“Where Goodness and Joy Intersect,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Sermon and Shabbat Awakenings

Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon, October 25, 2024
Shabbat Awakenings November 1, 2024

Welcome to Shabbat Awakening as we move into Shabbat. This week I share with you the d’var Torah I offered during last week’s Qabbalat Shabbat. You can listen to it as a podcast here or watch the video of the sermon here.

I figured I would get a head start on Yom Kippur for next year with a confession right now.

As we began the recent holiday season of 5785 that we just ended yesterday, I had great trepidation and anxiety about the way this community would enter into the new year. I feared anger, followed by a cascade of resentments and ill feelings about the world, about antisemitism, about Israel, about the election, all of which were likely and probably meanderings of the mind because of the year we all experienced — and frankly, are still experiencing. But what made me most afraid was that all of these reactions would be taken out on all of us. That is the confession, but here is the truth of all of this:

I assumed the worst and received the best.

In every encounter along the way from the beginning of Elul to the shofar blast of Rosh Hashanah to the hand to heart on Yom Kippur to the waving of the lulav and etrog of Sukkot to the embracing dancing of Simchat Torah, it felt like a community holding on to one another with gratitude and appreciation, fueled by goodness and joy.

It is that very goodness and joy that has animated these holidays and this community despite all the trauma, disappointment, sadness, and loneliness weaving its way through the hours and minutes of our lives. We know and continue to learn that we can’t escape the vicissitudes of life. Yet the positive approach of goodness and joy can help us transcend it, just as the “Unetaneh Tokef” teaches us that prayer, righteous giving, and t’shuvah also help us navigate the mercurial winds of life.

As we come off of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, described by our tradition as the “time of our joy,” and move into this week’s Torah portion, with the creation story punctuated by the declaration that whatever was brought into existence was good, ki tov, the commentator, Sforno, teaches that it already was good, inherently so. God sees the good as a moment of awareness. In addition, not only good, but it also caused the possibility of goodness, of perceiving beauty, graciousness, and integrity in that which could grow, move, breathe. The world becomes filled with appreciation for that which is good, or even very good like human beings.

If we were to take the next 90 minutes or so, or maybe the next 90, days analyzing all the places where the Hebrew word tov, good, appears in the Bible, we would discover an interesting connection: intrinsic in the definition of good is joy, that which is pleasing, and happiness. This teaches us that goodness and joy are not two separate concepts but rather are interconnected in the spiritual realm.

The language of the Genesis text chooses its words wisely. Creation necessitates goodness, an attitude, a possibility, and a summary. We already know that creation of human beings—spoiler alert—will lead to fratricide with Cain and Abel and one awful flood, not to mention the hubris at the Tower of Babel or the incidence of the consequential choices regarding the bad apple with the snake in the creation story. Yet the foundation of what is good sets the course on which to move about in the world. Not goodness alone, however, goodness and happiness are complementary to one another.

But what does happiness really mean or entail? As Sylvia Boorstein notes, “happiness is an inside job.” It comes from within.

One of the liturgical refrains from the festivals reminds of which choice to make in our lives:

For blessing and not for curse
For life and not for death
For satisfaction and not for want

It is that last one that reminds me of what we learn in Pirkei Avot:

Who is happy? The one who is satisfied with one’s portion.

Sometimes that works and sometimes it is really hard to feel satisfaction amidst a world of worries.

So, here is where science comes in. The summer of 2023, I sat by a roof pool in Jerusalem overlooking the old city reading a book entitled, The Good Life. In that moment, I was feeling it. Little did I know what would transpire. Then I was intrigued to learn what two Harvard researchers discovered in the world’s longest scientific study of happiness that began in 1938 and continues to this day. They followed their subjects along with their entire families through the generations. They reaped much data about how to have a good and happy life.

Here is what they say:

Spoiler alert: The good life is a complicated life. For everybody.

The good life is joyful… and challenging. Full of love, but also pain.
And it never strictly happens; instead, the good life unfolds, through time. It is a process. It includes turmoil, calm, lightness, burdens, struggles, achievements, setbacks, leaps forward, and terrible falls. And of course, the good life always ends in death.
A cheery sales pitch, we know. (page 3)

And yet, the good life is defined over the course of thousands of interviews by what brings happiness.

And here, we go back to our Torah portion for one of the key statements. We have learned about what is good, but we also discover what is not good.

“It is not good for a human being to be alone.” (Gen. 2:18)

Goodness and happiness find their place amidst relationships of all kinds. Science shows it and so does the religious life. We experience happiness through congregating in a community, by being in relationship with one another. Maybe that seems obvious but not necessarily appreciated for its power.

Relational power in the context of social justice means what impact we can have on improving the world and others’ lives working together.

Relational power in the context of happiness, joy, and goodness means that whenever we find ourselves in the presence of others in community we nourish the goodness and joy we can experience together.

It all sounds good, but it all still takes work. The study shows that and we know that we have to make an effort to allow it to unfold. As Sylvia Boorstein remarks in her book:

It’s your resolve, your own intention to have your mind rest in its own goodness that makes the difference.

As we continue to gather this year and beyond, it is the goodness and the joy we possess, offered from our tradition to nurture together to make all of us stronger, happier, and the best which I feel blessed to receive from all of you.

Shabbat Shalom! שבת שלום

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