Speaker 1: Pushkin. It will come as no surprise to you that
Speaker 1: I totally welcome the increased attention we're paying to the
Speaker 1: subject of happiness and mental health these days. But happiness
Speaker 1: and the desire to be happier aren't just modern preoccupations,
Speaker 1: and that means that centuries of smart people before us
Speaker 1: have grappled with this challenge, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: conclusions they reached are worthy of exploring in more detail.
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of the Happiness Lab, you know
Speaker 1: that we've already talked about what the ancient Greeks, Romans
Speaker 1: and Buddhists can teach us about improving our daily lives.
Speaker 1: But there's still so much more to learn from the past,
Speaker 1: and so in this new mini season of the Happiness Lab,
Speaker 1: we'll see what age old philosophies and religions got right.
Speaker 1: We'll learn more about the old school tips that are
Speaker 1: borne out by the science. So welcome once again to
Speaker 1: happiness Lessons of the Ancient with me, Doctor Laurie Santos. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that at least some of you are pretty
Speaker 1: familiar with the Torah, those first five books of the
Speaker 1: Hebrew Bible. Some of you may have even read parts
Speaker 1: of this text as a child, think plagues of frogs
Speaker 1: burning bushes and six hundred year old men building arcs
Speaker 1: to save the creatures of the earth. But it's important
Speaker 1: not to let these extraordinary adventure stories overshadowed human lessons
Speaker 1: contained within the text. To be honest, I didn't even
Speaker 1: know what I was missing until I picked up a
Speaker 1: book by Sarah Hurwitz called You're All Along, Finding meaning, spirituality,
Speaker 1: and a deeper connection to life in Judaism after finally
Speaker 1: choosing to look there. Sarah and I have a lot
Speaker 1: in common. Her family comes from my hometown. I really
Speaker 1: I that's a lot of I am into Bedford like
Speaker 1: I have very fond memories, and we attended the same
Speaker 1: college around the same time. You remember at Harvard there
Speaker 1: was an the class I don't even remember who taught it.
Speaker 1: After college, Sarah's career took her to DC and then
Speaker 1: the White House, where she became chief speech writer her
Speaker 1: first Lady, Michelle Obama, And it was only then that
Speaker 1: she started to reappraise what the Torah and Judaism were
Speaker 1: generally had to teach her, because as a child, Sarah
Speaker 1: wasn't really feeling the whole religious thing Judaism for me
Speaker 1: was like two kind of long, incomprehensible services at the
Speaker 1: major Jewish holidays of Roshishanna and jung Kipor. And you know,
Speaker 1: I went to Hebrew school, but like a lot of
Speaker 1: kids going to religious school as a kid, I didn't
Speaker 1: really love it. You know, it was extra school after
Speaker 1: normal school. I kind of resented that. And one day
Speaker 1: in sixth grade, after you know, some of my classmates
Speaker 1: had been mean to me, I was like, that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm just done. I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: And so I went home that night and I gave
Speaker 1: my mom this totally made up, in passioned speech about
Speaker 1: how this Hebrew school wasn't honoring my true understanding of
Speaker 1: Judaism and it wasn't giving me the education I really needed.
Speaker 1: I mean, just all this, I don't even I don't
Speaker 1: know what possessed me, like only a eleven year old
Speaker 1: good thing to do. That's my mother, bless her heart,
Speaker 1: you know. She finds me another Hebrew school which only
Speaker 1: meets once a week, but it's this long drive and
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a very high quality Hebrew school.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really learn much after that, and you know,
Speaker 1: I had about Mitzvah, but it was very loosely based
Speaker 1: on Judaism, and that was kind of it. You know.
Speaker 1: After that, I thought, Okay, I'm a cultural Jew, I'm
Speaker 1: Jewish by heritage, but if I want meaning or spiritual connection,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just have to look elsewhere. This doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like, you know, the great origin stories of someone
Speaker 1: who's going to write a book about finding meeting and Judaism.
Speaker 1: You know, so really, what was the transition there? Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: twenty five years later, at the age of thirty six,
Speaker 1: I broke up with a guy I was dating. I
Speaker 1: had a lot of time on my hands and was
Speaker 1: kind of bored and lonely. I happened to hear about
Speaker 1: an intrud to Judaism class, and I signed up just thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: I should learn something about Judaism. You know, I'm Jewish,
Speaker 1: I should know my heritage. And I have to say
Speaker 1: I was blown away by what I discovered in that class.
