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22 Av 5760 - August 23, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Opinion & Comment
Happiness and Wealth

by Rabbi Nosson Zeev Grossman

Part II

In the first part, Rabbi Grossman discussed the modern malaise of people who lack a spiritual anchor in life and consequently are basically bored. This shows itself even in the lives of most people in their difficulty with the long vacations given to children in the summer. Without overall goals in life, they lack focus and purpose, and become excruciatingly bored.

Writing to his son in 5698 (1938) HaRav Dessler discussed the happiness of people in the world. HaRav Dessler noted that people assume that there are many happy people in the world, though when challenged to name one they may be unable to do so with confidence.

"It seems to us too that there are happy people. Surely some rich people are unfortunate and some millionaires have bitter lives, but we see with our own eyes that some of them seem overjoyed. Look how they live, how they eat, and how they drink. Look at the positions they occupy, their travels all over the world and the wealth they possess. If so, barring unforeseen tragedy, they are surely blissful."

That answer is, however, extremely superficial. If we would wish to clarify this question we would have only one way: "Let us approach these people and ask them. We will not ask one about the other, but we will ask each person about himself, and in that way we will clearly know the truth. How should we go about it? We will start by asking the rich, those who have an abundance of gold and silver, those who live in palaces and drive the most elegant cars. What will they answer? They will tell us that they lack happiness in their lives. They will say that they are indeed truly wealthy but definitely not cheerful. One is jealous, another has unsatisfied desires. Most of them do not enjoy domestic harmony, either because of problems with their sons or daughters or other troubles caused directly by their wealth since no person ever attains all his material aspirations.

"If so, happiness cannot be found with them. Let us ask others, the middle class. We see they work many hours and work hard to gain money. Let us stop for a moment and think whether they possess real happiness. We are confronted with an amazing circumstance. Throughout their life they are busy preparing the ultimate happiness for themselves but are not actually happy at the moment. When will they have the spare time to enjoy themselves and be blissful? The answer is: Never! When they become old they will find themselves unable to do anything. They are accustomed to working and now have no strength to work. They find no reason to live and look like the shadow of a living person, and that is how they look at themselves too.

"If so, where are those who live happy lives in this world? This is our question, and no human being has an answer for us. The voices, of those who once lived in this world, answer: `No one lives happily!' This is quite clear and is beyond doubt.

"You might ask: Why did HaKodosh Boruch Hu create a world so that everyone -- truly everyone -- suffers so much? This is an impossible situation! Surely there must be a way to remedy this terrible situation, this horrible tragedy that is happening to everyone. We must search for the remedy and find out where one attains happiness, since doubtless, Hashem, Who is the source of all good, prepared happiness for people in the world He created. To find out what is the remedy we must clarify what is wrong, since only a doctor who knows what the disease is, can cure the patient. What is wrong with the whole world that is ruining our happiness in life?"

"The root of this mishap," explains Maran HaRav Dessler, "is explicit in Chazal: `Jealousy, lust, and honor remove a person from the world' (Ovos 4:28). The world that HaKodosh Boruch Hu created is in essence a world of happiness. The problem is that people have removed themselves from this blissful world and live instead in a world of suffering caused by these three powers, `and if a person flees from jealousy, desire, and honor, if he chases them away from his heart, he will correct his world, and the world will be full of happiness from one end to the other.'

"Apart from happiness, he will also enjoy wealth, as the statement of Chazal reads: `Who is a rich person? He who is happy with his lot' (Ovos 4:1). Chazal did not teach us that he is also rich. Nor did they write that he is exceptionally rich, but rather they write that he is rich. This is because a poor person is someone lacking, someone who desires something but does not attain it.

"When we think into the matter we will realize that the difference between a poor person and a rich one is not as much as that between a rich one and his unachieved desires. The poor person cries out for bread because he is hungry, and the rich person cries out for honor and lusts that he has not achieved. If we look at each one of them as he feels about himself -- not the rich through the eyes of the poor -- we will see that it is terrible for both of them. Each one feels oppressed, suffers exceedingly and has a bitter life. Only one who lacks for nothing is rich.

"What then is the way to prevent any disruptions of happiness? Who is the person who is really happy? Is it enough for him to chase away all his earthly desires and aspirations? No. This is not enough. Can someone be considered alive if he does not have any ambition and does not exert himself? Elderly people who are near their end are not blissful.

"This is the solution: No material happiness exists in the world. Only spiritual happiness exists. No one but a person rich in spiritual achievement is happy.

