Happiness, Contentment, Praise and Celebration – Ki Tavo
“Happiness” is something we all aspire to. It is the way fairy tales end (“and they lived happily ever after”). It is part of the American Dream and immortalized in the Declaration of Independence (“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”). Even in Hebrew it is the same הם חיו באושר ובעושר"” – they lived in happiness and prosperity (wealth)
“Happiness” also features in this week’s פרשה.
כי תבוא is predominantly associated with the תוכחה, the curses, (as is בחקתי), but both are in fact a mix, blessings AND curses.
It is not surprising then that in כי תבוא, we find the “commandment” of “happiness”, שמחה, both in the positive and the negative. Following פרשת הביכורים at the beginning of the פרשה, we have the positive –
ושמחת בכל הטוב אשר נתן לך ה' א-לקיך ולביתך אתה והלוי והגר אשר בקרבך (דברים כו:יא)
And in the תוכחה the negative –
תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה' א-לקיך בשמחה ובטוב לבב מרב כל (דברים כח:מז)
הקב"ה is seemingly commanding us to be “happy” and if we are not, we can expect all the terrible curses listed in the פרשה. It seems that Hashem is commanding us to “be happy, or else!"
שמחה is a crucial component of my research into the לחם הפנים and the שולחן in the Beit Hamikdash, which symbolize material wealth עושר. As part of this research I have identified an intricate link between שמחה and עושר, which I believe to be the central lesson of the לחם הפנים - איזהו עשיר השמח בחלקו. This can be seen in the geometry of the לחם הפנים, (it resembles a smiling face) and from the teachings of בן זומא –
בן זומא אומר, ונתת על השולחן לחם פנים לפני תמיד, שיהא לו פנים (משנה מנחות יא,ד)
בן זומא אומר ....... איזהו עשיר? השמח בחלקו (משנה אבות ד,א)
What kind of face פנים us בן זומא referring to in מנחות? The face of someone who is “happy” with what they have. To understand the intricate link between wealth עושר and “happiness” שמחה, we need clearly define what שמחה is.
So I looked for the מצוות עשה to be “happy” in the ספר החינוך. Interestingly the ספר חינוך (in סימן תפח) does not learn the מצוות עשה of שמחה from כי תבוא, but rather from ראה in connection with the חגים –
ושמחת בחגך אתה ובנך ובתך ועבדך ואמתך והלוי והגר והיתום והאלמנה וכו' (דברים טז:יד)
and the context that the ספר החינוך is referring to here is not a “general” commandment to be שמחים “all the time”, but only on the חגים. How do we express שמחה on the חגים? by eating meat, drinking wine, wearing nice clothes, giving presents to our wives and children and in the מקדש - by playing musical instruments.
It appears then, from the ספר החינוך, that the מצוות עשה to be שמחים is limited only to the חגים and that there is not a מצוות עשה to be שמחים at any other time.
However this is obviously not the case, as we clearly see from the above פסוקים in our פרשה. In addition דוד המלך says –
עבדו את ה' בשמחה באו לפניו ברננה (תהילים ק:ב)
דוד המלך says we are required to “serve” Hashem בשמחה. When?
A slave, an עבד, as long as he/she is a slave, is in a constant state of עבדות. Unlike a שכיר יום, a day laborer, who, when he is finished working, is his own master, a slave is a slave 24/7 – always. Similarly we, as עבדים of הקב"ה, are His עבדים constantly, 24/7. Therefore דוד המלך actually means עבדו את ה' בשמחה – תמיד!, we need to be שמחים 24/7!
Why then does the ספר החינוך limit the מצוות עשה of שמחה only to the חגים?
The answer is that there are different types of שמחה.
One type of שמחה is part of our עבודת ה' (which the ספר החינוך addresses elsewhere in סימן תלג – מצות עשה לעבוד את ה’) and there the שמחה is integral and assumed – the ספר החינוך doesn’t even mention it there, it is just a given.
There is another, different kind of שמחה, one that is only required on חגים and requires a special מצוות עשה of its own.
Another question is – what constitutes עבודת ה'? Is עבודה limited to תפילה as the ספר החינוך seems to indicate (סימן תלג), or does עבודת ה' encompass all the other מצוות as well? In other words, do we have to be בשמחה only when we are davening, or constantly, all the time?