Speaker 1: It was fourth thousand years of crowdsource wisdom from millions
Speaker 1: and millions of people who are basically pooling their very
Speaker 1: best wisdom on how to live a meaningful life, how
Speaker 1: to be a good person, how to cope with life's challenges,
Speaker 1: how to find joy, how to find spiritual connection. And
Speaker 1: I just could not get over how relevant all this
Speaker 1: ancient wisdom was to my modern life. So let's do
Speaker 1: the kind of quiff notes version of Judaism, which I
Speaker 1: realize is impossible in like a short podcast. But you know,
Speaker 1: just like starting with the history for those that aren't
Speaker 1: familiar with it, Like, you know, what is the Torah
Speaker 1: for example, you know, talking, yes, great question. So the
Speaker 1: Tora is basically the first five books of what Christians
Speaker 1: refer to as the Old Testament. Jews call it the Tanah,
Speaker 1: or you might hear it called, you know, the Hebrew Bible.
Speaker 1: So it's those first five books and it's basically, you know,
Speaker 1: it's basically the story of Oh gosh, it's such a complaint,
Speaker 1: it's so complicated. But you know, if I were really
Speaker 1: fast forward, it's sort of the story of a family
Speaker 1: which eventually becomes a nation and you know, becomes enslaved
Speaker 1: in Egypt. And then it's a story of this God
Speaker 1: who rescues these these Israelites, these Jewish slaves from Egypt,
Speaker 1: you know, assembles them at the base of a mountain,
Speaker 1: Mount Sinai and basically gives them a mission, and the
Speaker 1: mission is to build a society that is the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of Egypt, a society that rejects all of these
Speaker 1: old power structures that value kings and emperors and pharaohs,
Speaker 1: but that instead really focuses on the most vulnerable, the widow,
Speaker 1: the orphan, the stranger, the poor. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: this mission to create this society that's the opposite of Egypt,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of the and it's really it's a
Speaker 1: presentation of a covenant to the Israelites, and they have
Speaker 1: to choose right. This is this is a partnership between
Speaker 1: God and the Israelites. It is not an order that
Speaker 1: they are forced to accept. It's a covenant that they
Speaker 1: willingly choose to accept. So in Judaism, you know, you
Speaker 1: have a sense of empowerment, of having free will and agency,
Speaker 1: and there's a real focus less on professing a certain
Speaker 1: faith and much more on acting in a certain way,
Speaker 1: in in treating others in a certain way, and living
Speaker 1: life in a certain way. You know, when you say
Speaker 1: it like that, it sounds fantastic, but you know, I've
Speaker 1: I've kind of gone to the Torah, like you know,
Speaker 1: through the Old Testament, and you sometimes find things there
Speaker 1: that seem, at least to our modern ears, a little
Speaker 1: weird or maybe in some cases even disturbing. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you have that when you kind of got interested
Speaker 1: in the tour and more? Yeah, I mean you know
Speaker 1: you read about these miracles, right, the sea's parting, and
Speaker 1: plagues and this and that. But you know, the Tour
Speaker 1: is not meant to be a historical document, right. This
Speaker 1: is not like an accurate historical blow blah blow account
Speaker 1: of ancient people. It is a document that I personally
Speaker 1: believe was written by people. There are some people who
Speaker 1: believe that it was written by God. I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I think you'll find that most Jews believe that it
Speaker 1: is a human generated document, and maybe these humans were
Speaker 1: divinely inspired somehow. But it's not meant to be read
Speaker 1: as a scientific document or as a historical document. This
Speaker 1: is a moral document, right. It is articulating a certain
Speaker 1: moral sensibility that's basically a protest against the values of
Speaker 1: the ancient Near East, where human life was degraded, where
Speaker 1: emperors and pharaohs and kings were worshiped and ordinary people
Speaker 1: were thought to be valueless. You know, this document is
Speaker 1: saying no, no, no no, no, like this God is not
Speaker 1: concerned about emperors, pharaohs, and kings. Just the opposite. This
Speaker 1: God cares about the most vulnerable, the widow, the orphan,
Speaker 1: the stranger, the poor. So it's articulating a moral sensibility.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there that's
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred years old, right, And I think what
Speaker 1: a lot of Christians don't really understand is that we
Speaker 1: didn't stop with the Torah. For the past twenty five
Speaker 1: hundred years. We have been reinterpreting and reimagining the Torah.
