Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Uh, as the world around us races forward in search of tomorrow's breakthroughs, join us as we discover the insights that have shaped Jewish life for centuries.
Together, we'll study with Judaism's greatest minds, exploring timeless wisdom that continues to guide and inspire.
You're listening to Inside the Jewish Mind JLI podcast.
Welcome back.
In the age of instant gratification and access to almost anything imaginable, with a single click, you'd think we'd all be happier than ever.
Yet here we are, still searching for something deeper.
As the self help genre continues to dominate in almost every category.
Maybe it's time we took a fresh look at what really makes us happy.
Not the quick fixes we're used to, but, but genuine, lasting fulfillment.
In this 2011 talk, the late author and renowned psychiatrist Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twersky shared some fresh perspectives on what joy really means and how to find it the Jewish way.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: For the past 50 years, I have been working with people who have not come to see me because they're happy.
And sometimes I think I have a skewed perspective, you know, having seen so many people who are miserable.
But the question that bothers me is the concept of pursuit of happiness, which, of course is in the Declaration of Independence as one, uh, of the inalienable rights.
And I think that it's the pursuit of happiness has been, uh, something that has, since man first appeared on Earth, that people have been pursuing happiness.
But for thousands of years we've been pursuing it and yet seem not to have found it.
They tell a story about a, um, man who saw a youngster at the street corner on his all fours, and he was obviously looking for something.
And he said, uh, son, did you lose something? He said, yeah, I lost a half a dollar.
He says, oh, well, let me help you look for it. Where did you lose it? He said, down there.
He says, well, why are you looking for it over here? He says, the light's better here.
Uh, sometimes it's easier to look where the light's better, but that's not where you're going to find it.
As I look back at my own life and my latest book that I wrote is something about what you feel like when you turn 80.
Uh, it's not going. It's not exactly ancient history. Oh, no, it's not.
Perhaps not too far from ancient history, but I look back as to what life was like in my childhood, and I recall how different things were then than now.
First of all, do you realize that in the 1930s, 1940s, the average life expectancy in the United States was 50 or 51.
There were no antibiotics, and young people died of infectious diseases.
In every major city of the United States, there was a tuberculosis sanitarium.
And tuberculosis killed people in the prime of their lives.
Infant mortality was quite common.
Living conditions were not that great.
Uh, we didn't have a refrigerator. We had an icebox. Some of you will remember it.
And when the weather was hot outside, you swept bullets.
Electric fans didn't do much good.
Communications were very difficult.
Anybody who wanted to go from the United States to what was at that time Palestine was a trip of four to six weeks.
And long distance was prohibitive.
Uh, cooking was a chore.
There were none of the, uh, appliances, uh, that we have today.
And I remember my mother washing clothes on a washboard and then hanging the clothes out to dry.
And the workplace was a pretty dingy place to work.
Now, do you know what would happen if you took somebody from the 1930s, living under those circumstances, and you said, you know what life is going to be like in 2011?
There won't be one tuberculosis sanitarium in the entire country. The disease will have been eradicated. For all practical purposes, the lifespan, Instead of being 50, the average life expectancy will be in the 80s.
In communications, why, you'll be able to pick up a little hand end instrument and talk to anybody in the world.
And if you have a good screen on it, you can watch a football game 3,000 miles away.
And as far as climate is concerned, if it's too cold, you push a button, the house warms up. If it's too hot, you push a button, the house cools down.
Food preparation, well, it's either, uh, ready for the pot or even if you might have to cook it. You've got a microwave and there's going to be fax machines and emails, and then, you know, they'll describe the entire picture and the workplace.
You know, today's workplace in the 1930s would have looked like a spa.
And you would have described what life is going to be like in 2011.
And you know what people would have said then?
They said, well, look, it seems like you're talking about a fantasy. I mean, that's never going to happen.
But if that, uh, ever does happen and life becomes so much comfortable and so many diseases will be wiped out. I remember when I, when I was a kid, if I got a backache and it's summer, oh, he's got polio.
There's no polio scare now.
And so if you told people the 1930s, about what life is now like in 2011, they would have said, if that ever happens, mankind will have reached paradise.
Uh, we will have achieved the ultimate in happiness.
You know, I envy those people in the 1930s because they could still look forward to something that science, technology may do to bring man happiness.
Think of it. Today, obviously there's a tremendous amount of misery in the world.
Uh, I spent the last 40 years in treating alcoholism and drug addiction.
