When the Founding Fathers included the pursuit of happiness as an American right and entitlement, it is almost as if they conceded that happiness can be pursued, but it is unlikely to ever be attained.  If you look around, you can’t help but notice that for many, the pursuit has grown tiring and indeed, many have given up.  In the last twenty years, there has been an astounding increase in antidepressant use by Americans. One might even suggest that the growing effort to legalize marijuana nationally is driven by a community eager to find pleasure and happiness, even if it is by escaping reality.

In 2006, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert wrote a book called “Stumbling on Happiness.”  In it, he argues that the things and experiences we typically predict and imagine will bring us happiness, rarely do.  Rather, he says, happiness is elusive, and we should learn from how others have stumbled upon it.  The first part of his thesis is undeniable.  Study after study has concluded that money, fame, and power not only don’t contribute to happiness, but often are obstacles to and detractors from experiencing it.  So how do we finally attain it?

1)   Happiness is not an emotion; it is a decision.  Stop waiting passively to feel it and start actively choosing to be it.

In Parshas Ki Savo, the Torah says, u’vau kol ha’berachos ha’eleh, v’hisigucha, which literally translates as “All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you.”  What does it mean v’hisigucha, to be overtaken by blessing?  Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin explains that Hashem gives each of us beracha, blessing in our lives.  That blessing can manifest itself in all types of form – material possessions, meaningful relationships, special skills, wonderful opportunities, family, and the list could go on and on.   The first blessing is the particular gift.  But even more important and an even greater blessing is v’hisigucha…to recognize, appreciate and acknowledge the blessing.

Simcha, happiness, occurs when we make the decision to focus on the blessings in our lives, no matter how challenging or formidable the struggles we face simultaneously.  If our happiness results from the blessings we already have, we can always find happiness because we always have at least something.  But if our happiness is determined by what we don’t have, “If only I had more money, a nicer house, a better job, a more loving spouse, more loyal children, etc.” we will never be happy because we can always have more.  Therefore, by definition, there will always be something we don’t have.

The decision to be b’simcha, happy, doesn’t only affect us but it can positively influence our environment and family. Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a physician at Harvard Medical School, authored a study that concludes that happiness, scientifically speaking, is literally contagious.  The same way a person yawning causes others to also begin to yawn, when one person smiles or is happy, it is infectious and draws smiles and happiness from others.

It has been suggested homiletically that the etymology of the word simcha comes from sam-mo’ach, focus your thoughts.  Make the decision to be happy and the feeling will follow.

2)   Happiness comes from giving, not from getting.  It comes from being a giver, not a taker.

After many years concentrating on what makes people depressed, social scientists are now beginning to study what makes people happy.  Their answer is counter-intuitive.  Paradoxically, it turns out the biggest obstacle to achieving happiness is our own pursuit of it.  When happiness is defined by our needs, our wants, and our desires, it will remain elusive and unattainable for we will never have everything.  Instead, studies show that people report better health and greater happiness when they volunteer for a worthwhile cause or spend time helping others.  Moreover, studies have shown the efficacy of volunteering and helping in combating depression.

Happiness does not result from a focus inward, but it results from the deep satisfaction and profound gratification of imitating God and helping others.  At the end of Hilchos Megillah (2:17), the Rambam makes an incredible comment.  He asks, if a person has limited funds and has to choose between having a more lavish and luxurious Purim meal, more extravagant and impressive mishloach manos, or giving more matanos l’evyonim, money to the poor, what should he do and why?

The Rambam codifies that the resources should be dedicated to helping the indigent and poor because Purim is about simcha and there is no greater happiness than bringing joy to others, especially the underprivileged.

Someone once wrote to the Lubavitcher Rebbe z’l in a state of deep depression and hopelessness.  The letter essentially said, “I would like the Rebbe’s help. I wake up each day sad and apprehensive. I can’t concentrate. I find it hard to pray. I keep the commandments, but I find no spiritual satisfaction. I go to the synagogue but I feel alone. I begin to wonder what life is about. I need help.”