Speaker 1: You know, you'll notice that Jews don't put each other's
Speaker 1: eyes out anymore. Right, It's not an eye for an eye,
Speaker 1: because two thousand years ago ancient rabbis said, oh no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Eye for an eye means that if you put out
Speaker 1: someone's eye, you have to compensate them monetarily. That's what
Speaker 1: that means. And there's a lot of that kind of
Speaker 1: interpretation over twenty five hundred years. So today you have
Speaker 1: women serving as rabbis, you have gay people serving as rabbis.
Speaker 1: We marry gay couples and ninety percent of the Judaism
Speaker 1: that American Jews practice. It's actually a lot like the Constitution.
Speaker 1: You know, if you look at the original version of
Speaker 1: the Constitution, it allowed slavery, women couldn't vote. I mean,
Speaker 1: very troubling. But over the last two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: or so years we've been reinterpreting it. And it's a
Speaker 1: very similar process in Judaism. And it seems like part
Speaker 1: of the reinterpreting is really going back to the basic concepts, right,
Speaker 1: you know, not like the stories of bushes burning and
Speaker 1: you know, sees being parted and things like that. In
Speaker 1: your book, you talk about one of those fundamentals being
Speaker 1: this idea of the three fundamental truths, these three inalienable dignities.
Speaker 1: What are these dignities? You know, this is based on
Speaker 1: this core Jewish idea that we're all created in the
Speaker 1: image of God, and you don't have to believe in
Speaker 1: any kind of God or higher power to understand the
Speaker 1: value of that. There are three inalienable dignities. One is
Speaker 1: that every human being is of infinite worth. You can't
Speaker 1: put a price on a human life. The second is
Speaker 1: that we are all equal, No one is more or
Speaker 1: less valuable than anyone else. And the third is that
Speaker 1: we are completely unique. There is no one else like us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The truth is, you might say, like, oh, that sounds
Speaker 1: so obvious, Sarah, we all believe that. No, we don't,
Speaker 1: that's not true. We don't believe that, right. Like, think
Speaker 1: how many times you've walked by someone on the street
Speaker 1: who said, hey, can you spare a dollar and you said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, not today, Or you've given the person a
Speaker 1: dollar and then walked on. If that person had been
Speaker 1: a celebrity, you know, I guarantee you you would have stopped.
Speaker 1: You would have wanted to talk to them, get to
Speaker 1: know them. We don't value people equally. We value people
Speaker 1: differently based on their status, their net worth, their beauty,
Speaker 1: their likes, their fame. And so that idea of being
Speaker 1: created in the image and those three inaliable dignities is
Speaker 1: quite radical. This is actually gets to something we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about on the podcast, which is this idea
Speaker 1: of being more other oriented. It seems like these dignities
Speaker 1: really are about treating other people in a really important way, right,
Speaker 1: like focusing on people who need your help, who can't
Speaker 1: help themselves. And this seems to be real coretentive the
Speaker 1: Jewish faith too. You are right on. You've just gotten
Speaker 1: to the exact beating heart of Judaism. I think modern
Speaker 1: secular law and ethics are very much you do you
Speaker 1: as long as you don't hurt other people too much.
Speaker 1: It's about rights and freedoms and what people and things
Speaker 1: that you are not obligated to do. Jewish law is
Speaker 1: the opposite. It's very much about what you are obligated
Speaker 1: to do. And you're exactly right that a lot of
Speaker 1: those obligations are around how we treat others. And I
Speaker 1: hear sometimes this old lie that Christianity is a religion
Speaker 1: of love and Judaism is a religion of law. But
Speaker 1: if you actually look at Jewish laws, what they're doing
Speaker 1: is they're actually mandating a very high bar for how
Speaker 1: you treat other people. It's not just like, oh, give
Speaker 1: money to the poor. It's like, Okay, how exactly are
Speaker 1: you going to do that. There's a lot of law
Speaker 1: around supporting people in a way that doesn't humiliate them,
Speaker 1: that empowers them. You know, there's even a law that
Speaker 1: says that if you've loaned money to someone in need
Speaker 1: and you see them on the street. You should avoid
Speaker 1: running into them if you know they can't repay you,
Speaker 1: because to do that would be to embarrass them, right,
Speaker 1: it would to stress them out. Now that's so specific,
Speaker 1: like why are you getting that specific? But it's actually
Speaker 1: saying to you, hey, you need to be constantly thinking
Speaker 1: about the needs and sensitivities of others and really making
Speaker 1: sure you act in a way that respects their dignity
Speaker 1: and their feelings. They're also see to be two concepts
Speaker 1: that come from the Torah that are related to this, right,
Speaker 1: this idea of sadaka and hessid. So walk me through
Speaker 1: these concepts. Yes, so the idea of sadaka, it's often
Speaker 1: mistranslated as charity, but it actually means justice, and that's
Speaker 1: our obligation to give financial assistance to those in need.
