prayer as שמחה של מצוה, “the joy of the mitzvah.”^[1] I wondered what other Jewish practices the Rabbis associated with שמחה של מצוה, but when I looked I was surprised to find that the phrase appears only one other time in the entire Talmud, where the Rabbis assert that שמחה של מצוה is the only frame of mind in which the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, would come to rest on a person.^[2] 

What frame of mind are the Sages describing? From both passages we learn that שמחה של מצוה is incompatible with sadness, but the Rabbis also distinguish it from happiness. The Talmud rules out frivolity, casual conversation, and idleness, and in the case of prayer they draw similarities between שמחה של מצוה and כובד ראש,^[3] an attitude of serious contemplation. And yet it’s hard to imagine שמחה as a solemn or heavy state of mind. So what are the Rabbis talking about?

Most of you probably haven’t noticed what Rebecca wears on her left hand, in place of an engagement ring — it’s a wide, hammered-silver band with a tiny ruby chip — but there is a story behind it. According to legend, King Solomon once gave his most trusted advisor one year to find him a precious gift: the one thing in the world that would make a sad man happy, but would also make a happy man sad. The king’s advisor spent weeks and then months traveling across the known world, puzzling over this riddle. What could cheer up a sad person, but would have the opposite effect on someone who was already happy? In India, he met hermits who wore human bones as necklaces, to remind them of the inevitability of death. Surely that would sadden even the happiest man, but it would hardly cheer anybody up. In the hills outside Rome, women sat weaving the most beautiful tapestries, with images of spring plants and young calves, full of hope and light and life. Even King Solomon’s advisor, weary and frustrated, couldn’t help but feel his spirits lift while looking at the pictures. But when he remembered the king’s challenge — find the thing that will make a sad man happy, and a happy man sad — he couldn’t imagine what in the images might make anyone sad.

The days passed slowly as the advisor began to despair of his mission, but the year went by quickly. Soon enough he found himself on a boat bound for Jaffa, and from there no choice remained but to return to Jerusalem empty handed, the first time he had ever failed King Solomon. When he reached the shore, a deep sadness washed over him. Exhausted in body and spirit, he sat on a bench in the marketplace and began to weep.

After some time, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to see a very old man, with blackened clothes and rough but slender hands. “Pardon me, sir,” the old man began, “But I can’t help noticing your sadness. Might there be something I could do to help you?”

The advisor sighed and shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not,” he moaned. “For a year I searched the globe and could not find what I sought; there is nothing more to be done.”

“Still, perhaps if I knew what it was you were trying to find, I might be able to lend a hand.”

The advisor started to brush the old man away, but there was a kindness in his voice, a softness about his eyes, that drew the whole story out: how King Solomon had given him a year to find this one precious gift that would make a sad man happy and a happy man sad; his travels near and far in a vain attempt to learn what that might be, find it, and bring it back to the king; and his anguish at coming up empty.

The old man sat quietly next to him on the bench for a few minutes, and then smiled. “I have been a jeweler here for nearly seventy years,” he said, “and I think I can make the thing you seek. Could you meet me here again tomorrow, at mid-day?”

King Solomon’s advisor looked up in disbelief. Could this old jeweler, who had probably spent his entire life in Jaffa, really make something that would satisfy the king? Still, he reasoned, what did he have to lose? And so he agreed.

When the advisor returned, he found the old jeweler already sitting on the bench. With a smile, he handed the king’s advisor a small wooden box, just one inch on each side. “That which the king asked you to find rests inside this box,” he said, “But I ask that you not look inside; the box is for the king alone to open.” The advisor was anxious. What did the jeweler put inside the box? Had he really solved the king’s riddle? Or would the advisor be embarrassed to find out he had brought the king a worthless trinket?

Collecting his horse from the stable, King Solomon’s advisor set off for Jerusalem, arriving just before dinner. The king was delighted to see him again, and insisted that they sit to eat together so he could hear all that had transpired over the year. Still nervous about what might be in the small box, the advisor told King Solomon all about his journeys. When at last he arrived at the story of the old jeweler in Jaffa, he presented the small box and waited for the king to open it. The king lifted the lid and looked inside. A dark look passed over his face, and as he closed his eyes the advisor began to tremble in fear. Then a slow smile spread across the king’s lips and he began to laugh heartily. “It’s perfect,” he said, clapping the advisor on the shoulder. “Just perfect!” King Solomon took a small ring out of the box, and as he slid it onto his finger the advisor saw the inscription engraved around the band. There it was, the one thing that would make a sad man happy, but would also make a happy man sad: גם זה יעבור. “This too shall pass.”