There's an enormous amount of misery, uh, addictions, whether it's alcohol or drug or sex or food or gambling.
These are escapist techniques. People are escaping from feeling miserable.
Oh, destructive escapes.
And psychiatrists, uh, and psychologists offices are filled.
The problem is that if I were to ask you, and I will ask you, what do you think science and technology can do to bring human happiness?
You already have a gps.
You don't even have to know where you're going.
What else is there left?
3D television.
You really think that 3D television is going to make people happy?
You know, we've reached a point in our scientific and technological advances where we can no longer look forward to science and technology providing happiness for us.
We're looking in the wrong place.
We're looking as to where the light is better, not where it's been lost.
And maybe it's more convenient to look where the light's better.
And if you want to delude yourself, maybe you'll think that a better iPad is going to make happiness.
Trust me, a better iPad is not going to make people happy.
Very interesting. If you read the Torah account of creation.
In six days, God created the first day, created this second day created this third day created. This comes the sixth day after all the animals were created. And God said, let us make man.
Wait a minute. Let us make man. Who's the us?
To whom is God turning for help in making a human being?
He didn't need any help in making elephants or the rivers or the mountains or the moon or the stars.
Why, certainly, let us make man. And who is the us?
And so my illustrious ancestor, the BAAL Shem Tov, said something which is so obviously true.
God created many creatures, created angels, created the entire animal kingdom.
But think of it this way.
Every living thing is created in a state of completion.
Uh, a little alligator does not have to change itself.
All it has to do is become a big alligator and little birds become big birds, etc. Etc.
But they don't have to, by their own efforts, make themselves into something else. They are complete at birth.
The only exception is a human being.
We come into the world what the book of Job says, as a wild ass.
Uh, the baby is born totally emotion, totally desire, right?
Totally animal instinct.
But we're supposed to be something else.
We're supposed to become a being that has a spiritual aspect to one's life.
Who has a purpose, as you see on the screen, a meaningfulness to life.
Animals don't have a meaningfulness to life.
I've been to safari four times, huh? And I observed the animals. I don't believe that any one of them thought, what is my purpose in life here?
What am I in the jungle for?
Animals don't think that way.
I don't believe that there's any animal that thinks, what do I have to do to be a better cow than I am?
Animals don't have to think about self improvement.
So there's a uniqueness in a human being.
And human beings are different than animals, not only because we're more intelligent, but because an animal is totally driven by its bodily drives.
An animal cannot refuse something that the body wants.
We are in a position to make decisions about what we should do, even if it's something that means defying your bodily drive.
And that's part of being a spiritual person. That's where we separate ourselves from animals.
Animals have no concept of chesed of doing something for someone else other than the maternal instinct for their young.
But to give of ourselves for a total stranger whom we may never know. Animals can't do that.
And there are many facets of our lives in which we are uniquely different than animals.
Now, God could have created us totally spiritual, but he already had so many angels that if he had created man to be totally spiritual, he would have had another angel.
And at this point, apparently God felt, I've got enough angels, I've got enough animals.
Now I want to make a new kind of creature.
I'm going to create a creature that is born with potential.
But that creature has to develop that potential and make himself or, uh, herself into the being that I want them to be.
I want them to be a human being, not an angel, but not an animal.
And therefore God said, I can't do that myself, because if I make him fully spiritual, he's not a human being, then he's an angel.
So God turned to men and he said, look, let us make man.
You and I together will make a human being.
I'll give you the potential, I'll give you the ability, and you must develop it to become that spiritual person that I want you to be.
That's what God was turning to. Let us means God and us.
And the Talmud says it so beautifully. That if the person lives the proper life, he becomes a partner to God in creation.
That's such a beautiful statement.
He becomes a partner to God because he is helping God create man.
And because God wanted this creature.
God was dependent on us to develop ourselves.
But sometimes people fail to do so.
And sometimes we become what science tells us, unfortunately, that we are.
If you remember your biology class, you were told that a human being is a Homo sapiens. You know what Homo sapiens really means?
Homo refers to that genus of hominids like gorillas and garangutans and baboons and monkeys.
And sapiens means with intelligence.
So if somebody tells you you're a Homo sapiens, what they're telling you is you. You know, you're a baboon with some intelligence.
Now, intellect is very important, but that isn't all that man is.
Because if intellect was all that important, and if that was the identifying feature of man, then the most advanced intellectual person should be the most excellent person we know. That's not true.
