Dear Friends, shalom,
“Happy new year” (Shana Tova)
On Rosh Hashana God began creating the world and since then every year on this day He judges it and we tell each other to be happy.
It’s all very well judging phenomena that were created to operate according to the principles of justice like the sun and the moon but can He judge man who doesn’t seem to operate according to justice but according to happiness?
Is it sure that a man will be happy in the same way that it’s sure the sun will shine today because it shone yesterday.
Justice is something that is sure but there’s no guarantee of happiness.
For example when a couple make love, childbirth is the just result but happiness isn’t the same; it’s not the just result of childbirth (much as we would like it to be) it is the result of a lifelong search that begins with childbirth.
Happiness isn’t an automatic result therefore one cannot say that it operates according to the principles of justice.
Perhaps the couple didn’t even want the child to be born so it’s even unjust that a person gets brought into this world by two people who didn’t even want to bring him here; all they wanted was some fun.
Regarding justice in the human situation the Bible says “Clouds and thick darkness surround him, righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.”Psalms 97:2
The conclusion of this is therefore for parents and children to give up the search for justice and to start searching for happiness instead.
Everybody seems to agree that happiness is a state of being or a situation which we must search for if we are to find it.
“When you seek me you will find (me) because you have searched for me with all your heart”.Jeremiah 29:12 (1) (I apply this to happiness.)
To search or not to search is up to each person.
Searching is difficult because, like the Bible says about God; it’s everywhere and is hidden.
“If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.Psalm 139:8
“You are a God who hides himself”Isaiah 45:15
“You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Exodus 33:20
Yet the Bible encourages us to search for Him and we can apply this encouragement to happiness also:
“When you seek me you will find (me) because you have searched for me with all your heart”.Jeremiah 29:12 (1)
The ease of finding pleasure and pain and their transitory nature are what makes our search for them a never ending physical and mental activity.
Unlike the experiences themselves, which are easy to find, the happiness hidden in those experiences is difficult to find but it’s free, permanent and, amazingly keeps getting better the more one searches.
The extent and durability of happiness is just as infinite as the number of places where pleasure or pain is found.
Happiness can be anywhere because it’s everywhere; the number of places where it can be found is infinite so the search is infinite.
The beauty about happiness is that the more one searches the happier one becomes and there’s no limit to how happy a person can be.
It can be in heaven or in hell, in pleasure or in pain, in richness or poverty, in health or sickness, in beauty or ugliness, in wisdom or stupidity etc. etc.
It’s natural to search for pleasure but as everyone has found out when pleasure ends we have pain.
Happiness is simply, like God, everywhere and like God it hides itself in veils of pleasure and pain.
This is what makes many of these relationships disappointing and leads people to continue searching for more pleasurable experiences in the hope of finding happiness.
When they’re disappointed they go on to another experience and then another, being unaware that happiness isn’t automatic, not even in a pleasant love relationship,
Happiness is a permanent state which doesn’t disappear when a pleasant experience ends.
In a state of happiness one pleasure leads to another.
Children born of a love relationship where there is happiness are a pleasure but children born of a love relationship where there is only pleasure become a pain.
There’s no doubt about it children are the price we have to pay for our pleasure in love. In a happy relationship taking care of children becomes a lifelong pleasure but in a pleasure only relationship children are a lifelong pain.
When we find happiness even sacrificing ourselves for others is a pleasure.
Justice means children are born from the love relationship and justice demands that we take care of the children we have brought into this world through the pleasure we’ve had in our search for happiness.
We find happiness in fulfilling our just duty of taking care of children.
A society that doesn’t carry out this just duty can never be happy.
For a happy new year take care of children. Everybody who has ever loved owes it to them.
Wishing you a great no news day
Yours truly
Leon Gork
Notes:
1. This verse is mostly paraphrased as“seek and ye shall find” .
Come for a Jerusalem Walk with Leon Gork
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