The Rebbe sent a brilliant reply back that did not use even a single word. He simply circled the first word of every sentence in the letter and sent it back. The author of the letter understood, and he was on the path to greater happiness and hope.  The circled word at the beginning of each sentence was ‘I’.

A self-centered person, a taker, can never be happy in life because they could never take enough.  Givers find joy in doing for others and therefore have great access to happiness because there are always ample opportunities to give.

3)   Surrender control and let go, let God.

Several summers ago, on a visit to Israel, I decided to go skydiving and to appreciate our homeland from a new perspective.  After a comprehensive five minutes of instruction, I was taken up in a tiny plane that if I wasn’t crazy enough to jump out of, I was crazy to get into.  With a soft helmet on, and goggles on my face, they placed me with my feet dangling off the side of the airplane.  We were 12,000 feet in the air and the beautiful land of Israel was a fuzzy blur.  I vividly remember leaning over and looking down and feeling like I couldn’t breathe.

Before I could have second thoughts, I felt a nudge and out the plane I went.  I was heading towards Mother Earth travelling over 100 miles an hour.  The wind was rushing all around me, my arms and legs were extended, and I think I tasted my spleen.  For a brief moment, I felt panicked.  “This is absolutely nuts, what kind of crazy, insane person does this?” I thought to myself.  I started to get scared, worried and anxious and then I remembered.

Immediately behind me, attached by numerous metal latches and clips, was a big Israeli man who trains paratroopers in the Israeli army and who does these jumps around 8–10 times a day.  We jumped in tandem and the moment I remembered that he literally had my back, I felt the biggest relief and was able to enjoy the rest of this remarkable experience.

The difference between a miserable, painful, anxious experience and the experience of my life, was remembering there was someone who had my back and who knew what he was doing.  Six thousand feet and forty five seconds into the jump, he pulled the cord, the chute released, we sat up in the harness and for the next 10 minutes had the most extraordinary ride over Israel, checking out our magnificent homeland from the sky and giving Israel a huge virtual hug.

We need to take initiative, put forth our best efforts, and do everything we can to bring positive outcomes in our lives.  However, believing that we can control and manipulate every outcome and result places impossible stress and pressure that preclude our ability to experience happiness.  There is nothing more liberating, cathartic and joyful than doing our best, and then letting go of our need to control and allowing God do the rest.

No matter how hard we try and what kind of effort we produce, our lives are going to inevitably and invariably throw curveballs our way.  The difference between panicking anxiously or enjoying the ride is our ability to let go.  Perhaps this is what the pasuk means when it tells us, “Ivdu es Hashem b’simcha, serve Hashem with joy.”  The greatest service of Hashem is feeling the simcha that can only come by recognizing that He has our back so we can enjoy the ride.

Stop pursuing happiness and start experiencing it.

Prior to 1974, the standard practice for dealing with someone who was choking was to whack the afflicted person on the back. Dr. Henry Heimlich argued hitting them that way can force the obstruction further into the gullet, rather than dislodge it.  He worked on various theories attempting a better way before ultimately coming up with the technique of putting one’s arms around the person choking and exerting upward abdominal thrusts, just above the navel and below the ribs, with the linked hands in a fist, until the obstruction is dislodged.

Heimlich published preliminary findings from his experiments with anti-choking techniques in a US medical journal. Newspapers around the US quickly began picking up on examples where readers, including restaurant owners, had caught word of Heimlich’s article and had tried the maneuver on choking casualties, with successful results.

Word spread, and that summer the Journal of the American Medical Association published an editorial in which, with the surgeon’s permission, the technique was officially referred to for the first time as the “Heimlich Maneuver.” The technique became widely adopted nationally and internationally and today it appears on posters in most restaurants and is taught in many schools.