If you noticed, until now I have written the words “happy” and “happiness” in parentheses, because “happiness” in not necessarily the correct English translation for the word שמחה. As we said – there are different types of שמחה and happiness is only one of them. There are in fact 4 types of שמחה.
So what are these four types of שמחה, how are they manifested and when do they apply?
We have already seen from the ספר החינוך the type of שמחה required on the חגים and its modes of expression above. They are predominantly material manifestations – meat, wine, presents, music (in the Mikdash), requiring physical actions – eating, drinking, giving, playing. Happiness is not an appropriate translation for this kind of שמחה, a better translation would be rejoicing or celebration.
Another kind, the one that is an integral part of our עבודת ה', the one that is mentioned in our פרשה, is a different kind of שמחה. We are obviously not required to spend every day of our lives having a party - eating, drinking and making merry. That kind of שמחה is limited to the chagim and is a special מצוות עשה all on its own.
For the opinion that says that עבודת ה' = תפילה, a different kind of שמחה is required.
In the Gemara (ערכיו יש, ע"א) there is a מחלוקת as to the source of the מצווה of שירה from the Torah. Rav Matana learns it from the verse in the תוכחה –תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה' א-לקיך בשמחה ובטוב לבב -
איזו היא עבודה שבשמחה ובטוב לבב? הוי אומר: זה שירה
In other words we fulfill the command of עבדו את ה' בשמחה in the context of תפילה, by giving praise.
The זהר הקדוש in פרשת תרומה explains why דוד המלך was the greatest "poet" our nation has ever had and will ever have, because דוד המלך was constantly singing Hashem's praises. Even when he was between a rock and a hard place, he still managed to praise Hashem. That is what תהילים is all about, it is not only being able to do שירה when we are feeling good, it is being able to sing שירה davka when we are not.
A large portion of our תפילה is allocated to praise (there are also components of רחמים ותחנונים, הודאה etc.). It would appear however from the Gemara above that we are being cursed, simply for the reason that we did not amply give praise, or we did not do it in the required manner.
(Sidebar: This is why it is so important to focus on and recite correctly the parts of the תפילה that involve praise, like שירת הים. חז"ל say that if someone says שירת הים the way it is supposed to be recited, meticulously pronouncing every word correctly, with כוונה, sung with a ניגון in an uplifting, joyful disposition, all your חטאים are forgiven! Imagine that, just by davening אז ישיר every day the right way, you can clean your slate and start off fresh (forget about Elul and עשרת ימי תשובה – you have this opportunity every day! Obviously Elul and עשי"ת are important and הקב"ה is more receptive during these times, but just by doing שירה the right way, you don’t have to wait for this time of the year, you can get the same results any day of the year!) חז"ל also say that מזמור לתודה in שחרית should be sung with a nigun.
So we have שמחה meaning “celebration” in the context of the חגים. We have שמחה meaning “praise” in the context of תפילה.
What about the opinion that says that עבודת ה' is not limited to תפילה, but rather encompasses all theתרי"ג מצוות . What kind of שמחה does that entail? This kind of שמחה is more like a “state of mind” שמחה, not something to be expressed occasionally, but constantly, 24/7, a kind of “way of life”.
It emanates from הכרת הטוב, recognition that הקב"ה is the Source of everything - our very existence and everything around us. It is not only a once-off הכרת הטוב for our origins, for being born, but a constant gratitude that we are alive right now and that הקב"ה is working behind the scenes to make every natural system continue functioning המחדש בטובו כל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית. Every law of nature, every system in our bodies, every molecule, atom, quark and lepton in the universe continues to exist and function as it does, only because הקב"ה is constantly inputting energy and renewal, every nanosecond of every day! It is a fact that most of us take for granted - "That is just the way of the world, what is so special about it?" The requirement of שמחה in our עבודת ה' is exactly that, not to take these things for granted.
It also stems from a sense of ביטחון that כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד everything that Hashem does is for our benefit. Even when we find it difficult to understand how certain things could be for the good. There is a good משל to illustrate this -
“A group of city folk went touring the countryside and stopped off in a quaint little farming village. After lunch they went exploring.
