True Happiness

One of the great ironies of life is that we spend so much of it trying to achieve the very thing that we often find most difficult to hold on to.

We want to be happy. We want our homes to be happy, our families to be happy, and our children to be happy. We want to be surrounded by happiness. Yet, too often, happiness is elusive. We can spend years working toward something we are certain will bring us satisfaction, only to discover that once we have attained it, the feeling we anticipated does not quite last. The new home becomes familiar, the accomplishment becomes yesterday’s news, the long-awaited vacation ends, and the thing we once imagined would make everything feel right simply becomes another part of our lives.

It is not that these things do not bring happiness. They do. A beautiful simcha, a nachas-filled moment, a meaningful accomplishment, a family gathering, a good piece of news - these are genuine sources of joy. The question is why the joy they bring so often seems to fade and why a person can possess so much of what he once dreamed of having and still find himself searching for something more.

Perhaps the answer begins with the simple distinction that there is a difference between having reasons to be happy and knowing how to be happy.

A person can have many blessings and fail to experience them as blessings. He can live surrounded by people he loves and remain preoccupied with what is missing. He can be blessed with health, family, Torah, parnossah, and steady kindnesses from Hashem, yet spend his days measuring his life against someone else’s and wondering why he does not have what the other person has. Happiness is not determined by what a person possesses. It is determined by what he sees when he looks at his life.

The Torah understands this profoundly. Simcha is not presented as a luxury, an emotional bonus that comes naturally when circumstances happen to cooperate. It is something we are commanded to pursue and cultivate. And when the Torah speaks of the Yomim Tovim, it commands us, “Vesomachta bechagecha - You shall rejoice on Yom Tov.”

Yet, one Yom Tov is singled out in a remarkable way.

Chazal refer to Pesach as Zeman Cheiruseinu, the time of our freedom, when we went from slavery to freedom; from being under the control of Mitzrayim to becoming a nation.

Shavuos is referred to as Zeman Matan Toraseinu, the time when we received the Torah.

Sukkos is referred to as Zeman Simchoseinu, our time of joy.

The name bears a strong message for us, especially in our day.

As the posuk (Vayikra 23:43) says, the Yom Tov of Sukkos commemorates the sukkos in which Hashem sheltered us in the midbar. Sukkos has distinctive mitzvos: the obligation to dwell in the sukkah and the mitzvah of daled minim.

Yet, when Chazal seek to tell us what Sukkos is, they do not call it the time of the sukkah or the time of the arba minim. They refer to it as a time of simcha.

What did Chazal see in Sukkos that makes simcha not merely one of its themes, but its very identity?

Chazal saw in Sukkos the root of happiness.

Happiness always seems to be just a little bit ahead of us. We can almost see it, and we are certain that we will catch up with it when the next thing happens, when the next problem is resolved, when the next accomplishment is achieved, or when the next long-awaited moment finally arrives. And then it does arrive, and we enjoy it, sometimes immensely, but before long, we find ourselves looking ahead once again, waiting for the next thing that we believe will bring us the happiness that seems to have slipped just beyond our reach.

What is it that makes a person happy? Happy people are not necessarily those who have the most, and unhappy people are not necessarily those who have the least.

Quite often, in Yerushalayim, you will meet people who live with their ten children in tiny apartments, and they seem to be the happiest people alive. And then you can read about the wealthiest people and they are miserable. The richest man in the world recently wrote that “whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.”

So how do we attain happiness? What is the secret?

We are commanded to serve Hashem with joy, and when the Torah speaks about the Yomim Tovim, it repeatedly emphasizes the obligation of vesomachta bechagecha, to rejoice on this Yom Tov.

What is it about Sukkos that makes simcha its defining characteristic? Why is this the Yom Tov that Chazal identify specifically with happiness? What does Sukkos teach us about something every human being wants so desperately - the secret of being genuinely happy?

We are taught to serve Hashem with simcha, and the Yomim Tovim are specifically associated with the obligation of “vesomachta bechagecha,” to rejoice during the Yomim Tovim. Yet, although this command applies to all the Yomim Tovim, Sukkos possesses a unique distinction. It is not merely a time when we are instructed to be happy. Chazal define the very essence of the Yom Tov as Zeman Simchoseinu, the Time of Our Joy.

Why does its name focus on the joy of the Yom Tov rather than on the sukkos in which Hashem protected us in the midbar, or on the daled minim that occupy such a prominent place in our observance of the Yom Tov? What is it about Sukkos that creates and mandates such an extraordinary degree of happiness that simcha itself becomes the name by which the Yom Tov is identified?

Perhaps the answer begins with something that seems almost paradoxical. On Sukkos, the Yom Tov that is called the Time of Our Joy, we leave our homes.