Despite introducing the technique, Heimlich had never actually used it the 42 years of its existence. In 2016, Dr. Heimlich was in the dining room of his retirement home in Cincinnati. A fellow resident at the next table began to choke.  Without hesitation, Heimlich spun her around in her chair so he could get behind her and administered several upward thrusts with a fist below the chest until the piece of meat she was choking on popped out of her throat and she could breathe again.

At 96 years old, Dr. Henry Heimlich had finally executed the Heimlich maneuver to save a life.  A short time later, the 87-year-old woman for whom Dr. Heimlich was an angel here on earth, wrote him a note saying she was so thankful that “God put me in this seat next to you.” 

Our Parsha begins with the description of Yaakov’s dream that included angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven.  Many commentaries wonder why the passuk describes them as “going up and coming down”; shouldn’t angels descend from heaven and then ascend back up to it?  I would ask a more fundamental question: why do angels need a ladder at all, can’t they float or be beamed down to earth and back up to heaven?

The answer can be found by looking at other appearances of angels in Sefer Bereishis. When Yaakov is poised to reunite with his brother Esav, he first sends “malachim” to Esav. Rashi there interprets “malachim” as “מלאכים ממש,” real heavenly angels.   The Ibn Ezra disagrees.  He says Yaakov sent human messengers who came through for Yaakov and did just what he needed at that moment.   

Later still, when Yaakov sends Yosef out to look for his brothers, the Torah cryptically tells us someone appeared to Yosef and asked, “who are you looking for, maybe I can help direct you.”  Rashi says that person was none other than the heavenly angel Gavriel.  Again the Ibn Ezra disagrees and says, no, it was a human being who at that moment stepped up for Yosef and asked how he could help.

Based on the Ibn Ezra’s consistent explanation, perhaps we can suggest that the angels in Yaakov’s dream were not in fact heavenly angels but men.  Until that dream, Yaakov was an איש תם יושב אוהלים, a pure person who sat in the tent and studied Torah.  Now, he was bringing all of that learning, knowledge, wisdom, and insight into the world.  Perhaps through this dream and vision, Hashem was communicating that spirituality and angels are not made in heaven, but rather angels are made here on earth. Maybe that is why they are described as going up and coming down.

Yaakov’s mission—and ours—is to be the angel for others.  When we come through for others, when we ask how we can help, when we make the difference for them, we bring a piece of heaven down here to earth. Through our actions we build an actual stairway to heaven. 

Yaakov awakens from his dream and becomes dedicated to being an angel.  When he goes to the well, he sees lazy employees and he immediately says, אחי, my brothers who I care about, the day isn’t over, we have to keep working.  He sees a young lady who can’t access the well because of a huge boulder covering it and he spreads his angelic wings and lifts it for her.   He is Rachel’s angel.  He ascends to heaven.

When Lavan replaces Rachel with Leah on Yaakov’s wedding night, Leah must have panicked.  It will be humiliating when Yaakov is expecting his beloved and finds Leah instead.  What did Rachel do?  She had every right to expose the situation. Instead, to save her sister the embarrassment, she became her angel and gave her the simanim, the secret code that she and Yaakov had formulated.

We must not passively wait for angels to descend from heaven, to relieve pain, offer support, provide help, and bring salvation.  We must be those angels, proactively stepping up and stepping in to make a difference in the lives of others. 

For nearly  years, $100 bills with an identifying mark were randomly found all over Salem, Oregon, in markets, at stores, fairs and even on the street. They helped people pay their electric bill, make their rent, buy their prescription medication, and even provide them shelter for a couple of nights. At last count, the mystery philanthropist has anonymously given out of over $50,000 worth of $100 bills and has become the angel for so many.