They saw a man in the supply store purchasing one hundred sacks of wheat kernels in exchange for a huge wad of cash he took from his pocket. He hoisted the heavy sacks into his horse-drawn cart and trundled off down the road. Curious to see what he was going to do with all those kernels (perhaps his wife loved wheat kernel salad), they decided to follow him. The man and cart reached a big open patch of sandy land and were met by a group of twenty young men. Each muscle-bound youth hoisted a sack on his shoulder and then in twenty parallel lines they walked across the sand burying the kernels as they went. Why would they do that? the city folk wondered, spend all that hard earned cash just to bury all those kernels in the dirt? Oh well, the eccentricities of country folk! they thought to themselves.
Eight months later another group of tourists from the big city were visiting the same village and they saw a very strange sight. Hundreds of men, women and children had gathered in the village square whose flagstone floor was covered with a thick layer of what looked like junk - stalks, seeds, hay and the like. The villagers each took basketfuls of this potpourri and threw it up in the air repeatedly. As they did so, the wind blew all the stalks and the other junk away, while all the seeds fell back to the ground. They then collected up all the seeds into sacks, loaded them up into horse-drawn carts and walked in a procession down the road. They must love wheat kernel salad in this village, the city folk thought as they followed curiously. The troupe arrived at an old building with a huge water wheel, slowly turning in the gentle current of the stream. The villagers took the sacks of kernels into the building where they emptied each sack onto a set of huge rotating stones that pulverized the kernels into what looked exactly the same as the stuff they had seen on the village square floor. Why would they waste good kernels like that? the visitors thought. Crazy hillbillies!
After a couple of weeks more guests came to the village, city dwellers all. As they were walking off their lunch they happened by a cottage. Through the window they saw a stalwart lady take a few scoops full of some mealy looking stuff from a sack which she threw into a bowl. She then doused that with a jug of water and then she began to pound it incessantly. With the sweat running down her cheeks, it looked like the woman was getting a real good workout, until she finally took a break, went to her rocking chair for a spell and then returned to the bowl, the contents of which she gave a vicious jab. She then took a round, cushion-looking lump from the bowl and tossed it into the fire in the oven. How quaint, the hipsters said. This must be the country version of a gym and sauna!
Seriously though, if you had a wad of hard earned cash which you decided to spend on a string of expensive pearls, would you then take those same pearls and go bury them in the dirt in your back yard at two inch intervals? What kind of idiot would do that? If you had just spent two hours sweeping your house, would you scoop up all the dirt, brick-a-brack and then toss it all into the liquidizer in your kitchen just to make finer dirt? Would you then take that new, fine dirt, slosh it with water and then take out all your frustrations on the mixture for almost twenty minutes and then, if that weren’t enough, give it the final knockout punch just before tossing it into the fireplace? There is strange, and there is STRANGE!
The problem with all the visitors to this village is firstly that they were city folk, the kind who think that chickens grow in plastic bags on the supermarket shelf - already portioned out. They did not understand what they were seeing. Secondly, they only saw the goings-on in time slices - they were not there to witness the entire process beginning to end.
A month after the farmer had buried the one hundred sacks of seeds in the dirt, it began to rain. The wheat kernels sprouted and grew into a huge field of wheat from which he harvested thousands of bushels. The villagers took these sheaves to the village square where they winnowed them, separating the wheat from the chaff and collecting up a thousand sacks of wheat kernels. They then took these kernels to the mill where they were ground into flour which fed the entire village for the coming year. The woman folk would mix the flour and water, knead it, punch it down after it had risen, shape it and then put it in the oven to bake and the result was a delicious loaf of bread.”
We all have wisdom in hindsight - after we have experienced the process from its inception to its culmination. Very few of us have this privilege and if we do, it is only after we attain a ripe old age. Mostly we stumble through life in time slices, not understanding what we are seeing, unable to connect the dots, being bewildered by our perception of the current reality. We encounter what appears to us as hardship, strife, tragedy, loss and we question - Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?
This kind of שמחה referred to in our פרשה is an expression of ביטחון that everything that is happening is for the good. Even if we cannot be שמחים in the face of an obvious tragedy, disaster, we are commanded to be שמחים for the other part, the part that is good ושמחת בכל הטוב אשר נתן לך ה', to look at the half of the glass that is full! A person who can do that is a חכם. The word חכם is ראשי תיבות for חצי כוס מלאה.
In the two פסוקים above in our פרשה the words שמחה and כל are repeated–
ושמחת בכל הטוב אשר נתן לך ה' א-לקיך ולביתך אתה והלוי והגר אשר בקרבך (דברים כו:יא)
תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה' א-לקיך בשמחה ובטוב לבב מרב כל (דברים כח:מז)
When יעקב אבינו reunited with עשו after returning from חרן, he sent gifts to עשו who refused them saying “יש לי רב”. יעקב on the other hand says to עשו – "יש לי כל". What is the difference between רב and כל?
Esav says “I have a lot” רב. A lot is not everything, he is not not content with what he has and he always wants more than he has. That is רב, that is the characteristic of a רשע.
Yaakov on the other hand says “I have everything” כל. Yaakov is content with what he has, he is truly wealthy because he is שמח בחלקו. This is the sign of a צדיק and a חכם, to look at life and always see the half full part of the glass.
In ספר בראשית (כד:א) it says "וה' ברך את אברהם בכל". There are different interpretations of this פסוק, some say that Avraham was blessed with a daughter named בכל. Following the above, it also means that Avraham was blessed with a “half full glass” philosophy on life.
A very interesting פירוש on this פסוק is given by the רמב"ן who says that כל is a very deep mystical concept. It is the 8th of the י"ג מידות of הקב"ה and is the basis יסוד of everything, that Hashem creates everything using the מידה of כל. It is very difficult to fully understand the complexity of this concept that the רמב"ן brings down, but simply stated it means that everything that exists is created by הקב"ה using His מידה of כל, everything, what we perceive as good and what we perceive as bad. When someone can say יש לי כל as יעקב does, he is accepting and embracing life for what it is, the good and the bad (which is not really bad, we just perceive it as such because we lack perspective).
This constant “state of mind” type of שמחה is best translated as “contentment”. We are not required to “celebrate” or even “praise” 24/7, but הקב"ה does require from us to be “content” 24/7, to be שמחים בחלקנו, not only in terms of פרנסה, but everything else in our lives as well.
So what about “happiness”, which we would have first thought to be the most intuitive translation of שמחה, but have now seen that it is a little more complicated than that. The “happiness” of fairy tales, is exactly that – it is a fairy tale – it doesn’t exist in the real world. In the real world nobody lives “happily ever after”. Real life is much more complicated, it undulates with ups and downs. It definitely has “happy” periods, but life is never 24/7 happy! The only thing that is 24/7 happy is עולם הבא.
The “happiness” in the Declaration of Independence was most likely not referring to the תורה concept of שמחה, but rather to the pursuit of “pleasure and leisure”, in other words – money!
Money does not equal happiness. There is only one sure-fire way to acquire happiness in this world and that is to be selfless and to give to others. That is a taste of the happiness of עולם הבא.
In summary –
1. The שמחה required on the חגים is a special type of celebratory שמחה requiring physical expression such as eating, drinking, music and gifts (as detailed in מסכת חגיגה) expressing gratitude for all the physical bounty Hashem has given us.
2. The שמחה required from the תפילה part of our עבודת ה' is praise with all our heart and soul, not only when things are going our way, but especially when they are not, like דוד המלך.
3. The שמחה required for all the rest of our עבודת ה' (including תפילה), is a way-of-life שמחה, a contentment that springs from הכרת הטוב and בטחון in הקב"ה that כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד and is typified by – not taking anything for granted.
4. The true happiness type of שמחה only exists in עולם הבא and sporadically throughout our lives, most specifically when we are giving to others.
“Happiness” is a much bandied about word, everyone wants it, very few know how to acquire it. In our פרשה we are commanded to be שמחים and are threatened with dire punishment if we are not. This is not the happiness of a Walt Disney movie or the American Dream. The תורה concept of שמחה is much more complex and real.
Shabbat Shalom
Eliezer Meir Saidel
Showbread Institute
www.showbreadinstitute.com
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