Happy With Our Lot

Rabbi Melanie Aron

January 25, 2003

Imagine you are sitting on an airplane and someone sitting next to you is glancing through a magazine called Epicurean Life. As you might expect, it's a beautiful glossy journal dealing with expensive things, things you might covet: fine restaurants, elegant hotels, yachts and gorgeous desserts. Since we normally associate Epicureans with everything that is luxurious, sensual, even gluttonous, we should not be surprised, but in fact Epicurus himself was more in tune with what Sarah had to say about the 10th commandment, than with the magazine that bears his name.

Pursuing the question: "What do I need for a happy life?", Epicurus reached the conclusion, that after basic needs for food, shelter and clothing are met; additional acquisitions do not contribute significantly to human happiness. After philosophical investigation, he concluded that it is friendship, liberty and thought that are most essential to a happy life and not grand houses, banquets, or even fame or power.

Humans tend towards feelings of unease and often in today's world attempt to deal with those feelings by acquiring things that they believe will make them feel better. When we are feeling unhappy, or unsettle, our society advises us to "go out and shop", but philosophy and religion provide us with other alternatives.

Philosophy urges us to cure our dis-ease with rational thought, and religion, or in this case more particularly Judaism, with right action. Philosophers urge us to use our mind to overcome our bodies, as it were, and therefore Alain de Botton, can write a self help book called The Consolations of Philosophy. He believes that if we think about our problems and reflect on them, we can overcome them. When we are feeling ill at ease, we can test our desires for expensive objects, for example, against what we know about how past purchases have turned out. We can endure our frustrations better if we think rationally about their causes.

There is much in Judaism that is rational and certainly thought is highly praised. But Judaism recognizes that we are not always rational beings. Strong feelings, little understood passions, not just love, but also resentments and jealousies, can make us believe we are acting rationally when truly we are not. The commandment " lo tachmod thou shalt not covet", is stated twice, alone of all the ten commandments, because of the human propensity to rationalize and self-justify. Following the desires of our eyes, can lead to trouble, as when Eve noticed that the forbidden fruit was a delight to the eyes, but God's commandments come to ensure, in the words of the cmitzvah of the tallit, that "not be seduced by our heart or led stray by our eyes."

The rabbis noticed that we don't covet the impossible, in their time- the moon, but only that which is a little out of reach. I joke sometimes and note that I am a terrible dieter but a great faster. Though Chocolate cake is bad for me, I am often induced to take a little piece, but that which is religiously forbidden to me, like food on Yom Kippur, is no temptation, because it is beyond the realm of my desires. The tenth commandment is twinned with the tenth miracle, the miracle of the manna, the desert food. Each person received enough manna, but could not take more than they needed.

Judaism believes that right behavior will induce right feeling, giving tzedakah will make us feel generous, and not following our covetous desires will weaken them, rather then allowing them to overcome us. Then we will be able to fulfill the positive command of being sameach bechelko, happy in our portion, in all the good things that we can enjoy.