Weapon of Joy (5) | City Church in Tallinn

How to learn to be joyful in any situation? Simple, invaluable tips for daily use. Read it and rejoice!

1. The secret of success

The story is told of a man who became despondent when the time came for him to leave the world. His friends and relatives tried their best to console him. “Look,” they said, “how many commandments and good deeds you have performed in your life. Think about how much merit you have…” However, nothing helped. No arguments could console him. When Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev heard about this, he said: “I must immediately come to this man and support him.” When the righteous man came to him, the unfortunate man began to complain that he was afraid and scared that he had not done enough in this world, and that he was worried and tormented by what his lot would be after death.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak said to him: “I am ready to make an agreement with you: If you undertake to be full of joy until your death, then I promise you my entire Olam ha-ba – the World to Come.” As soon as the poor man heard this, he incredulously asked the righteous man: “Are you ready to draw up a document and confirm your promise in writing?” “Yes,” the rabbi answered, “I am ready to draw up a document and sign it.” He took up his pen, and they drew up an agreement that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak would give this Jew his entire Olam ha-ba – the World to Come. As soon as the rabbi signed the document, the dying man came into indescribable joy from the happiness that had befallen him and remained in it for several hours – until his last minute.

The disciples of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak asked: “Rabbi, we understand that you wanted to support this man before his death. However, to give up your entire Hereafter for the sake of a few hours?”

The righteous man answered them: “It’s worth giving all your Olam Haba to cheer up one Jew!”

Truly, only the righteous understand the meaning of joy – and therefore we see how much they are willing to give for the joy of one Jew.

Rabbi Nachman says in “The Book of Qualities” that joy is the secret of success. After all, joy is a manifestation of the perfection of faith that absolutely everything that the Creator does is all for good. The more a person strengthens himself in joy – both on ups and downs – the more he corrects the damage to faith; and therefore he has success. It is said about the righteous Joseph: “The Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand. ” (Bereishit 39:3). The Midrash explains the reason that the Creator sent him good luck: Because Yosef was rejoicing all the time – he danced and jumped with the joy that filled him. And this despite the fact that his brothers sold him and he found himself a powerless slave in Egypt. Therefore, Rabbi Nachman says that it is necessary to constantly seek advice on how to constantly be in joy.

After all, when a person is joyful regardless of what passes over him, he thereby performs a great service for the sake of his Creator. This is the real Ministry of Faith. He says to the Creator: “I am glad because I believe that You care about me and help me, and in the end everything will turn out for good. And if so, then why should I worry?!”

And thanks to this titanic ministry of joy, a person attracts to himself all the good and all the blessings. For the basis of the correction of the world comes through faith; and faith and trust in the Creator are manifested through joy. Therefore, if a person is in trouble or in a critical situation, the advice here is to start dancing and jumping for joy with songs and gratitude.

And thereby he attracts salvation from Above in the aspect: “Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” And then you will be honored to feel that even in the constraint in which you are now, there is an opening and space, which is that special help from Above that descends to a person in whatever trouble he is in. And thus the damage to faith is corrected when a person begins to see with his own eyes, without any concealment, the Providence of His blessed One.

2. Learn to enjoy little things

In truth, our heart should be constantly burning in desire for the blessed Creator, and we should sanctify ourselves with every kind of holiness in everything we do for His blessed sake. And, despite this, any effort and action in holiness that a person makes for the sake of the Creator – even the most insignificant – nothing is wasted.

Even one word spoken during prayer or while studying the Torah; even one coin that a person gave as a donation. And this applies even more so to our generation – when difficulties and obstacles on the path to fulfilling any commandment of the Torah have multiplied. And therefore, right now, every word and every action in holiness is extremely valuable, and they are extremely precious in the eyes of the Creator. And therefore, due to the multiplying obstacles and constraints, it is necessary to look only at the good things that we have achieved and succeeded. We should rejoice and jump to the ceiling of every commandment that we manage to fulfill.

Every word of prayer and Torah, every day when we are honored to tie tefillin and put on tzitzit for every good deed that we managed to do. We must think how precious all this is in the eyes of the blessed Creator. And let no commandment or good deed that you have done seem insignificant to you. “Because what is insignificant to you is extremely precious to Him.” Just try to find and see the good things that you manage to accomplish every day, and rejoice in them, just as the Creator rejoices in them. And this will give you the strength to continue and do many more good deeds.