When I first met Rebecca, she wore a ring based on that story made by Baruch Hadaya, a jeweler in the Old City of Jerusalem; but, as often happens, somewhere the ring was lost. About five years ago, chaperoning a youth trip to Israel, I unexpectedly found myself outside Hadaya’s shop. While the rest of my bus browsed up and down the street of shops, I went into Hadaya to see if they could make another ring like the one she had lost — the one she wears today.

I imagine it might seem like an odd gift for one’s spouse — גם זה יעבור, “This too shall pass.” But something about it felt right. The funny part is, I remember that at the time we were in the midst of a real rough patch, but now looking back I have absolutely no recollection of what the issues were. And in the years since, through up and down and up again, the ring has brought both of us comfort.

That’s the thing about happiness and sadness: they’re both transient. Like it or not, they don’t last. We think of them as opposite states, but they are also the same in that both arise in response to external circumstances, the things going on around us.^[4] Fast forward to Monday, when the level of happiness in our city will depend almost entirely on the outcome of a football game.

Joy, on the other hand, transcends all of this: where happiness is fleeting, joy is stable and enduring. I love the way David Steindl-Rast, an Austrian Benedictine monk, describes joy: “Joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.” Joy lives on the inside, and if we work hard enough we can cultivate it as a constant presence unaffected by life’s shifting winds.

Steindl-Rast further points out that, whereas happiness and sadness are necessarily opposed, we often have times in life when joy comes along with sadness. On Thursday, many of us attended Gregory Jackson’s funeral. The room was packed with relatives, fellow singers from the Wilmington Chester Mass Choir, and row after row of BZBI members present and past, all of us heart-broken. And yet when the time came to share remembrances, the room filled with laughter and warmth. Here, in the midst of our collective sadness, was true joy at the privilege of knowing Gregory, having the gift of his kind-hearted spirit in our lives. Joy allows us to tolerate such a painful loss; we know that the sadness will fade with time, while the שמחה, the joy, will continue undiminished.

Joy has the same grounding effect in times of celebration, letting us feel happy without fear of what might come next.^[5] Think about how we describe the key moments in our lives — bnai mitzvah, weddings, and — as we had this morning — baby namings and brises. What do we call these things? Simchas! Using that term suggests that something deeper is happening here; sure, we’re happy, but there’s more to it than that.

I took a trip to the dictionaries, curious about the Yiddish word nakhes that we often use on these occasions. In case you’re not familiar with the term, nakhes is the feeling of pride you have when someone you love does well. Perhaps more interesting for our purposes, the Hebrew word נחת — from which we get the Yiddish nakhes — bears two meanings: “pleasure,” and “quiet” or “stillness.” Nakhes is definitely a kind of pleasure — but rather than an indulgent happiness, nakhes brings a sense of peace and calm. I think that’s the secret of the גם זה יעבור ring: it reminds us that whatever happiness or sadness we might feel is only for now — but the joy we cultivate in our life together will hold true over time.

Now that we understand שמחה, we can see why our Sages made שמחה the necessary state for prayer, and for experiencing the Divine Presence. Rabbi Yosef and I have heard from many of you about the שמחה you felt at various points in the davening last Shabbat, and we felt it too. Everyone pointed to our closeness as the key factor in creating the atmosphere of joy; and while it’s true that our physical proximity to one another had a profound impact on our experience of prayer, I believe our emotional closeness made the most important contribution. True שמחה, joy, has the power to open our hearts. That is why we need שמחה to let our deepest, most honest prayers out, and why we need שמחה in order to let God in. Joy creates in us the capacity for connection and intimacy; joy sets the foundation for our experiencing life’s emotional richness. Joy puts meaning in our lives because it endures, because it gives us a stable anchor in an otherwise turbulent life. Happiness, sadness, disappointment, success — these, too, shall pass; but joy, when we truly, fully embrace it, we can keep.

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