Speaker 1: So when you label it as justice, it has a
Speaker 1: mandatory aspect to it. It's like fair procedures in a courtroom.
Speaker 1: That's justice. You don't just do that when you're feeling
Speaker 1: particularly kind or out of the goodness of your heart.
Speaker 1: It's mandatory. We have to support those who are struggling financially.
Speaker 1: He said. That means loving kindness, and it's not just
Speaker 1: about being nice to people, which you mean you should be.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit deeper than that. It basically it
Speaker 1: kind of requires your presence to help one who is
Speaker 1: vulnerable or in need. So a lot of the laws
Speaker 1: around Hessid have to do with people who are ill
Speaker 1: or people who are in mourning. You know, when someone
Speaker 1: is sick. In Judaism, you don't just send them flowers
Speaker 1: and say, oh, I hope you feel better. You're actually
Speaker 1: supposed to go and visit them and kind of support them.
Speaker 1: If someone has just lost someone they love and they're
Speaker 1: in mourning, you don't just send a tech saying I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: You actually show up for the funeral, for the shiva,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the morning period after the funeral. However,
Speaker 1: it is that you can really show up for someone
Speaker 1: and show your loving presence in a very deep and
Speaker 1: serious way. And I think this idea of kind of
Speaker 1: showing up gets to a different misconception I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have about Judaism and the Jewish faith,
Speaker 1: which is it's just a set of beliefs, right, or
Speaker 1: it's a set of laws, But this was really a
Speaker 1: very action based faith. Explain this Jewish concept of to Kunaloum. Yes,
Speaker 1: So this basically means it's like to repair a broken world.
Speaker 1: The idea is that there is a lot of brokenness
Speaker 1: in the world and that it's our obligation as Jews
Speaker 1: to repair a brokenness that we see. So you are
Speaker 1: absolutely right, like, this is a very action oriented faith.
Speaker 1: When another Jew is trying to suss out how religious
Speaker 1: I am or how observant I am, they don't really
Speaker 1: ask me, well, how strongly do you believe in God?
Speaker 1: They want to know what I do? Do I help
Speaker 1: other people? Right? Do I give sadhaka? Am I part
Speaker 1: of a community that I support? They're really going to
Speaker 1: be concerned about the actions LIE perform and less about
Speaker 1: do I have a particular belief in my head. People
Speaker 1: will say, well, Judaism isn't just about creed, it's about deed,
Speaker 1: and that's a little bit of an oversimplification, but that
Speaker 1: action orientation is very important. And another part of this
Speaker 1: is this idea that you know, through these actions we
Speaker 1: can actually get better, which is something else we know
Speaker 1: from the science. Right, by doing these actions, we can
Speaker 1: actually like you know, improve our happiness, but also like
Speaker 1: become a person of stronger character. This is what the
Speaker 1: faith is all about. Obviously, you know your sense of
Speaker 1: wanting to be kind will lead you to do kind acts.