You know that before World War II, the country that was most, uh, intellectually advanced was Germany.
It did not produce the best people.
So you see, we are not satisfied in being Homo sapiens.
We're not satisfying in being intellectual gorillas.
We have to be mention.
And being a mensch is being more than a Homo sapiens.
I never quite understood when I was a child when my father would say, oh, zaya, mensch. You know, be a mensch.
But later on, I began to understand what it means to be a mensch.
To exercise those unique parts of ourselves that take us away from being lowly animals and give us the pride of being human beings.
Now, I think that we can understand why there is a dearth of happiness.
Because, you see, the founders of the Declaration of Independence were so bright in saying that the inalienable rights of man are pursuit of happiness. They didn't say pursuit of pleasure.
They said pursuit of happiness.
But somehow we distorted things to think that pleasure is happiness.
Now, uh, there's nothing wrong with having pleasure.
And I wish everybody to have all the pleasure in the world.
The problem is that if your life becomes dependent on pleasure, then you're in trouble.
Because my experience with addicts over the past 40 years, I've had. Addicts are searching for pleasure, and they find it.
I've never tried cocaine or heroin, but I believe the people that tell me that it's as very pleasing pleasurable feeling.
And the problem is that there is never enough. It's an insatiable thing. It's a bottomless pit.
And just as it's true of, uh, the pleasure of addiction, I believe it's true of all pleasures in the world.
There's nothing wrong with having pleasure.
I love to put chocolate syrup on my ice cream, right?
I enjoy it. It's a pleasure thing. But my life does not become dependent on pleasure.
Because if your life becomes, um, dependent on pleasure, then as soon as one pleasure is over with, then you got to go for the next one.
And that becomes like an addiction.
And there's never any go to it. There's never any end to it.
So you see pleasure as a goal in life is essentially an animal trait.
Because that's what animals are looking for.
Contentment, comfort. Isn't that wonderful? Yes.
As a goal in life, I think that's an insult.
You know, you go into the supermarket and look at the counter where they sell evaporated milk.
And if you look at carnation milk, it has on the can a little slogan.
Milk from contented cows.
Now, you, uh, know when I first saw that, I started thinking, why should I care whether the cows are content or not?
But you see, the manufacturer of that product wants me to buy his product. And he wants to tell me that his brand is superior to the others.
Why is it superior? Because it comes from the most excellent cows.
Why are his cows most excellent? Because they're contented.
Well, if contentment is the excellence of a cow, and if all I look for in life is contentment, then I share a golden life with a cow.
And I'm not ready to lower myself to that stage.
Nothing wrong with being content.
But contentment as a goal in life is an animal trait, not a human trait.
And if contentment and pleasure becomes the goal in life, then people who experience pain or suffering or difficulties in one way or another can't possible have happiness.
But that's not true.
We know that there are people who, in spite of many personal distresses, have been able to be happy.
Because true happiness is beyond contentment. It's beyond comfort and beyond pleasure.
What then is true happiness?
True happiness is becoming a partner with God and developing ourselves into that which he wanted us to be.
A unique human being who exercises the unique human traits of thinking about a goal and purpose in life.
Animals can't do that, of constantly striving for self improvement. Animals can't do that, of getting out of one's shell and being considerate of strangers, of Others and helping them. Animals can't do that.
Being able to make decisions that are morally right, even though it may be uncomfortable to do so.
Animals can't do that.
The ability to forgive others.
Animals can't do that.
The ability to search for what is truth.
Animals can't do that either.
And so if you make a list of what the unique features of a human being are and seriously make an attempt at fulfilling them, then you become a partner with God in your creation and you become a full human being.
However, if we only go as far as using our intellectual to help us find more ways in which to have pleasure, then we are still functioning at a homo sapiens level, at an animal level, and we are an incomplete person.
And a person who is incomplete can't be any happier than a car which is incomplete and has parts of the motors. Miss.
For a car to function properly, all the parts have to be there, and all have to be operating properly.
And for us to be a complete human being, all the parts of humanity have to be there.
Now, where are we going to find it?
Well, we've been blessed then. Hashem has given us a Torah and has given us generations and generations of Torah authorities and teachers, not only who taught the, uh, texts and not only who taught the theories, but who exemplified in their own lives what it means to be a human being.