In July of 2017, Rosie Gagnon laced up her sneakers for her daily run around the hills of Virginia’s Shenandoah County. When Rosie hit mile six of eight, the water she’d packed along was gone and her face was bright red. As she passed by one particular home, a man pulling down the driveway stopped and poked his head out the window.  He offered her a bottle of water and it was exactly what she needed.  He then asked her if she was the one he sees running past his house every day.  She answered yes.  The next day on her run at mile six out of eight again, there was a cold bottle waiting for her on a green telephone box at the edge of the road. And then again the next day, and the day after that.  Six months after leaving water each day she runs, Rosie was interviewed.  She explained that she packs along her own water, of course, but it never lasts as long as she needs. But there, with a huge hill looming in her final stretch, she always knows there’s help ahead.

There are countless stories of humans ascending and descending the stairway to heaven to be someone else’s angel.  Twenty-two years after inventing his technique, at 96 years old, Dr. Henry Heimlich became that choking woman’s angel.  When Rosie Gagnon had to face the daily run up a steep hill, Bruce Riffey was her angel who put out water that gave her the encouragement to make the climb. 

There are people all around us who are choking on life, facing steep uphill climbs, or stuck on the proverbial side of the road. They are struggling emotionally, financially, with loneliness or in despair.  Say hello, give the benefit of the doubt, offer a kind word or a kind gesture.  You might be somebody’s only angel of the day, their gift straight from heaven.

With seven gold medals, including three at the recent Tokyo Olympics, swimmer Penny Oleksiak is Canada’s most decorated Olympian.  But not everyone always believed in her.  Following her recent success, she tweeted, “I want to thank that teacher in high school who told me to stop swimming to focus on school (because) swimming wouldn’t get me anywhere. This is what dreams are made of.” She followed it up by sharing, “Also in reference to my last tweet – no shade at all towards teachers in general, my sister is a teacher and I see her inspiring kids every day. Most of my teachers saw the vision and pushed me towards it. That one who constantly dragged me down though, WOAT (Worst of All-Time).”

A friend of mine recently shared with me that in high school, he had an administrator who didn’t believe in him and regularly made that known. When he told the administrator that he was going to study hospitality, he asked, “Do you plan on being a bartender for the rest of your life?”  Today, my friend doesn’t tend bar, he tends to the Jewish people and is a successful Jewish communal professional making a difference every day.  I shudder to think of what he and we would be missing out on had he listened to this educator instead of those who encouraged him.   

Many of us have a WOAT influence in our lives. If it’s not a teacher, a family member or a colleague, it is a voice of negativity and doubt in our own head.  It tells us, “You are imperfect, you have shortcomings and deficiencies, you aren’t the smartest, you are not the best looking, the most creative, and will never be the most successful.  You have made mistakes, underachieved, set goals that you failed to realize, and you will never amount to anything.”

That voice can weigh us down, hold us back, or cause us to give up on our dreams and aspirations. But here is the catch.  That person or that voice only holds us back if we listen to it, give it attention or consideration. Like Penny Oleksiak or my hospitable friend, we can replace the WOAT with a GOAT (Greatest of all Time) person or inner voice to listen to instead, one who believes in us, propels, and pushes us and lifts us to aspire to become the best version of ourselves.  

In our Parsha, just moments before Sedom is destroyed, the angel says to Lot, “Run for your life. Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away.” Despite the warning of the angel, Lot’s wife couldn’t help herself.  She looked and became a pillar of salt.  In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus claimed to have seen the pillar of salt which was Lot’s wife.

Why were they warned not to look back? The classic answer is that Lot and his family weren’t righteous and in truth deserved to suffer the same punishment as Sedom.  They weren’t worthy of witnessing the downfall and were therefore told not to look.

The Divrei Shmuel, Rav Shmuel Weinberg of Slonim, gives a different perspective.  In telling Lot and his family, “Don’t look back,” the angel was teaching a fundamental lesson in life.  When you have made mistakes, when you underachieved or came up short, don’t look back, always look forward.  Don’t focus on your past and beat yourself up, doesn’t listen to voices of negativity and defeatism, look to the future and the opportunities it presents.  Obviously, we need to understand what drove the mistakes we made and feel remorseful for them, but we cannot and must not ruminate on them.