Speaker 1: But Judaism says that, you know what, even if you
Speaker 1: don't feel like being kind, be kind, you got to
Speaker 1: go do it. Even if you feel like, gosh, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like visiting this person who's sick. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like showing up for that funeral, Judism says, that's okay,
Speaker 1: you don't have to feel like it, but you got
Speaker 1: to do it. And the funny thing is, once you
Speaker 1: do it, it actually can create the feelings. Right once
Speaker 1: you actually go there, you show up for the funeral
Speaker 1: and you're supporting someone, you actually do begin to feel
Speaker 1: in your heart like, oh, this was the right thing
Speaker 1: to do, I'm so glad you did this. So it's
Speaker 1: not just that the feeling leads the action, oftentimes is
Speaker 1: that the action leads to the feeling and you've found
Speaker 1: the power of this feeling, like firsthand. In your book,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you've never regretted doing this these kinds
Speaker 1: of acts. Right right the time is in my life
Speaker 1: where I didn't show up for someone, I really regret it,
Speaker 1: but I've never regretted showing up for someone you know.
Speaker 1: I look back and there have been moments where I've thought, well,
Speaker 1: do I know this person well enough to show up
Speaker 1: for the funeral? Do I know them well enough to
Speaker 1: visit them when they're sick? And when I've aired on
Speaker 1: the side of doing it, never regretted it. I've always
Speaker 1: thought like, oh, so glad I did this so far.
Speaker 1: Sarah and I have talked a lot about the importance
Speaker 1: of showing up for others, but being other oriented is
Speaker 1: just one of the happiness lessons Sarah found in her
Speaker 1: reappraisal of the Torah. As we'll see after the break,
Speaker 1: there's much more that Judaism can teach us. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab will be right back. If you're a fan of
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab, you probably know that being grateful for
Speaker 1: the people and things in your life is an important
Speaker 1: tool in your well being. Kit Counting our blessings and
Speaker 1: expressing thanks to others improves our resilience, strengthens our social bonds,
Speaker 1: and makes us more willing to take positive steps to
Speaker 1: improve our happiness. The science shows it even helps us
Speaker 1: do things like exercise more and eat better. The problem, though,
Speaker 1: is that gratitude doesn't always come naturally when we're feeling
Speaker 1: down or super busy. We're just facing the sorts of
Speaker 1: challenges that life tends to throw our way. But Sarah
Speaker 1: Hurwitz has found ancient Judaic wisdom has an answer to
Speaker 1: this conundrum. It instructs us to start feeling grateful from
Speaker 1: the second we open our eyes in the morning. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: the first prayer that a Jew would say, it's a
Speaker 1: prayer people refer to as moda ai or moda anie,
Speaker 1: depending on what your gender, and it's basically a prayer
Speaker 1: where you are thanking God for restoring your life to
Speaker 1: you sort of loose translation. And the idea was people
Speaker 1: a long time ago associated sleep with death. They actually
Speaker 1: kind of were worried that they actually wouldn't wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning, so that it's this idea that you
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning and you're alive, and it's
Speaker 1: just this moment of like thankfulness. It's like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful, I'm alive, and it's pretty amazing that the
Speaker 1: first word in the morning that you say is moda
Speaker 1: or moda which is like thankful. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the thankful comes before the eye, which is ani moda
Speaker 1: Ani it's like your gratitude comes before self. There's an
Speaker 1: idea that I am grateful no matter what is happening
Speaker 1: in my life. I am just grateful to have this life,
Speaker 1: Like I did nothing to earn this gift of my life.
Speaker 1: Even if everything is terrible, even if life is a nightmare,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to be grateful for this life that
Speaker 1: I never did anything to earn. And this is like
Speaker 1: straight out of the modern happiness platebook, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many studies like telling us that gratitude is
Speaker 1: super important for our happiness, you know, just like paying
Speaker 1: attention to a few things you're grateful for every day
Speaker 1: can boost your happiness significantly in as little as two weeks.
Speaker 1: And this is exactly what you know, the Jewish Face
Speaker 1: suggests you should do as soon as you wake up, Like,
Speaker 1: don't waste any time, just like gratitude immediately. It's so
Speaker 1: funny because I hear people who are like, oh, I
Speaker 1: have a gratitude journal and this and that, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's great. This was not invented in two thousand and nine, right.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like I'm so happy you've discovered this
Speaker 1: thing that judaism discovered like thousands of years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: this is sort of time tested wisdom for what makes
Speaker 1: for a happy life. And it's not just in the
Speaker 1: morning that you say this. You're saying prayers of thanks
Speaker 1: and gratitude throughout the day. Gratitude is actually a key
Speaker 1: theme of the Jewish liturgy. One of the things you
Speaker 1: did in your book was you walk through some of
Speaker 1: these kind of seemingly funny blessings but that really have
Speaker 1: this powerful root in a grateful emotion. One of them
Speaker 1: was a kind of a blessing about going to the
Speaker 1: bathroom or something like that. Judaism has this very rich
Speaker 1: blessings practice where you basically say a prayer or blessing
Speaker 1: of thankfulness at so many different points during the day.
