Question of the Week:
I am struggling with a contradiction in Jewish belief. On the one hand we are meant to serve G-d with joy, and be happy with our lives. On the other hand, we are supposed to await the coming of Moshiach, when there will be an end to all the darkness in the world. How can we do both? How can we be happy as long as there is pain and suffering in the world? And if we are happy, isn't that being insensitive?
Answer:
This is a profound conundrum. To paraphrase the beginning of the holy book of Tanya, if you take a good look at the suffering that goes on around you, you could get depressed. If you ignore it, you become callous. Either way, how can we be joyous?
An answer to this lies in a shift in our attitude to happiness. Happiness is not a result, it is a cause. Rather than seeing happiness as being a product of our circumstances, see happiness as the driver of our circumstances.
Joy has the power to break down barriers. A happy and positive outlook can bring about happy and positive results. Not that happy people never suffer. But happy people don't let suffering define them. And that gives them the strength to see through tough times and come out the other end.
We can't control everything that happens to us or to others. There may be good reasons to be sad, and sadness is an understandable and sometimes appropriate reaction. But happiness is an action, not a reaction. We can always find reasons to be sad. Or we can focus on being happy.
This does not mean becoming blind to the suffering and pain in the world. The Zohar teaches that we can feel pain on one side of the heart while feeling joy on the other. I can cry and laugh at the same time. I can feel pain, my own or that of others, and at the same time be full of hope.
The belief in Moshiach means that the ending is happy, and it is inevitable. But don't just wait for a happy ending. Create it.
Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Moss
Source:
Talk of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, 14 Elul 5748, delivered on his wedding anniversary, the first after the passing of his wife.