"This is why we see that true bnei Torah, those who engage entirely in Torah and its wisdom, are those who feel real happiness. Not only will they feel this happiness in olam haboh but also in olam hazeh. Surely someone who lacks aspiration and vigor is not blissful since these are the basis of happiness.

"But when is this so? This is when the aspirations are fulfilled, not dependent upon others, not fulfilled through jealousy and chasing after honor. This is when aspirations are motivated by love of Torah, of wisdom, and of mussar. Adopting these aspirations depends wholly upon us. To the same degree which we increase our vigor and our aspirations, so will our happiness in olam hazeh increase. This is what the Mishnah (Ovos 6:4) means: `This is the way of Torah. Eat bread with salt . . .' -- if you are prepared to do that because of your desire to study Torah, then it does not matter in the least whether you are rich with material wealth or are poor -- `you are praiseworthy in olam hazeh.' You are the person who is truly happy in this world. Such is the truth about acquiring happiness in olam hazeh."

@Big Let Body=The secular world is experiencing a value crisis and a feeling of helplessness by realizing that material gratification neither satisfies them nor brings them happiness. Our duty is to strengthen the walls of our camp. We must base the education of our youth on the pure spiritual values of the Torah, and only Torah.

The rich child's complaint to his mother that he has no means of resisting his inclination to engage in violence, since "You never taught me to restrain myself", must ring loudly in people's ears. It must teach us that through worldly pleasures and physical desires one does not gain happiness. Always giving a child what he wants spoils the child. The abundant pleasures that a child receives are no more than a destructive force which deceives the young soul and does not satisfy it.

Through Hashem's abundant chesed, a generation has arisen that esteems only Torah and its scholars. Of late, however, we have heard here and there from chareidim that they also have aspirations for material success. They see the pleasures of the world and attaining wealth as a means of achieving imaginary satisfaction in life. We hear this sometimes from those on the fringes of our camp, from children and young boys whose characters have not yet been sufficiently shaped, from those who have not yet succeeded in internalizing the spiritual values their parents and educators have implanted in them when they were in Talmud Torah and yeshiva. If that is not bad enough, there are those who have taken the pain to display a "model" for the imitation of material "success."

An article appearing in an Israeli weekly "for the Jewish Home" tells about the "revolutionary children" of the Shas Party. These children, according to that publication, have "formulated a new identity, different from that of their parents," caused by a "steep climb in their standard of living." The article relays the impression that these children have attained all their aspirations. Not only are they "growing in a home of Torah," but they "fly for vacations with their parents on an average of once a year, dress in the latest fashions, and on motzei Shabbos and during vacations take their father's car on trips. They are integrated naturally in all occupations open to the regular adult chareidi."

I will not write at length and quote all of the misleading messages and anti-educational examples appearing in that article. None of us would wish them to be role models for our children. This point is emphasized adequately in the few lines we have cited above. Is that living it up the summit of our aspirations? Should not homes of Sephardic and Ashkenazic avreichim who are content with the little they have and do not long for a "steep climb in their standard of living" be esteemed? These bnei Torah do not think their children's happiness is dependent upon material achievements such as flying for vacations or dressing in the latest fashions.

For many years chareidi Jewry in the Holy Land has succeeded in forming a world of pure Torah values, where a person's stature and the reverence in which he is held are shaped only by his level in Torah scholarship. Genuine bnei Torah living in chutz la'aretz always looked with esteem at the model that has been developed in Eretz Yisroel through the inspiration of Maranan the Chazon Ish, the Brisker Rav ztvk'l, and all the gedolei Torah veyirah. Who knows better then those gedolei olom that these spiritual achievements can easily be lost? Allowing sparks of respect for material success to creep in is enough to destroy these achievements. In one stroke all our children's aspirations to Torah and living simply are ruined. It does not take long before we too, cholila, can be diseased with the poison spreading among religious circles in Europe and especially in America, where a person is measured according to how much he is worth, how many possessions he has, and his standard of living.

We are therefore obliged to implant within our children the recognition that the really wealthy person is he who is "happy with his lot," someone who experiences the genuine satisfaction of "the only simcha is Torah." If they feel this way they will not be led to follow material temptations, not even those with a "hechsher." They will try to copy only the geonim in Torah and not the affluent and those with eye-popping material success who really only have external happiness.

Maran HaRav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler ztvk'l writes in his letter: "No physical happiness exists in the world; only spiritual happiness. Only someone who is rich spiritually is happy. This is why we say that real bnei Torah, those devoting all of their study, desires, craving of their hearts, and energy, in Torah and wisdom, are those who will feel the real happiness not only in olam haboh but also in olam hazeh."


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