Speaker 1: So you say it. You know, traditional Jews will say
Speaker 1: before they eat, they'll say a blessing of gratitude for
Speaker 1: the food. After you go to the bathroom, you will
Speaker 1: say a blessing just to express thankfulness that your body
Speaker 1: is working properly. Okay, you can say that's kind of
Speaker 1: weird and gross, but like, actually it is miraculous when
Speaker 1: your body is functioning properly. And this is something that
Speaker 1: people have learned during this era of COVID, Right, we
Speaker 1: can't take our health and our proper functioning of our
Speaker 1: bodies for granted. And so Judaism is telling you multiple
Speaker 1: times throughout the day to stop and just say, how
Speaker 1: amazing is it that my body works, Like, I'm so
Speaker 1: thankful for that. It's not just the kind of one
Speaker 1: time gratitude journal in the morning or at night. It's
Speaker 1: actually a constant gratitude practice throughout the day. And this
Speaker 1: idea of recognizing that your body is amazing, the amazingness
Speaker 1: part that that gets to another happiness practice that we
Speaker 1: actually haven't talked about that much on the podcast yet,
Speaker 1: which is this concept of awe, right, like really recognizing
Speaker 1: the beauty and the amazing things around us. So, from
Speaker 1: the perspective of Judaism, what is this concept of awe? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is. You know, if you look at a lot
Speaker 1: of like the Jewish liturgy, it is trying to cultivate
Speaker 1: this feeling of awe. You'll see lines about the grandeur
Speaker 1: of nature, you know, the beauty of the world around us,
Speaker 1: the sun, the moon, just you know, the coming of
Speaker 1: the dawn, the coming of dust, just the sense that
Speaker 1: every day in the world. These beautiful things happen sunrise
Speaker 1: as sunsets, and they just keep on happy. Right. We
Speaker 1: do nothing to deserve them, We do nothing to orchestrate them.
Speaker 1: By Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was an iconic American rabbi,
Speaker 1: he talks about this idea of radical amazement, where one
Speaker 1: of the core Jewish sensibilities is to just feel this
Speaker 1: sense of awe and wonder at the world around us,
Speaker 1: and not just the big things like the majestic view
Speaker 1: of the Grand Canyon or whatever, but the small things,
Speaker 1: right like looking at the plant in my apartment, which
Speaker 1: you know, through this incredibly intricate process is turning sun
Speaker 1: into food, and you know it has millions of cells,
Speaker 1: and it's so intricate and complicated, and that's just one
Speaker 1: plant in my apartment. If you actually look at the
Speaker 1: world this way, you would kind of walk around in
Speaker 1: a constant state of awe. The research shows that this
Speaker 1: is so important because you know, if we're not paying attention,
Speaker 1: we can just miss this stuff. We actually have a
Speaker 1: practice that I do with my students that I'm doing
Speaker 1: with the high school students I'm teaching right now during
Speaker 1: COVID where we have them take time to savor something.
Speaker 1: And during COVID the students said, like save or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not leaving my house, like you know, what can
Speaker 1: I really savor? And it's like we'll pick something to
Speaker 1: savor in your house, you know. And then again it's
Speaker 1: like you notice like oh my gosh, the plants or
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like a chair, like you know, the
Speaker 1: thousands of years of like you know, modifying this piece
Speaker 1: of wood so I can sit on it and feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: If you take time, you can really notice that there's
Speaker 1: just wonders all around you if you take a time
Speaker 1: to look, it's exactly right. It's this idea of being present,
Speaker 1: like actually being present and noticing, which is known as mindfulness,
Speaker 1: which again is like the super trendy thing that everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this was so invented in two thousand and four. Actually,
Speaker 1: like if you look at Judis, it's kind of one
Speaker 1: big mindfulness practice. We are constantly called to be present
Speaker 1: in your life. We're constantly called to stop notice some
Speaker 1: blessing that you have and expressed thanks for it. So
Speaker 1: you're just being constantly called to stop notice and appreciate
Speaker 1: throughout the day, as opposed to what many of us,
Speaker 1: including too often me, do, is that we kind of
Speaker 1: walk through our lives lost in our thoughts, like someone
Speaker 1: is talking to us and we're kind of half listening
Speaker 1: because our mind is wandering into the thing we need
Speaker 1: to do next week or the fight we had yesterday,
Speaker 1: and we're not there. We're actually missing that time with
Speaker 1: our friends. Think about the number of times that you've
Speaker 1: driven somewhere or walked somewhere and you get there and
Speaker 1: you can't remember how you got there right like you
Speaker 1: were it was safe, you weren't. You know, you were
Speaker 1: paying attention while you drove, but you were lost in
Speaker 1: thought and maybe you miss something really amazing along the way.