Lot’s wife turned around. Whether she was nostalgic for her sinful past or simply felt guilty about it, either way she turned into salt.  Salt was not a random vehicle for this punishment. Salt, by its very nature, preserves and keeps what it is spread on intact.  It inhibits the ability to grow, to change, or to move forward.  Lot’s wife literally got stuck in her past.  She couldn’t move past it, couldn’t look forward, and didn’t let herself start again. 

This is the classic methodology of our yetzer harah, the self-destructive voice we all confront.  We tend to harp on our mess-ups and mistakes, and we tell ourselves we are incapable, unworthy. We therefore experience yeiush, we give up on becoming better at whatever we want to improve.  Indeed, we spend a lot of time dwelling on the failures from our past.  Research shows that at least 70% of the time we think about the past, we only relive the negative aspects of our lives.

But according to psychologists at Yale and the University of California, obsessing over a mistake not only won’t change the past but it will make it worse.  Their study shows that living a mistake over and over impairs our problem-solving abilities. It leads to increased negative thoughts and depression. It even erodes our support network because no one wants to hear from the person who can’t let things go.  Essentially, dwelling on past mistakes puts us in, and keeps us in, a bad state, which is of course the very thing we’re trying to get out of.

But moving on and silencing the WOAT in us sounds easier than done.  Many who would never bully someone else still bully themselves with negative thoughts.  We tend to beat ourselves up and harp on things we could have or should have done differently.  But that thinking sabotages our very future and forfeits our present. 

This is what we daven for every evening when we ask Hashem in Maariv, haseir Satan milfaneinu u’mei’achareinu, remove the Satan from before us and from after us.  Why would we confront a Satan from behind us?  It is critical to pray that we not only find the strength and will to overcome our urges and temptations when we confront them, but that if we do fail, we can put it behind us and move on, not harp or get stuck. Each night, as we reflect on the day that was, including bad choices or uncomfortable mistakes, we pray to have the strength and conviction to hear the GOAT in us, not the WOAT in us.

The Torah begins with a description of creation. Of course, we learn of heaven and earth, sun, moon, stars and constellations, the animal kingdom, birds, fish, the earth, vegetation and of course the creation of a human being in the image of God.  But, if we look closer, there are other creations, other unprecedented phenomena that are introduced in Bereishis. 

For example, our parsha introduces us to the first incident of “sin,” of poor judgment in human history.  When Chava eats from the eitz ha’daas, the tree of knowledge, and encourages her husband Adom to join her, they create for the world the concept of “sin,” the precedent of disobedience, rebelliousness and insurrection. 

Soon after that concept is introduced, it gets repeated by Adom and Chava’s son Kayin, but this time with even greater consequences.  Kayin and Hevel each offer their own sacrifice to God.  Hashem accepts Hevel’s and rejects Kayin’s korban.  Kayin gets jealous which leads him to murder his own brother.

An amazing conversation then ensues between Kayin and the Almighty.  Va’yomer Hashem el Kayin ei Hevel achicha? God says – Kayin, any idea where your brother Hevel might be?  Kayin gets wise with God and says “lo yadati, ha’shomer achi anochi, I have no idea, am I my brother’s keeper?”  At this point, God gets angry.  “Meh asisa, kol dmei achicah tzoakim eily min ha’adamah, what did you do, your brother’s blood is calling to me from the earth.”

What is going on in this conversation?  Why was God toying with Kayin by asking rhetorically, do you know where Hevel is?  And did Kayin really think he would be exonerated with the defense of “Am I my brother’s keeper”?  And why doesn’t God just say, I know you killed Hevel and you will now be accountable?  Why does He phrase it as “what did you do, your brother’s blood is screaming to me?”