We step away from the permanent structures that normally provide us with a sense of security and stability and enter a temporary dwelling. We leave behind our solid walls and sturdy roofs, our comfortable bedrooms and dining rooms, and all the physical structures that make us feel that we have established ourselves securely in this world. For seven days, we eat our meals, spend time with our families, and, as much as possible, conduct much of our daily activity in a structure whose very temporary nature is central to its mitzvah.

And perhaps that is precisely where the secret of simcha lies.

One of the greatest impediments to happiness is the mistaken belief that happiness depends upon what we possess and upon the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We imagine that if our house was a little larger, our finances a little more comfortable, our business a little more successful, or our lives a little less complicated, we would finally be able to relax and enjoy what we have. We spend so much of our lives looking toward the next improvement, the next acquisition, or the next hoped-for change that we can easily overlook the blessings already surrounding us.

The sukkah comes to challenge that way of thinking.

For seven days, we deliberately leave the permanent structure that represents the physical security we have worked so hard to establish and place ourselves in a temporary dwelling, beneath a roof that is not even a conventional one. We are reminded that the walls around us were never the ultimate source of our security, that the things we own can provide us with comfort but cannot provide us with the inner sense of peace for which we yearn, and that the difference between a house in which a person is happy and one in which he is miserable has very little to do with the quality of its construction.

A magnificent home without shalom bayis cannot create happiness. A beautifully set table cannot compensate for a lack of warmth among the people gathered around it. A person can surround himself with every physical comfort and still feel empty, while another person can sit at a simple table in a modest home, surrounded by people he loves and with gratitude in his heart, and experience a happiness that no luxury could purchase.

The sukkah strips away the illusion that the structure itself is what makes us secure and comfortable, and it teaches us that we can leave our physical permanence behind and still be happy. We are commanded to be happy precisely there, in that temporary dwelling. Vesomachta bechagecha.

This lesson comes at a particularly significant time of year. We have just emerged from the Yomim Noraim, when we stood before Hashem and confronted the fragility of our existence. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we asked Hashem for life, health, sustenance, and the ability to continue serving Him. We acknowledged how dependent we are upon Him and how little is actually within our control, despite the tremendous effort we invest in creating a sense of security and predictability in our lives.

And then, almost immediately, Hashem gives us the mitzvah of Sukkos and tells us to rejoice.

Hashem gives us a remarkable progression. After the introspection of the Yomim Noraim, after we have stood before Him and asked to be granted another year, after we have examined our lives and contemplated what truly matters and what does not, we are told to leave the security and permanence of our homes, enter the sukkah, gather our families and friends around us, take the daled minim in our hands, and rejoice in the blessings Hashem has given us.

After experiencing Yom Kippur and teshuvah, we are best able to hear the message of the humble sukkah. Now, rather than immediately returning to our routines and comforts, we step outside of them and enter a temporary dwelling, where we look at our lives with fresh eyes, recognize the goodness that is already there, and rejoice in it.

Because one of the greatest sources of unhappiness is not necessarily what we lack, but our preoccupation with what we lack. A person can be surrounded by blessings and yet be unable to enjoy them because his eyes are constantly directed elsewhere. He sees what someone else has, the house someone else lives in, the vacation someone else takes, the success someone else has achieved, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the blessings in his own life become invisible to him. The more we compare, the more our sense of what we have is diminished by what we imagine we should have.

There will always be someone who has more. There will always be another person with a larger house, a greater accomplishment, a more impressive position, a nicer car, or a more seemingly perfect life. If a person looks outward at what others have, he will never have enough. He can spend his entire life surrounded by gifts and still view himself as deprived.

On Sukkos, we step away from the pursuit of more and recognize what we have. Sukkos changes our field of vision. Instead of focusing on the permanent structures that distinguish one person from another, everyone leaves them behind and enters a simple sukkah, where the important things become much clearer. The family sitting around the table matters more than the table, the people sharing the meal matter more than the chairs they are sitting on, and the mitzvos surrounding us become more precious than the physical comforts we have temporarily left behind.

The daled minim reinforce that lesson in another way. We take four minim that are different from one another and bring them together because the Jewish people are not meant to be a collection of individuals, each concerned only with his own accomplishments and possessions. We need one another, and there is a special joy that comes from recognizing that we are part of something larger than ourselves.

The sukkah teaches us to appreciate what Hashem has given us, while the daled minim teach us to appreciate the people with whom He has surrounded us. Both lessons lead us toward the same destination. A person becomes happier when he stops measuring his life according to what he thinks is missing and begins to recognize the abundance that is already present.