Speaker 1: I mean, this seems to be this idea of showing up,
Speaker 1: both in terms of showing up other people, showing up
Speaker 1: for your own life, showing up to notice the wonders
Speaker 1: around you. It seems to be part of this ethic
Speaker 1: of non indifference that you talked about in your book. Right,
Speaker 1: this is a phrase by thescrab by name j Danielle Hartman,
Speaker 1: the ethic of non indifference, And this is a really
Speaker 1: core Jewish ethic at its heart, Judea is missing. You
Speaker 1: can't be indifferent to others, right, You actually have to
Speaker 1: care about others. You have to notice others, Like I
Speaker 1: think if you look at the modern American ethic, like
Speaker 1: I'm not required to help someone if I see them
Speaker 1: struggling when I drive by them, it's like, oh, not
Speaker 1: my problem, not my problem. I can be indifferent. That's
Speaker 1: perfectly legal, and you know that's fine for secular law,
Speaker 1: but Jewish law says no, Actually, you do need to
Speaker 1: notice the people around you. You actually do need to
Speaker 1: help them out. And that's so important because the research
Speaker 1: shows that when we show up to help other people,
Speaker 1: it doesn't just help the people we're helping. The research
Speaker 1: shows it helps us, Like our happiness gets boosted every
Speaker 1: time we're taking time to pay attention to other people,
Speaker 1: even if we don't realize it at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: I love in your book you kind of admit that,
Speaker 1: like you don't always feel like going to the funeral,
Speaker 1: you don't always feel like helping, but in some ways,
Speaker 1: having a law that forces you to can kind of
Speaker 1: get you there even if the emotions aren't in sync. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you know it's funny what you're saying really makes
Speaker 1: me think of this story about these ancient rabbis. So
Speaker 1: Rabbi A gets sick and Rabbi B shows up, takes
Speaker 1: Rabbi A's hand and heals Rabbi A. Then Rabbi B
Speaker 1: gets sick and Rabbi C shows up, takes Rabbi B's
Speaker 1: hand and heals him. And these ancient rabbis are like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, If Rabbi B could heal Rabbi A,
Speaker 1: why does Rabbi need Rabbi S to show up and
Speaker 1: heal him? And the answer they give is that the
Speaker 1: prisoner cannot get himself out of prison. There's a sense
Speaker 1: that when we are stuck in the prison of our
Speaker 1: own sadness, anxiety, fear, loneliness, we really need someone to
Speaker 1: show up, take our hands and pull us out. And
Speaker 1: we also need to do that for other people. Right.
Speaker 1: I think we're all rabbi be in some way where
Speaker 1: we are trying our best to help all the rabbis
Speaker 1: around us get them out of prison, but we need
Speaker 1: someone to get us out of prison as well. So
Speaker 1: how is engaging in these practices, whether it be about
Speaker 1: kind of non indifference presence, like, how has it really
Speaker 1: changed your life so far? It's very much changed my
Speaker 1: sensibility in terms of like how I just walk in
Speaker 1: the world in a daily way. I used to be
Speaker 1: the kind of person who, like, when I had a
Speaker 1: friend going through a struggle, you know, I would try
Speaker 1: to support them, I would try to help them out.