And this is why I am so insistent that we look back on the biographies that we have of the great men and women in, uh, Jewish history that we had, whose lives were so exemplary, who did not live for themselves, but were truly of chesed of living for the other person, of getting out of that shell.
Now, there's things that we should learn from animals.
In fact, the Talmud says that had the Torah not been given, there's some things that we should have learned from animals.
And the Talmud gives a few examples, and I came up with a few more examples.
I was sitting in the dentist's office one day, and I did not have my computer with me because that's when I do my writing at the dentist's office or at the airport.
And so I picked up a magazine, and the magazine had an article.
How do lobsters grow?
You know something? I could have lived my entire life without being concerned about how lobsters grow. But I looked at the article, and the article pointed out something very interesting.
A, uh, lobster is really a soft, mushy animal, and it lives within this hard shell.
So how's it going to grow?
Well, the article says that as the lobster grows and the shell does not expand.
The lobster begins to feel very uncomfortable.
It's stifled, it's oppressed in that rigid shell.
So what does it do?
It crawls underneath a rock where it is safe from predatory fish, and it sheds off that shell, and it grows a new one, a larger one, a more spacious one.
Well, as time goes by and the lobster continues to grow, pretty soon this new shell becomes uncomfortable and oppressive.
So what does it do?
Back under the rock throws off, the shell, grows a new one, and it repeats this process numerous times until it reaches its maximum growth.
That's what the article said.
And I began thinking that the only reasons lobsters ever grow to a full size is because they have no access to doctors.
Think about it. If a lobster could get access to a doctor, as soon as it begins to feel uncomfortable, it goes to the doctor and say, you know, I don't feel good. I feel so, oh, here's the prescription for Valium.
Here's a prescription for Percocet. Take it, you'll feel fine.
The lobster would take the medication and die. Being a half an inch big, it would never grow.
What does that tell us?
That tells us that you don't have to get rid of every discomfort. Yes, there are depressions and conditions which require treatment, but we've gotten into a habit that every discomfort, we have to run for a doctor to see if we can get a tranquilizer.
When really, for the lobster, the discomfort is nature's way of telling it it's time for you to get rid of your restrictions and grow.
And that's what we should look at ourselves when, uh, we have moments of discomfort and distress.
Maybe this is nature's way of telling us that we have to grow, we have to get better to where we than what we are.
And then I learned something else by watching animals.
I went out to a salmon fishery on the west coast.
And very interesting of the life cycle of the salmon.
It's born up in the river, and then it swims down to the ocean and it grows. And then toward the end of its life, it fights the tide and swims against the tide back to where it was born to lay its eggs and die.
Okay.
And then I watched it as the salmon swims around and comes to a casc.
And so it jumps over the cascade.
Now, if it doesn't succeed, it swims around a little bit and recharges its energy and jumps again.
And it does so many times until it gets to where it wants to go. And the lesson is, now the salmon has a intuitive, instinctive Idea as to where it's supposed to go. We don't have that as an instinct, but we have it as an intellectual awareness where we're supposed to go.
And if we have a goal and a mission and an idea as to what our purpose is in life, then we fight the tide to get there.
And if we come to a cascade, we recharge our energies and we jump and get to the next level.
And then what do we do?
Go to the next level until we get to where our goal is.
But that means that we have a goal.
So you see, looking at salmon and looking at lobsters give me an idea as to what life really should be about.
These are some of the animal instincts that we should adopt within ourselves.
Not running away from every distress and being able to face the challenges and go against the type to go wherever it is that we are supposed to go.
But of course, that means that we have a goal.
Uh, what is that goal?
It is not sitting and looking at sitcoms.
It is not sitting and looking at the inane things on television.
And incidentally, I don't know how anybody watches television these days.
Yes, I remember in my days I watched television.
And, yeah, there was Milton Burrow and there was I Love Lucy.
And, uh, there were some programs that were, uh, entertaining and humorous and clean and even uplifting.
Today, when I'm in a hotel and I turn on the television, if I'm fortunate enough that there's a football or a baseball game on, I can watch it for a few minutes.
But if there is no sports I came on, there is nothing to watch.
It's disgusting to see what they're telling us. Disgusting to what they think is appealing to us.
And television, unfortunately, uh, has become an animalistic entertainment, uh, very often catering to the most animal instincts that we have.
So, no, you're not going to get a golden light by watching television.
Where are we going to get a golden life? From only one place.
Only from the one who said, let us make man.
