With Heart in Mind

THE WORLD is enthralled with happiness, but joy is a much more worthy goal. What’s the difference? Getting what you want gives happiness. Once you’ve enjoyed that gratification, however, the pleasure inevitably dissipates. Joy, on the other hand, dances in the territory beyond want. Happiness is contingent, while joy is unconditional.

To put the distinction another way, happiness involves a person’s body, ego, or mind, because those are the dimensions of our selves in which we generally have wants and seek satisfactions. Joy, in contrast, fills the heart only when one gets beyond the wants of the body, ego, or mind to connect more deeply and more intensely with beingness beyond oneself.

We carry on as if we were truly separate entities, but that is a very lonely and, to a degree, illusory way to live. When two people love each other, they no longer exist as separate beings because what we call love is actually a knitting together of souls. We learn that lesson directly from the story of David and Jonathan, about whom the Torah says, “The nefesh-soul of Jonathan was knit to the nefesh-soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.”¹

Connecting to another person with such thoroughgoing intimacy gives rise to joy, as in the ideal marriage. But the “other” need not be a person. Psalm 140:13 teaches that “the upright will live in Your presence,” referring, of course, to God. Being aware at any moment of being in the presence of the Divine opens up the pathway of the heart to ultimate joy.

We can see that joy is much more profound and lasting than happiness. Joy is not so fleeting, because it arises out of profound connection, not a moment of gratification.

An inevitable corollary is that it is impossible to know joy without also being party to the sorrow of the other. Joy rests on such an intimate connection that when the other is hurt, it is your own hurt, as well.

Joy is precious, and we are fortunate that no secret is made of how to find it. Psalms 97:11 puts it simply: “To the straight of heart—joy!” Psalms 32:11 advises, “Be glad in HaShem, and rejoice, you righteous; and shout for joy, all you straight of heart.” The connection between having a straight heart and experiencing joy is made clear for us. Seeking joy, all you need to do is straighten your heart. Ah, but just what does that mean and entail?

At a minimum, straightening the heart refers to being morally and emotionally upright. Proverbs 2:15 tells us of “the ways of wicked men . . . whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.” The righteous possess a straight inner life, while an inner world that’s kinked and bent will never give rise to joy. Our model is the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Torah, who are referred to as “straight.”² In fact, the traditional name for the Book of Genesis is Sefer Yesharim—the Book of the Straight Ones.

Here we are squarely in the territory of Mussar. Those inner convolutions that will keep someone from experiencing joy are none other than that person’s personal spiritual curriculum. A tendency to be impatient is an inner kink. So, too, is miserliness. Another type of snarl arises from worry, just as laziness knots up that inner pathway. The baseline for straightening the heart is doing the personal study and practice that have been the focus of the Mussar teachers and their teaching for centuries. “I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.”³

But there is more to straightness of heart than just being morally and emotionally unimpeachable, admirable and desirable as that is. Rav Kook teaches that the phrase “straight of heart”⁴ refers to people whose hearts and desires are at one—that is, in a straight line—with the Divine Will. Aligning your own heart with God’s Will makes it possible to experience joy in this world. Rav Kook is saying that a person who pursues his or her personal wants can hope at most to achieve momentary happiness. But if you “make God’s Will your will,”⁵ then the deeper, fuller, more resonant experience of joy will permeate your heart.

Maybe you’d really like to be rich or famous. Maybe you’d like a fancy car or watch. Maybe you dream of vacationing like a movie star. And let’s imagine you actually achieve your goal. What then? You’ll enjoy a brief period of happiness followed by a pretty sharp slope downward until the money or fame is a burden, the car is dented, the watch just reminds you of how little you are doing that day, and the vacation is a distant memory. Then the cycle of craving begins again. That point is actually embedded in the English word happy, which shares the same root as the words haphazard, hapless, and happenstance—all implying momentary chance.

Contrast that way of living to orienting your life to the Divine Will. Sometimes that can mean accepting situations or limitations, but if you think that implies passivity, just consider the real goal God sets for us, which is clearly and succinctly articulated in the Torah as “You shall be holy.”⁶ As much as we can know anything about God’s Will, that’s as clear a directive as we are likely to receive. Rav Kook teaches that if you make the pursuit of holiness your own goal, you will have aligned your heart with the Divine Will. Joy then arises spontaneously, or, as a wise person once noted, “When the flowers bloom, the bees come by themselves.”

And what is this joy that is the reward of living with a straight heart? I can’t improve on the description I gave it in Every Day, Holy Day:

Moments come when the heart dances in the light. So much more than the experience of fun or even happiness, joy erupts when the inner sphere scintillates in its completeness. An experience touches us to the depths of our souls, and in that moment we are graced with a vision—if only fleetingly—of the flawless wholeness and perfection of it all. Then the heart fills and flows over, even amid the brokenness of this world.

The promise of joy is profound. Psalms 107:42 says, “The upright will see and glow.” In Hebrew, as in some other Semitic languages, there is a connection between words that mean light and those that mean sprouting, as, for example, glow and grow in English.⁷ It’s not a play on words but the actual meaning of the Hebrew to derive from this that the straight of heart will grow. Because we already know that straightness of heart generates joy, joy is identified as the catalyst for spiritual growth. Does this ot answer the question posed in Ecclesiastes 2:2, “And of joy, what does it do?”

PRACTICE

Joy is our spiritual fuel and also the catalyst that internalizes our growth, but how do we bring ourselves to experience joy? Isn’t it just a spontaneous experience that lands on us unexpectedly, like a colorful bird fluttering down to alight on a branch? Actually, we can cultivate joy by identifying where our heart is crooked and working to straighten the bend.

Are you perpetuating a deceit? Are you acting in a hypocritical way? Are you hiding something? Are you avoiding a truth?

Be honest with yourself and identify one real kink in your inner life. Reference the newspapers for a full range of examples.

Now, what would it take to be relieved of that twisted way of being? What keeps you from letting it go? Give this careful consideration, and see if you can find a way to straighten the knot. I guarantee that you will feel joy if you do.