Speaker 1: But I didn't have as much of a sense of
Speaker 1: urgency and obligation around physical presence, you know. Now, like
Speaker 1: when something happens to a friend, I really do try
Speaker 1: to get myself there physically. I think that's important. The
Speaker 1: idea of showing up. I really try to think more
Speaker 1: carefully about that. There's also a lot of Jewish thinking
Speaker 1: around speech and how we use our speech and the
Speaker 1: impact or speech has on others. So a lot of
Speaker 1: thinking about gossip, about not shaming other people, which, when
Speaker 1: you think about it, like the whole discourse of social
Speaker 1: media is just endless shame, right, just endless shaming, humiliating
Speaker 1: others and even those of us who aren't nasty on
Speaker 1: social media. Think about the number of times in your
Speaker 1: life when you're debating with someone you want to win,
Speaker 1: and so you kind of kind of embarrass them a
Speaker 1: little bit, you kind of try to make them look bad.
Speaker 1: I'm now so much more conscious of how I do that.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you I still gossip way too much.
Speaker 1: I still shame people. I am not perfect, and that's
Speaker 1: not what it's about. I think more what it's about
Speaker 1: is a number of times now I'm about to send
Speaker 1: an email and I'm like, do I really need to
Speaker 1: share that little piece of gossip? Like is that something
Speaker 1: I should be saying? And I'll just stop or I'll
Speaker 1: be kind of, you know, about to make some point
Speaker 1: to just really take someone down and an argument, and
Speaker 1: I'll think I phrase this in a different way, like
Speaker 1: can I phrase this with a little more kindness and
Speaker 1: a little bit less shaming. It's really like a lens
Speaker 1: through which I now see the world and I get
Speaker 1: things wrong one hundred times a day, but I used
Speaker 1: to do so two hundred times a day. So I
Speaker 1: think it's making me just a little bit better of
Speaker 1: a person. Do you think it's also making you happier?
Speaker 1: I do. I think it's making me so much happier
Speaker 1: because I think that Judaism gives me some sense that
Speaker 1: I am tied to something very very ancient that has
Speaker 1: been passed down from generation to generation to generation for
Speaker 1: so long to make its way to me it's like
Speaker 1: this incredible inheritance that I feel really honored to receive.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think engaging in Judaism it makes
Speaker 1: me feel like my life is not just some random
Speaker 1: accident of faith that has no meaning. You know, I
Speaker 1: have a sense that each of us has a purpose here,
Speaker 1: that each of us has like incredible worth, that each
Speaker 1: of us has a sense of you know, unique creativeness, right,
Speaker 1: whether you think that's by a god or just it's
Speaker 1: just the science that says that we are all completely unique.
Speaker 1: You know. That gives me a sense of purpose and meaning.
Speaker 1: And I also just to have a greater sense of
Speaker 1: gratitude in my life. I have a greater sense of
Speaker 1: awe and wonder where I stop and notice things. I
Speaker 1: think before I kind of became familiar with Judaism, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just kind of like walks through my days,
Speaker 1: didn't appreciate a lot of things. It was a bit
Speaker 1: of a kind of more of a numb, kind of
Speaker 1: checked out kind of life, sort of a sleepwalking through
Speaker 1: life kind of feeling. And you know, I still feel
Speaker 1: that way sometimes It's not all like you know, radical
Speaker 1: amazement and awe, but I think I have many more
Speaker 1: moments of real connectedness, real presence, real joy. I'm so
Speaker 1: thrilled at Sarah was able to give us a whirlwind
Speaker 1: tour of thousands of years of Jewish thought. We've already
Speaker 1: touched on scientifically backed concepts like gratitude, mindfulness, awe and
Speaker 1: even being other oriented. It was a lot to pack in.
Speaker 1: But we're not finished with Sarah or the Torah just yet,
Speaker 1: because in the next episode, we're going to tackle one
Speaker 1: of my favorite happiness tips from Judaism. And this one
Speaker 1: is a biggie. In fact, it's even one of the
Speaker 1: Ten Commandments, but to my shame, it's the commandment that
Speaker 1: I personally am most likely to break, that simple instruction
Speaker 1: to take a day off. The Happiness Lab is co
Speaker 1: written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The show was mastered
Speaker 1: by Evan Viola, and our original music was composed by
Speaker 1: Zachary Silver. Special thanks to the entire Pushkin crew, including Milavelle,
Speaker 1: Carlie Migliori, Heather Faine, Sophie Crane, mckibbon, Eric Sandler, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: and my agent, Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Pushkin Industries and Meet Doctor Laurie Santos,