You and I together, I will give you the potential. And you're supposed to develop it to where you're supposed to go, where you're supposed to be.
And so we have that wonderful M Book on Musa, the wonderful book on ethics, Mitzi Las Yitzolim the half, uh, of the Just where the first chapter is. Khiva Adam o' Loyim what is man's obligation in the world?
Animals don't have obligations.
Animals don't have a mission.
We have a mission, and we have an obligation.
And it's only with that fulfilling that mission and obligation that we become complete.
Because unless we do so, no matter what else we have, trust me, I have treated some of the multimillion dollar families in the country that have everything that anybody could possibly want to, uh, achieve and to gain, and they've been miserable. Don't trust the television when it tells you get this and you'll be happy.
Our, uh, happiness is going to come from only one place.
From the source that said, let us make men and has given us the Torah that tells us in which way we are supposed to be different than animals.
And so you see, when, uh, I see the, the JLI and I see the programs that it has to offer and I see the wisdom that it has with bringing the teaching of the Talmud, the teaching of Hasidus and the teaching of Musa, and the exemplary lives of our great personalities as examples of which we are to follow.
I can see that there is hope to get happiness not from a, ah, scientific gadget, not from a GPS or an iPad or whatever else science can come up with. Those are nice to have, wonderful to be able to find your way to a place that you don't know where you're going.
Right.
But that isn't going to give us happiness.
Happiness will only come when we complete ourselves and become the full spiritual human being that God meant us to be.
And so when you go to these courses, it's not for simply for doing a mitzvah, uh, but it's really working with the only thing that can possibly give you true happiness.
Not a pursuit of pleasure, but a pursuit of happiness. And by the way, I'm not knocking pleasure.
Enjoy yourselves in whichever way is appropriate. Appropriate, but just don't make it a goal in life. The goal in life has to be to become that which we were intended to be.
And this is where the teaching of Torah, uh, can bring, uh, you to a true happiness.
Hasidic teachings are vet Simcha is the overriding trait.
And uh, yes, there were great tzadikim who used to deprive themselves of physical pleasure for whatever reason they thought appropriate, but that did not deprive them of simcha and they achieved true simcha no matter what the circumstances were.
I had a teacher from, who came to the United States in the hope of bringing his family over from Europe.
And unfortunately the war broke out and he could not bring them over and they perished of the Holocaust.
And I remember when he received the postcard from someone who told him at the note that his family, his wife and children were Killed.
And, uh, he sat down for Shiva, and he cried bitterly of the loss of his family.
A few weeks later, it was Simcha's Torah, and my Rebbe was dancing, and I couldn't understand it.
He had just had this horrible news about the loss of his wife and children.
Uh, and here he is a few weeks later, dancing with the Torah. Right.
But that was what a truly spiritual person could do, in spite of the suffering, to be able to find a Simcha in life.
So I hope that we will all be spared from any kind of distress, and I hope that you will never have to face any suffering.
But remember, the absence of suffering brings contentment, but contentment is not the goal of a human being.
We have to go beyond that, and we have to become the truly spiritual people that we were intended to be. And so I hope that by following the teachings available to you that you will be able to develop yourself to the point of being truly proud of yourself and truly dignified and feeling that, indeed, you have been a partner with God in your own creation.
And through that, you will be able to get the happiness that has eluded so much of mankind throughout history.
It's not easy to get.
Uh, it's the lobster being able to tolerate some discomfort in order to grow.
It's the salmon fighting against the tide and jumping over cascades, uh, and heading for a goal that a person is supposed to have.
And so those kinds of messages are heavy. And I wish I could tell you that there's an easier way to do it.
But, you see, I, uh, entered Medical School in 1955 when the first tranquilizer came out on the market called Miltown.
And it was seen as, finally, the pharmaceutical industry has discovered a cure, uh, for mankind's anxiety. And everybody's going to be happy. These were the happy pills, or they turned out to be disasters.
And that's true of every kind of artificial, uh, way that we seek to get us some happiness. We can get momentary pleasure, but we can't get happiness. Happiness is a truth. And a truth is something which is permanent. And Torah teaching is truth. Torah teaching is permanent. Take advantage of it, and with God's help, you'll all achieve true happiness. Thank you for listening.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: That's all for today. Thanks for listening to Inside the Jewish Mind, a JLI podcast. Be sure to join us every week for fresh insights and timeless Jewish ideas.
As always, stay curious, keep learning, and we'll see you next time.
