Rabbi Ari Lev: Simcha Shel Mitzvah: Joy as a Spiritual Practice
Rosh Hodesh Adar II
March 11, 2016
A friend recently forwarded me a buzzfeed article entitled: “22 Home Decor Pieces that will make you wish you were dead.” I open the link. Phrases like, “Life is too short to be anything but happy.” “Happiness is a choice” “Make today count, you’ll never get it back” “There is always a reason to smile.”
Did anyone else see this? I emailed back, “ugh, compulsory happiness.” And left it at that.
Then here comes Rosh Hodesh Adar - the new month of the Jewish month of Adar, which began today! - and along with it a slogan that could have been one of the slogans on a decorative pillow from buzzfeed - “Mi She’Nichnas Adar - Marbin b’simcha - When the month of Adar arrives, Amp up your joy!”
Amp up my Joy?! Are you kidding?
How is this any better than the decorative couch pillow that reads, “There is always a reason to smile”? Mi SheNichnas Adar, Marbin b’Simcha - Why when the sliver of this new moon comes upon us, should we find reason to celebrate?
Now granted, in a Jewish leap year such as the current year when Adar comes late and Spring seems to be arriving early comes early and it’s 80 degrees in March, it’s a little easier to feel joyful.
But remember winter? Remember days of limited sunlight and seasonal affect disorder? Remember the darkness of our times? Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray? Remember that the average life expectancy of TWOC is 35? Remember the presidential candidate unwilling to condemn the Ku Klux Klan?
When Adar arrives, Amp up your Joy?!
The answer lies in the last word Simcha - Joy. Often used as in I am going to a simcha - a joyous occasion. Simcha is not plain old happiness. Which don’t get me wrong, is a great thing. We have other words in Judaism for happiness - a long list in fact appears in the traditional blessings recited at a wedding - Gila, Rina, Ditzah, Hedvah - gladness, jubilation, cheer, delight.
But Simcha,
Simcha is different. Simcha is a shared experience of the sacred.
It is a well we dip into, draw from and create together.
Joy might be something we can cultivate, but even more so, it is something that cultivates us. If we let it.
Joy comes to us through celebratory moments in our lives and the lives of our loved ones, some more conventional than others - adoptions, weddings, births, graduations, receiving citizenship.
And Joy is also woven into the rhythm of Jewish time. Some seasons teach us about the importance of grieving, or of forgiveness. And this, says the new moon of Adar, is the season of joy. Joy comes to drag us out of our homes and walk us into the light of spring. We need to get reacquainted with joy to experience the magic of Purim and the liberation of Passover. Joy is a spiritual practice.
In Hebrew this is known as Simchah Shel Mitzvah - Literally translated as, Joy of the mitzvah. Here a mitzvah takes on a different meaning. Most of us might think of it as a commandment or an obligation, or maybe even a good deed. But here, a mitzvah is a path to joy, a place where you can draw from the well of God’s goodness. A mitzvah is something to look forward to doing. This is a different than what is traditionally called the yoke of the commandments.
which is understood to mean the burden of so many rules and expectations.
The following story illustrates another way to experience mitzvot.
---
It is a pious custom to bake special matzahs right on the eve of Passover, in order to be engaged fully in the celebration of our freedom. To make matzo properly, you need to use water that has been left standing overnight, to ensure its absolute stillness. Once...where water was still brought from the river, an elderly rabbi was seen carrying two heavy buckets full of water for this purpose tied to a yoke around her neck. A neighbor riding by in a horse-drawn cart saw her and said, "Come here, rabbi! Put your buckets on my wagon, and I'll give you a ride." The rabbi looked up smiling, and said, "I have the joy of doing this mitzvah only once a year, and you want me to give it away to a horse?"
Here the burden itself has become a source of joy.
When the ancient Israelites wandered through the wilderness for forty years, a certain group of Levites were given the privilege of carrying the Holy Ark. The very Ark we will read about tomorrow morning.
“How heavy it must have been,” somebody commented, “with those massive stone tablets inside it!”
“No,” a Levite answered. “The Ark carried those of us who bore it.”
The same is true of any mitzvah carried out with joy.
It elevates and carries us as we do it.
---
All week I have been asking myself,
How can we responsibly talk about a joy in such a broken world?
