SUKKOT AND HAPPINESS

RAINY DAYS OUT THAT

Sukkot and Happiness: Can You Fake It

‘til you make it?

By Hannah Sher

O On Sukkot we leave our comfortable and spacious homes and move into the flimsy sukkah. Here in the UK, the temperature can plummet and the wind could blow down our sukkah in a moment, yet the holiday of Sukkot is meant to be a ‘zeman simchatenu’ - a time of happiness. How can this yom tov represent happiness when we are living in such exposed and uncomfortable conditions? The Hebrew word for happiness is ‘simcha’ which is connected with the word ‘tzmicha’ - growth. Happiness is the experience that results from engaging in meaningful work and progression towards meaningful goals. Where there is meaningful growth, progress and expansion, there can be happiness. On Sukkot, we leave the world of physical comforts and immerse ourselves in a world of growth. We spend these seven days with G-d, almost completely removed from the material world. We shift our focus from being comfortable to being growth-oriented, with the potential to become uplifted in a world of happiness. What better place could there be to remind ourselves that true happiness comes not from all the stuff we own, but from what we still have when stripped of all our possessions? We all want to achieve happiness, but often make the mistake of confusing happiness with success. Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. The Mishnah says "Who is rich? The one who appreciates what he has." (Pirkei Avot 4:1)

Western society commonly perceives happiness as the outcome of what you achieve and acquire.

Happiness is a state of mind

"My whole life would improve if I had a new car..." “I just need a better job and then I can relax and be happy..."

You get the car, and what happens? For a whole week you're walking on air. Then you go right back to being unhappy. Happiness doesn’t happen. Happiness is a state of mind. Orchot Tzadikim, one of the classic Jewish ethical works, says: “Happiness is never about having (possessions, status, friends, etc.); it is about being.” You can have everything in the world and still be miserable. Or, you can have relatively little and feel unbounded joy. A rich man is actually poorer than a poor man. A man with £1m desires another £1m. A man with £1k only desires another £1k. Therefore, the man with £1m is losing out on the £1m he desires whilst the man with £1k is only losing out on the £1k he desires.

Fake it ‘til you make it

Our sages have long recognised that the way we act can profoundly alter the way we feel inside. Now, modern research is proving this long-held Jewish knowledge. When we act happy externally – even if we are “faking it” somewhat – our actions influence our inner feelings, making us feel happier inside. In psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison experiment, college students were given the roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. It was intended to measure the effect of role-playing and social expectations on behaviour over a period of two weeks. However, mistreatment of prisoners escalated so alarmingly that Zimbardo terminated the experiment after only six days. Over the course of the experiment, some of the guards became cruel and tyrannical, while a number of the prisoners became depressed and disoriented. This is a perfect illustration of how drastically our actions (whether resulting from someone else’s choices or our own) can affect how we feel on the inside. We can use this knowledge to ‘fake’ happiness. Chances are, you will eventually ‘make’ it.

Focus on gratitude

Writing a letter of thanks also boosts our sense of well-being. That was the conclusion of Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman after he asked a group of people to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had helped them whom they had never properly thanked before. The letter writers reported huge increases in happiness, with the effects lasting for about a month. Getting into the habit of appreciating the many blessings in your life can transform the way you think. Start by taking a moment first thing in the morning to thank G-d you are alive, and try to keep that attitude going all day long. If you got a seat on the bus or a parking space on your way to work, take a moment to feel thankful. Reach out to others too to let them know you are grateful to have them in your life. Once you start brainstorming all the things you have to be thankful for it can be hard to stop - your home, your friends, even your lunch! Thinking this way can substantially boost your wellbeing and bring you joy.

Turn off your phone

A number of recent studies show markedly higher happiness levels among people who spend less time online. One study at the University of Pennsylvania found that even staying off Facebook for as little as one week boosts happiness and increases our sense of wellbeing. A landmark 2018 study at the University of San Diego found that the happiest teens don’t seem to avoid social media entirely, they just use it sparingly - usually for less than an hour a day. Beyond that, more hours interacting with devices instead of communicating with people face-to-face is associated with higher levels of unhappiness, with sadness correlating with time spent online. Teens who spent more than five hours each day online were twice as likely to feel depressed as those who limited their screen time to an hour or less.

Do something for someone else

Recent studies have shown that being a giver tends to make us happier. In a study at the University of Zurich, researchers told a group of 50 people that they were going to be given $100 in the coming weeks. Half of the group were asked to start planning how they would spend that money on themselves, and half were asked to start planning ways to spend it on someone else. The people who planned to spend their windfall on others behaved more generously in all sorts of ways, and also reported feeling happier than those who were planning to spend their $100 on themselves. Surprisingly, this difference in happiness levels lasted even after the experiment was over. It seems that planning to give to others alters the way we see ourselves - when we begin to think of ourselves as generous, we behave in ways that reinforce that self-image and continue to reap the rewards of feeling that we are giving people.

Happiness is not something that happens to us - it’s a decision we must make

…But don't expect the results to come automatically. It is possible to intellectually understand how to attain happiness, yet not put it into practice. In fact, many people might actually prefer to be comfortable and unhappy, rather than endure the discomfort of changing their habits. Just as learning any new skill requires effort, you have to be willing to invest serious effort to achieve real happiness. Let us utilise Sukkot to stop getting what we want and start wanting what we get, focus on personal growth, enhancing our relationships and making choices to achieve that desired state of happiness.

Hannah Sher is the Early Years educator for Seed Manchester, running Babies & Bagels and Partytime Shabbat. She is currently finishing an MSc in Clinical and Health Psychology and has two children, Shmuel (4) and Rosie (18 months) who keep her on her toes!