The Kli Yakar, Rav Shlomo Efraim Lunshitz, who lived in the early part of the 17^th century in Prague, has a magnificent and novel interpretation.  Adom was the first to be disobedient and to defy God.  He was explicitly told to refrain from the tree of knowledge and he did so anyway.  Kayin, however, was the very first to do a different type of sin.  If you think about it, nobody, including Kayin, was ever told not to murder. 

Indeed, the Kli Yakar says, that is exactly what Kayin told God in his defense.  Of course Kayin understood what God was saying when He asked where is Hevel.  Kayin wasn’t pretending that he didn’t know where Hevel was, he was pleading innocence on the basis of ignorance:  I was never told that murder is wrong.  “Lo yadati – I did not know that I wasn’t allowed to kill him.  Ha’shomer achi anochi – when did you tell me that I have to protect my brother and that I am not allowed to end his life?” 

God responds to Kayin, your brother’s blood is screaming for me.  The Kli Yakar explains that God is telling Kayin there are some things you don’t need to be told. Yes, there are mitzvos that we would never know unless we were commanded.  But there are aspects of life and of ethical conduct that should be obvious to us and that we don’t need to be explicitly instructed.  Adom violated the first, Kayin introduced the latter. 

My friend and colleague Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz suggests that this is what the Talmud means when it sometimes says – lamah li kra, sevara hu, why do I need a pasuk to learn a law when I can arrive at it through my own logic.  A verse is superfluous and unnecessary if it can be intuited from nature.

The Gemara (Avoda Zara 25a) calls Bereishis “Sefer Ha’Yashar,” often translated as the book of the righteous.  But the truth is yashar means straight, upright, honest and mentschlich.  The Netziv in his introduction to Bereishis explains that it is the Avos who are called “Yashar” because they practiced kindness and compassion with the Almighty, with their family and with strangers.

But perhaps the lesson of Sefer HaYashar begins with the story of Kayin.  Ignorance may be bliss, but it is no defense for morally corrupt, unethical and inexcusable behavior. From the mistake of Adom and Chava we learn not to defy God and His commands.  From Kayin we learn that there are some things that are wrong even if we aren’t explicitly instructed against them. Finding a loophole, an out, or claiming technically this isn’t wrong, is not a legitimate way to live a Torah life. 

The Torah tells us (Devarim 6:17) “V’asisa hayashar v’hatov b’einei Hashem, Do what is right and good in the eyes of Hashem.”  What does this generic statement mean?  How do I fulfill this command? 

The Ramban explains:

This is a great concept, for it is impossible to mention in the Torah all of the modes of behavior for a person to follow with his neighbors and acquaintances, and all of the details of his business dealings and all the regulations for the betterment of society and of states.  However, after mentioning many of them such as don’t gossip, don’t take revenge…it goes on to say here in a general manner that one should do what is good and right in every situation.

In other words, the Ramban is telling us that as limitless as the Torah is, it is impossible to imagine and legislate for every single scenario man is destined to confront.  Therefore, in addition to the detailed laws, the Torah charges us to always ask ourselves a simple question: I may not know if there is a passuk about my situation, or a specific Halacha in Shulchan Aruch that tells me the direct answer, but is what I am about to do right and good?  Would God want me to do it?  Would I do it if I could see God standing next to me?

We spend a tremendous amount of time studying, analyzing, and focusing on the rules and laws.  We have too often neglected to teach and model the essence of a Torah way of life, which is to engage every decision in our lives by asking, is this what God wants me to do?  Am I bringing Him nachas, joy and pride?  Am I advancing His vision for society?  Does this pass the test of ha’yashar v’hatov, the right and the good?

The first lesson of the Torah is to be yashar, don’t be an operator.  Be straight and honest and do what is right, even when it doesn’t say explicitly anywhere that this is wrong.   The lack of a source in Shulchan Aruch identifying this as assur is not a good enough reason to say it is mutar.  One must always ask themselves, what is the yashar thing to do and do it.