By the Grace of G-d
Last week I was blessed to have the privilege to share with you what the Torah teaches about the power of giving blessings.
It was wonderful to get blessed feedback. Many people sent me their blessings. Even better, many told me that they became more aware of the ability to bless others and gave blessings to whomever they came into contact. And these days we ‘come into contact’, virtually, with myriads of people. Think about it. If you wanted to send blessings to your friends or relatives across the globe you used to write a letter and wait many days till it arrived. With today’s ease of communication blessings that used to be possible only in person or via mail that took much time to get to its destination, can now crisscross the globe in nano seconds.
I am sure if you tried it you are already encouraging others to distribute blessings. If you haven’t become a ‘blessing giver’ yet, try it. You will be spreading light and kindness and be blessed yourself as one of the blessed side-effects of giving blessings to others.
I had an amusing interaction after giving a blessing and realizing that I had unintentionally almost offended the recipient.
A friend told me that he was going to Switzerland. I wished him much success ‘mit gezunt un menucha’. It’s a Yiddish and Hebrew mix of words. It translates literally ‘with health and rest’. My friend who is in his sixties and extremely active, understood me to be intimating that I thought his trip to Switzerland was for relaxation purposes. He hastened to point out that my blessing seemed misplaced as he was going to catch up on work in Switzerland where he has a business. And he was actually going to work very hard.
This is a person who is industrious and very successful at what he does, and he seemed almost offended that I though he was just lounging around.
I was glad he pointed it out. As it allowed me to clarify what this blessing of ‘health and rest’ means. The ‘gezunt’ health component is self-understood. Good health is one of the most important blessings we can with for ourselves and others.
Menucha literally translates as ‘rest’. Shabbat is called a ‘yom menucha’ a ‘day of rest’.
Yet, even when one is not in a ‘day of rest’ and it’s one of the six working days, ‘menucha’ is still an applicable blessing.
For example. while driving a car is generally not considered rest, getting all the green lights and having open roads could be termed ‘restful’ driving. As opposed to tediously tiring gridlock or traffic jams.
Trying to reach customer service and being put on hold for hours is tedious. ‘Menucha’ in that context would mean getting straight through to a human who can rectify the issue.
Every mode of activity can involve anxiety, or it could be flowing and restful.
This, I told my friend was my intention. Whatever you are doing in Switzerland (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) may it be with health and in a restful, tranquil, flowing and easy way.
My friend gladly accepted my blessing once I explained my intention.
He did better than just accept my blessing. He blessed me that all that I had blessed him with, should be fulfilled by me as well.
AMEN.
So, hopefully your blessings worked, and the recipients are seeing blessings in their life that bring them joy.
This week I heard an inspiring teaching about joy. from an acquaintance who I ‘happened’ to meet as I was preparing to participate in a joyous occasion.
He told me that his relative who is not a Chabad chassid was once visiting New York and took the opportunity to ask the Rebbe for a private audience to request his blessings. During that meeting the Rebbe shared that Rabbi Yisrael of Rhuzin (a great Chasidic master who lived around 200 years ago), had taught the following:
Just as the Mishna teaches us that ‘mitzvah goreret mitzvah’ one mitzvah pulls and elicits and causes another mitzvah, so too ‘simcha goreret simcha’ joy causes and pulls with it more joy.
In other words, joy is not just a great state of mind and spirit for the duration of time that you are absorbed in it. Joy is also actively at work to bring further joy to your life. It contributes to a more joyous future as well.
The power of being joyous is not just that its beneficial at that time that you are joyous, but it also brings with it a chain reaction.
This seemingly simple concept may be the missing key for many people’s lives.
For while it may seem obvious that one would take every opportunity to attend joyous occasions, that is not necessarily the case in real life.
Attending joyous events, like weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, bris, or even birthday parties, is not always easy. It usually requires some level of investment of time and energy and perhaps even money. It is tempting to take the ‘easy way out’ and cook up a reason for not attending.
(Even where ‘in person’ attendance is not currently possible as in Thailand for example, even attending the zoom version is an investment of time and energy especially if there is a different time zone involved. It is far easier not to attend than to attend, even when we are talking about a virtual event).
If you recognize however that this joyous event, will be the catalyst to lead you to more joyous events, you may be more motivated to muster up the energy and make the effort to get yourself to the ‘simcha’ joyous event, as this has far reaching consequences for your future.
My dear friends, I want to make this practical and actionable.
In many places in the world life is resuming its rhythm as it was before Covid came. The CDC has been quite clear that because of the successful vaccination program, vaccinated people need not wear masks in many settings and in the USA this is being embraced joyously.
In Israel, life has come back to its vibrant self with the Israeli govt set to declare even more ‘back to normal’ relaxing of rules at the beginning of June. In Asia we are still battling the spread of the virus but the news from the healing countries is reason to be optimistic and hopeful that please G-d in Thailand and its environs things will come back to ‘normal’ soon.
Gathering, celebrations, parties and other ‘in person’ events are being resumed thank G-d.
Now it is up to us to participate.
One of the things that Corona has brought with it, is the ability to shrug off attending joyous occasions without creating ill-feeling. In the pre-Covid days if one was invited to a wedding of a relative or a friend, there was a certain ‘obligation’ that was felt. Sometimes it even created a hiccup in peoples friendships if they didn’t participate in their friends joyous occasion.
Covid precautions took that pressure away. Even as the virus started receding, it was still not ‘back to normal’ and everybody understood that each person’s medical situation may be different. So that even when gatherings were finally allowed, one didn’t question why someone didn’t attend their celebration gathering.
But we need to be honest with ourselves.
Because inactivity is easier than activity, there is a pitfall we should be aware of. We may continue to rely on ‘excuses’ not to attend happy occasions rather then expend the effort to attend. It’s easier to stay at home in many instances. If its for health reasons, good on you. But if it is just because during Corona you discovered that ‘you can’ stay away without fallout, then I urge you to reconsider.
This is why I personally found this teaching by the Rebbe so pertinent for these times. It helps us choose what Covid habits we should try to adopt (that is the topic for its own article) and steer us away from habits we should work on shedding.
Attending joyous events of relatives and friends for example is something that we should resume as soon as safely possible.
It is quite simple once you recognize the value of putting yourself into the mode of joy as a part of a chain reaction that will keep generating more joy in your life. Armed with that knowledge it becomes a no-brainer that when you have a chance to be joyous by attending a joyous occasion, you should invest effort and energy in attending (obviously only when it is safe and healthy for your individual situation).
Joy can be generated from within, no doubt.
Yet, placing yourself in an environment where others are rejoicing and happy, makes it almost impossible not to be drawn into the feelings of joy and happiness.
May the Almighty bless all of us with health and many happy joyous occasions. And may we be healthy in body and spirit and make the effort to participate and host at those happy and healthy occasions with ‘gezunt and menucha’. In good health and in a tranquil, restful and ‘free-flowing’ state of mind.
Of course, the one major happy occasion that will solve all problems and usher in the eternal state of joy and blissful life is the coming of Mashiach, we pray and hope that it be now! AMEN
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor