ArcaMax

Q: Thank you for your columns. I would like to ask you about the one on happiness. If happiness comes from serving others, does that make God utilitarian?

Does God value people less if they can't go to soup kitchens? In Psalm 62 it says, "My soul finds rest in God alone." That sounds like knowing God is happiness. I believe that.

Also serving God should please us. But caring for oneself by soaking in a tub or going to a day spa should not be sins. What do you think? – (From C)

A: Thank you, dear C, for your wonderful tub soaking day-spa visiting question. The question you raise is quite brave and it’s whether caring for your own needs betrays God’s command to care for the needs of others? The answer, I believe, comes from the 12th-century philosopher Maimonides who wrote about the levels of charity.

The lowest level of charity he taught was giving reluctantly. The next lowest level was giving too little. The next level was giving directly to the poor after being asked. Then comes the level of giving without being asked. Then comes giving where the poor person knows the donor but the donor does not know the poor person. Higher yet is when both giver and recipient are unknown to each other, and the highest level is helping the poor person get a job and becoming self-sufficient.

The point of Maimonides’ levels of charity is that every single level is holy and blessed by God, including the lowest. Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist put a perhaps more eloquent slant on the pursuit of personal happiness, "Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life."

Whatever feeds our desire for personal happiness, our task in life is to learn how to give higher. The same is true about God’s attitude toward our personal happiness. Taking time out of your life for self-comforting acts is not wrong. It is happiness but it is just not the highest level of happiness. You can do better, and the path to higher happiness comes through serving others. So do not belittle yourself for your personal happiness rituals; just keep in mind after you dry off from a warm bath and get dressed for the day these words:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” – Edward Everett Hale

"The deepest happiness comes from relationships with others – the mythic 'touching of souls' – a parent and a child, a couple in love, best friends, the selfless helping of one another." – Frank Farley, professor of psychology, Temple University

I want to take a moment to reflect on your statement that you cannot get to a soup kitchen. In certain cases of physical disability that may be true, but if you reflect on your actual limitations you may discover that what is keeping you from getting out there and finding some way to bind up just a few wounds in our bleeding world is the result of your attitudes rather than your actual limitations. George Washington’s wife Martha said it best, "The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances."

My experience at the soup kitchen at the Interfaith Nutrition Network in Hempstead was that once volunteers came once to feed the poor, they were hooked on the higher happiness that serving mashed potatoes and peas can provide.

I believe that serving your own needs for happiness and serving the needs of an unhoused community must be balanced. Stephanie Coontz, Ph.D., a family historian and author of “The Way We Never Were” got this balancing act precisely right:

"There is no 12-step program to happiness, or to its longer-lasting cousin, satisfaction. Some people think a happy society can be achieved by suppressing individualistic desires; others believe individual happiness can be attained without attending to the needs of others. But individual and social needs shape each other. Lasting happiness requires constant negotiation and redefinition of both personal and societal goals."

And in the end, if all this advice seems overly vexatious and preachy, just relax and smile. After all, George Burns may have been right: "Happiness is having a large, loving, close-knit family – in another city."

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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