Delighted To Be Here

I see a lot of answers here that are challenging the "happiness" theme. And I'm glad. I'm glad that finally, people are starting to wake up from the "positivity" dream that has been shoved on us for two generations. This dream wasn't for our good, it was for the good of leaders who would benefit greatly from getting everyone to sacrifice, strive, ignore their needs and the needs of their families, in order to fulfill the leader's plans. Religious leaders, bosses, government leaders, teachers, etc., have been demanding more and more, whipping us into a frenzy of production, while our personal and spiritual lives crash. Enough. Let each of us seek our path directly from HaShem and His Torah. It won't all be "positive", but it will have meaning to us, and that is what gives true joy, not transient "happiness". Reply

(someone asked same last year but did not see reply) what is the talmudic source? i tried several searches but did not find where the cre8or consulted lion regarding its own creation. admittedly not knowing the original aramaic made such a search inexact, at least for me. merci! Reply

Perhaps not everyone at the party is happy because we were created to be relational creatures. and as the adam/eve story shows, our relating with one another can trump our relating with hashem and hashem IS the party. Reply

Not everyone gets to be who they truly are. Reply

Esteemed Rabbi Freeman,

Could you square this thought about happy creatures with the blatant extant misery that abounds? Reply

B"H
We are commanded to be joyous, joyful, celebrate, dance (in the mind if health does not permit).
How often does HaShem say "if only my people would listen to me?"
Life has challenges for everyone. We can all set aside our problems for a short while to celebrate life.
Purim is nearly here. Join in, give to help others and if you need help accept the gift of giving from those helping, this is one way of uniting. Enjoy and live in the moment. Reply

Where is the source in the Talmud you referenced? Reply

When life is simple and child-like it is easy to celebrate. But life becomes burdensome, children eventually grow into adults with adult responsibilities. Adults who do not grow and mature are disturbing to watch, so it is vital that adults behave like proper adults and not try to remain child-like.

The weight of adult responsibilities - paying rent, working, providing the necessities of life, matters of illness, of marital harmony or lack thereof - these are crushing burdens.

Some Salmon will start out happy, small. They grow to maturity. At spawning time, at their maturity, these same fish who were once young and happy become rather gruesome looking with exaggerated features. They know they are on a suicide mission to spawn and then die which is precisely what happens.

The fate of many men and women is not unlike that of these fish who end up sacrificing their lives so others may live. It is not easy to feel joyful when you know your life is ending. Hard to understand G_d then. Reply

Oh so after we awake to find ourselves that
our souls have been restored, then the birds arrive and then the hungry children in our Trailer park- Mobile home park coming knocking on our door for water and food we are in Awe to enjoy, celebrate and dance that His goodness is here! Reply

This morning I learned that I was COVID positive , though triple boosted . Symptoms are mild , and whoever I am annoyed with somebody , I do not just reconcíliate , but end with both laughing .

My standing joke is that if the community where I live in were to resettle in Judea and Samaria our adversaries would be too busy laughing to fight . Reply

They said they would enjoy existing because they didn't know how bad the existence would be and how much suffering there would be in the world.

Not everyone is happy. They aren't celebrating because they realize they gave the wrong answer when asked if they would enjoy existing. Mere existence isn't enough. They should have responded with more specificity than a simple yes or no, and told G-d what conditions would be necessary for them to enjoy existing. Reply

Cats are celebrating, as well as, the butterfly’s, birds, and so forth, until some greedy creature from the human world comes by and chops their trees down for more lumber, or some oil company thinks they have the right to dig up the earth’s surface to infuse the ground with poisons, or the government thinks testing out the sound waves in the ocean are more than important then keeping marine life alive. And the only time mankind celebrates is when all is well in his backyard. We can all celebrate and be happy everyday of our lives if we just live according to G d’s universal plan. We must learn to live our lives with love and respect for everything in this universe that G d created. Reply

Delightful Opportunity G_d is delighted to share His abundance with us. He can only be delighted when we are ready to receive His delights in order to delight Him.

He provided us the opportunity to exist here for this purpose: to correct our delight in self gratification. He arranged a special process to guide us to be delighted through each other.

We have reached that point in this world when we are ready to implement the last stage where we begin to scrutinize our flawed inclination and request it's correction.

Only after the completion of corrections of our nature we will celebrate our perfect, eternal divine connection of enjoying delight between us.

Let's seize this delightful opportunity to delight Him as He wishes to delight us! Reply