In fact, it is a question I have asked myself years. I have been teaching Jewish spirituality in prisons nearly every week for the past two years. I often teach a series of classes based on a book called “Judaism’s 10 best ideas” - it is a great primer on major Jewish concepts and a book I would love to study with all of you. The first 3 times I taught this book, I skipped the first chapter, entitled, “Simchah - Joy as a religious precept.” I could not muster the courage to talk about joy in prison. It seemed like rubbing salt in the wound of men longing to see the faces of their young children, literally starved for joy.
This fall I started working at a new jail facility. The first program that I ran at this jail was a Hanukkah party, this past December. And in walks Mordechai. He is an older cisgender Jewish man with an Israeli accent. He is someone who you will hear more about tomorrow morning as well. Mordechai is currently completing an 8 year jail sentence and is a regular student of mine.
So Mordechai walks in along with a handful of other rather beefy older men who had likely never been to a Hanukkah party before. I am playing some cheesy songs on an old boombox. The jail cook made some rather decent latkes and bimuelos, there is a banner that says Happy Hanukkah hanging on the wall. We begin by lighting candles and invoking the presence of loved ones, and then we proceed to play the most competitive game of Dreidel I have ever been part of. When the game ended, there were a few minutes left and Mordechai looks at me and says, can we dance the hora?
I must admit, I have never actually danced the hora on hanukkah.
But I figured, who am I to deny a hora!?
Mordechai broke out into song, and before we knew it we were all singing Oseh Shalom at the top of our lungs and swinging each other. The room got sweaty, round and round, in and out, louder and louder. These men, who moments ago would not even share half a chocolate coin with one another, were hugging, and teary - and so was I.
It was the best Hanukkah party I had ever been to. And it was anything but a decorative pillow slogan. And in that moment I understood the words of Khalil Gibran:
A woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
This is the wisdom of Simcha Shel Mitzvah. The next time I saw them, all the men told me that party stayed with them all week. For the first time I had the courage to teach the chapter about Joy. I finally understood that Joy and suffering are inseparable parts of a spiritual path.
Mi SheNichnas Adar, Marbin b’simcha
With this new moon, may we marinate in Joy and let it carry us. May we find a way to experience Simcha Shel Mitzvah - Judaism as a joyful spiritual practice. And may we have the courage to let it all go and find our inner hora - if not for ourselves, then for one another, and if not for each other, than certainly for sake of our collective liberation.
March 11, 2016
A friend recently forwarded me a buzzfeed article entitled: “22 Home Decor Pieces that will make you wish you were dead.” I open the link. Phrases like, “Life is too short to be anything but happy.” “Happiness is a choice” “Make today count, you’ll never get it back” “There is always a reason to smile.”
Did anyone else see this? I emailed back, “ugh, compulsory happiness.” And left it at that.
Then here comes Rosh Hodesh Adar - the new month of the Jewish month of Adar, which began today! - and along with it a slogan that could have been one of the slogans on a decorative pillow from buzzfeed - “Mi She’Nichnas Adar - Marbin b’simcha - When the month of Adar arrives, Amp up your joy!”
Amp up my Joy?! Are you kidding?
How is this any better than the decorative couch pillow that reads, “There is always a reason to smile”? Mi SheNichnas Adar, Marbin b’Simcha - Why when the sliver of this new moon comes upon us, should we find reason to celebrate?
Now granted, in a Jewish leap year such as the current year when Adar comes late and Spring seems to be arriving early comes early and it’s 80 degrees in March, it’s a little easier to feel joyful.
But remember winter? Remember days of limited sunlight and seasonal affect disorder? Remember the darkness of our times? Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray? Remember that the average life expectancy of TWOC is 35? Remember the presidential candidate unwilling to condemn the Ku Klux Klan?
When Adar arrives, Amp up your Joy?!
The answer lies in the last word Simcha - Joy. Often used as in I am going to a simcha - a joyous occasion. Simcha is not plain old happiness. Which don’t get me wrong, is a great thing. We have other words in Judaism for happiness - a long list in fact appears in the traditional blessings recited at a wedding - Gila, Rina, Ditzah, Hedvah - gladness, jubilation, cheer, delight.
But Simcha,
Simcha is different. Simcha is a shared experience of the sacred.
It is a well we dip into, draw from and create together.
Joy might be something we can cultivate, but even more so, it is something that cultivates us. If we let it.
Joy comes to us through celebratory moments in our lives and the lives of our loved ones, some more conventional than others - adoptions, weddings, births, graduations, receiving citizenship.