There is yet another dimension to the simcha of Sukkos. On Pesach, we celebrate what Hashem did for us when He took us out of Mitzrayim, and on Shavuos, we celebrate the Torah that He gave us at Har Sinai. On Sukkos, we experience the relationship itself. We place ourselves under the protection of Hashem and live in the sukkah, which Chazal describe as tzila demehemnusa, the shade of faith.

We are reminded that the security we imagine comes from our homes, our resources, and our plans was never absolute. We were always dependent upon Hashem, though we don’t always notice it. The temporary nature of the sukkah reminds us that the world itself is temporary and that our security does not come from the walls we construct around ourselves, but from the One Who sustains us within those walls and beyond them.

Recognizing that dependence does not make us fearful. It makes us joyful, because once a person understands that Hashem is holding him, he no longer has to feel that he is responsible for holding his entire world together.

Perhaps that is why Sukkos follows immediately after Yom Kippur. We have just spent the holiest day of the year asking Hashem to forgive us and grant us another year. We have confronted our shortcomings, acknowledged our mistakes, and promised to do better. We stood before the Melech with nothing to hide behind, and then Hashem tells us that the next step is to rejoice.

Build your sukkah. Take your daled minim. Invite guests. Eat and drink. Learn Torah. Sing. Dance. Celebrate that you have been given another year and another opportunity to draw closer to Hashem.

This is not a command to manufacture happiness. Rather, it is an invitation to discover the source of happiness. We do not need to wait until every problem has been solved or every aspiration has been fulfilled before allowing ourselves to appreciate the goodness in our lives.

The world around us constantly tells us the opposite. We are encouraged to look at what we don’t have, to notice what we could buy, to compare ourselves with people who appear to have more, and to believe that the next acquisition or accomplishment will finally give us the satisfaction we seek. Sukkos teaches us to step away from that pursuit and to sit beneath the s’chach with the people and the blessings that are already ours.

When we do that, we can begin to understand the words Zeman Simchoseinu in a deeper way. The Torah is not simply telling us that Sukkos is a time during which we are supposed to smile more. It is teaching us how to become capable of experiencing simcha, namely by recognizing that our lives are gifts, that our families are gifts, that our Torah and mitzvos are gifts, and that the opportunity to stand before Hashem and serve Him is itself an extraordinary reason for gratitude.

And then we understand why Chazal did not define Sukkos by the temporary dwelling in which we live, even though the sukkah is central to the Yom Tov, nor by the daled minim that we hold with such care. They called it Zeman Simchoseinu because after Pesach we were free, after Shavuos we had the Torah, and after Sukkos we have simcha.

In our modern world, people are driven to buy things. Since society teaches that having more things makes people happier, it follows that the act of purchasing things brings happiness. In the language of science and psychology, people experience a dopamine rush from shopping and acquiring new things. And while in earlier times a person had to get dressed, leave the house, and travel to a store to obtain something new, today the process has become almost effortless. From the comfort of home, people can click away and purchase virtually anything they need or want.

People have become so accustomed to the experience of buying that there are now, believe it or not, sites where the products do not even exist. The sites do not actually sell anything. They do something else. They provide the experience of shopping.

Think about what that means. A grown person who seeks happiness goes through the motions of browsing, selecting, and purchasing items, even though nothing is actually being purchased and nothing will arrive at his door. The experience itself has become the source of the pleasure. It is simulated; it is not real. And yet, the desire behind it is very real: the desire to be happy, the desire to buy, to have, to accumulate, because people think that having more will make them happier.

But much of the pleasure of indulgence comes from anticipation. People look forward to having something and imagine how good it will feel when it arrives, and then, once they have it, the excitement begins to fade, and before they know it, their attention turns toward the next thing they want to acquire.

The happiness they imagine they will obtain from having more things - a nicer house, a nicer car, a fancier tie or scarf - is all an illusion. And that is precisely part of the message of the sukkah.

There is a classic Yiddish tune about the sukkah, which celebrates that a Yiddele sitting in his little sukkaleh, bundled up against the elements, can be happier and warmer than the wealthiest man whose butler is throwing logs into his fireplace to warm him. The Yiddele sitting in his rickety sukkaleh feels safer and more secure than the wealthy landowner ensconced behind his iron gates.

The world tells us that the more we have, the happier and more secure we will be. The sukkah teaches us the opposite. It takes away the permanence, the comfort, and the possessions that we imagine are the foundations of happiness and shows us that a person can have very little and still be genuinely someiach when he knows that what he has is from Hashem and that he sits betzila demehemnusa, under His protection.

Happiness does not come from having more. It is a simple message, one we have heard many times. On Sukkos, it is no longer a soundbite or a cute saying to hang on the refrigerator. On Sukkos, we sit in the sukkah and discover that it is true.

May we all merit true simcha on Sukkos and all year round, and may we merit the coming of Moshiach bekarov.