Shoftim 5772 - English

by Rabbi Joshua Kullock

Comunidad Hebrea de Guadalajara, México

One of the great themes of humanity is happiness. We live our lives trying to be happy, trying to avoid suffering as much as possible.  Sometimes we do so easily, and sometimes it is rather harder.

If we pay attention, we can see that in our days, enormous quantities of resources are devoted to trying to convince us that through the purchase and use of a thousand and one products, we will finally gain happiness.  If we drink a particular drink we will be surrounded by beautiful women; if we wear a particular brand, we will somehow radiate a special charisma. 

According to what we are taught today, our happiness depends on our embarking on an endless cycle of consumption.

This paradigm becomes even more complex under the light of what is known as “planned obsolescence.”  This term applies to the strategy followed by many current industries, of producing consumer goods which have very limited useful lives.  Whereas decades ago we could find people who had the same refrigerator or the same car for their entire lives, the current trend is to change all the devices that accompany us in our daily routine more and more rapidly. We pursue happiness in a continuous consumption of products, which become obsolete at a breakneck pace.  Therefore, we embark on a vicious circle, which not only never ends but which never really satisfies us.  Happiness is simply not there.

But then, where is happiness?

If we think about the model we just described, and which explains much of what we do today, the eagerness to consume revolves around the paradigm that maintains that our happiness is built on our relationship with the “outside world.”  We are happy in stocking-up on goods, relationships, experiences, feelings, and everything that can be quantified.

However, we certainly know that things do not usually work that way.  There are people, even too many people, who have all they could ask for or want, and even so feel miserable, sad, and helpless.  Nothing seems to be enough.

In the tradition of Israel, and in contrast with the model continuously spread out in our times, happiness is not something that depends on the “outside world”, but rather a virtue which is won through working daily on ourselves, on our inner selves.  In this sense, it is not by chance that to the question “Who is rich”, the Talmud answers:  “Those who rejoice in their own lot” (Avot 4:1).  Happiness, therefore, is the result of a subjective and personal decision to see the world, with a view that allows us to recognize all that we have and all that for which we should be grateful.  In our tradition, happiness is a state of the spirit that does not depend on what happens in the world, but rather on how we face whatever is happening.

It is in this context that we must understand the laws of the king that appear in our parashah.  According to what we read on the last part of Deuteronomy 17, every Jewish king had to know that he could not possess too many horses or too many women.  Instead, the king was the only person who was obliged to write his own Torah, and to read it “all his life” (verse 19). The person with more power in his hands was, according to biblical legislation, the first one who had to understand and pass on, through his example, the ideal that a life worth living cannot be built upon the unlimited possession of goods, but rather on continuous study and meditation over those values that make us transcend.

Years later, when the institution of monarchy no longer exists among the Jewish people, it is worthwhile to remember that our tradition speaks about three crowns:  the crown of priesthood, bestowed on Aaron’s family; the crown of kingship, conferred on David’s family, and the crown of Torah, for all those who chose to embrace it with commitment and responsibility (Kohellet Rabbah 7).  Consequently, still in our time, each and every one of us can aspire to wear a crown on our heads, living a full life and, above all, working with perseverance on their own self, so as to gain a sincere inner happiness.

Shabbat Shalom u’Meborah!