And Joy is also woven into the rhythm of Jewish time. Some seasons teach us about the importance of grieving, or of forgiveness. And this, says the new moon of Adar, is the season of joy. Joy comes to drag us out of our homes and walk us into the light of spring. We need to get reacquainted with joy to experience the magic of Purim and the liberation of Passover. Joy is a spiritual practice.
In Hebrew this is known as Simchah Shel Mitzvah - Literally translated as, Joy of the mitzvah. Here a mitzvah takes on a different meaning. Most of us might think of it as a commandment or an obligation, or maybe even a good deed. But here, a mitzvah is a path to joy, a place where you can draw from the well of God’s goodness. A mitzvah is something to look forward to doing. This is a different than what is traditionally called the yoke of the commandments.
which is understood to mean the burden of so many rules and expectations.
The following story illustrates another way to experience mitzvot.
---
It is a pious custom to bake special matzahs right on the eve of Passover, in order to be engaged fully in the celebration of our freedom. To make matzo properly, you need to use water that has been left standing overnight, to ensure its absolute stillness. Once...where water was still brought from the river, an elderly rabbi was seen carrying two heavy buckets full of water for this purpose tied to a yoke around her neck. A neighbor riding by in a horse-drawn cart saw her and said, "Come here, rabbi! Put your buckets on my wagon, and I'll give you a ride." The rabbi looked up smiling, and said, "I have the joy of doing this mitzvah only once a year, and you want me to give it away to a horse?"
Here the burden itself has become a source of joy.
When the ancient Israelites wandered through the wilderness for forty years, a certain group of Levites were given the privilege of carrying the Holy Ark. The very Ark we will read about tomorrow morning.
“How heavy it must have been,” somebody commented, “with those massive stone tablets inside it!”
“No,” a Levite answered. “The Ark carried those of us who bore it.”
The same is true of any mitzvah carried out with joy.
It elevates and carries us as we do it.
---
All week I have been asking myself,
How can we responsibly talk about a joy in such a broken world?
In fact, it is a question I have asked myself years. I have been teaching Jewish spirituality in prisons nearly every week for the past two years. I often teach a series of classes based on a book called “Judaism’s 10 best ideas” - it is a great primer on major Jewish concepts and a book I would love to study with all of you. The first 3 times I taught this book, I skipped the first chapter, entitled, “Simchah - Joy as a religious precept.” I could not muster the courage to talk about joy in prison. It seemed like rubbing salt in the wound of men longing to see the faces of their young children, literally starved for joy.
This fall I started working at a new jail facility. The first program that I ran at this jail was a Hanukkah party, this past December. And in walks Mordechai. He is an older cisgender Jewish man with an Israeli accent. He is someone who you will hear more about tomorrow morning as well. Mordechai is currently completing an 8 year jail sentence and is a regular student of mine.
So Mordechai walks in along with a handful of other rather beefy older men who had likely never been to a Hanukkah party before. I am playing some cheesy songs on an old boombox. The jail cook made some rather decent latkes and bimuelos, there is a banner that says Happy Hanukkah hanging on the wall. We begin by lighting candles and invoking the presence of loved ones, and then we proceed to play the most competitive game of Dreidel I have ever been part of. When the game ended, there were a few minutes left and Mordechai looks at me and says, can we dance the hora?
I must admit, I have never actually danced the hora on hanukkah.
But I figured, who am I to deny a hora!?
Mordechai broke out into song, and before we knew it we were all singing Oseh Shalom at the top of our lungs and swinging each other. The room got sweaty, round and round, in and out, louder and louder. These men, who moments ago would not even share half a chocolate coin with one another, were hugging, and teary - and so was I.
It was the best Hanukkah party I had ever been to. And it was anything but a decorative pillow slogan. And in that moment I understood the words of Khalil Gibran:
A woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
This is the wisdom of Simcha Shel Mitzvah. The next time I saw them, all the men told me that party stayed with them all week. For the first time I had the courage to teach the chapter about Joy. I finally understood that Joy and suffering are inseparable parts of a spiritual path.
Mi SheNichnas Adar, Marbin b’simcha
With this new moon, may we marinate in Joy and let it carry us. May we find a way to experience Simcha Shel Mitzvah - Judaism as a joyful spiritual practice. And may we have the courage to let it all go and find our inner hora - if not for ourselves, then for one another, and if not for each other, than certainly for sake of our collective liberation.