3. Pieces of goodness

Rabbi Nachman says: “A person must seek and find sparks of goodness in himself. For it is known that a person is always obliged (!) to remain in a state of exaltation and joy, and to drive away all kinds of sadness.” In those moments when a person looks at himself from the “side” and “digging” into himself he sees and feels that, supposedly, there is nothing good or worthwhile in him and he is full of sins, the evil spirit tries to plunge him into the abyss of sadness and melancholy. But even in these difficult moments of “self-criticism,” you cannot allow yourself to be broken and fall into sadness. You just need to search and find something small but good in yourself. After all, it can’t be that you haven’t done a single good deed in your entire life, that you haven’t fulfilled a single good assignment, that you haven’t fulfilled a single commandment, even the most “insignificant” one! And it happens that, even having found some element of goodness in yourself, you begin to “criticize” it too: well, they say, even this good deed I did with a “mixture” of my own benefit, I fulfilled the commandment in the most “imperfect” way, and in general, all my good deeds are imbued with selfishness and self-interest.

Yes… This is often true. But… the fact remains: a good deed, “whatever”, was still accomplished! The commandment, even the most “insignificant” one in your opinion, was fulfilled. Therefore, there is something good in you. And don’t let the question of “perfection” or “imperfection” of this “good” bother you at all at these moments. You just have to find this grain. Even “poor quality”, but obliged. And this “good” will revive you and light a flame of joy in you. For this “find” will incline your attitude towards yourself, and after this the attitude towards you on the part of Heaven moves “justification”, and strength will be given to you to repent and return, according to the above verse from the Psalm: “A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.” In other words, a person is obliged to seek and find good in himself just as in other people, and, “judging” himself on the good side, strengthen himself, not allow himself to lose heart, but, on the contrary, revive himself and instill in himself joy from the goodness and from the good deeds that he did in his life. (Likutei Moaran, 286)

After all, in essence, the very existence of man in the world and the constant renewal of his vital forces day after day is a great miracle and mercy of the Creator. And thanks to the fact that a person remembers the grains of goodness inherent in him, and thanks the Almighty for them, and rejoices in them – thereby he is honored to express his gratitude to the Creator, and learns to rely on the Blessed One, and hope that He will increase this goodness even more. more.

4. Kind look

When a person develops the habit of looking favorably at his neighbor, extolling the merits of each person, appreciating every kind word spoken by others; and if he sees something unworthy in the behavior of his neighbor, then he tries to judge him kindly or looks for grains of goodness in him, thanks to this they receive joy as a gift from the blessed Creator. Rabbi Nachman says that in order to be rewarded with joy, one must search and dig to the root of the good that is present inside everything that seems defective to our view.

5. The Art of Gratitude

Final Liberation is the highest perfection that will be revealed thanks to Moshiach from the line of David, who in turn is a descendant of Yehuda. And the name of Yehuda testifies to his essence. Why is it called Yehuda? – Because he confessed (itvada) of his offense to the righteous Shem, and because he thanked the Creator (gratitude – odaa).

It is human nature to acutely feel any trouble, even the most insignificant, to deeply experience any inconvenience; while he takes pleasant things for granted and does not pay attention to them. Each of us has so many beautiful things in every moment, but we do not notice them, and we do not perceive their light. The secret of Moshiach from the line of David is in complete simplicity – to see and feel the good contained in all the little things and details of everyday life. And this feeling and awareness brings an amazing radiance of joy into our soul, the joy of feeling and realizing the good of the Creator. You have tea leaves and sugar – you can have a tea party – how wonderful it is; you have a refrigerator and there is food in it – this is generally a great joy. Wherever you go, there are so many reasons to be happy!

Life is full of miracles. The light of gratitude, the art of saying: “Thank you.” The art of noticing all the little miracles that happen to us every day and thanking from the bottom of our hearts for them. In this way we acquire the quality of joy.

How is this done in practice? An evil impulse – the power of imagination – lulls the ability to feel the good contained in the things around us, and, on the contrary, exaggerates the sensation of troubles. After some time, the person transforms into a gloomy cynic and skeptic. It’s like a slow poison. Therefore, the main medicine for the souls of our generation is awareness of the good of the Creator and gratitude to Him. In this way we attract to ourselves the light of Pidyon a-klali – the root Redemption, which softens all harsh judgments.

The Midrash says: “The Creator said: In how many generations have I sought the soul of my servant David and found it in the steppes of Moab (Bereishit Rabbah, 50).” Why is the Holy One, blessed be He, so amazed? The Creator says: “I have finally found a Jew whom I will lead through all the trials, and he will only thank Me, glorify Me and sing to Me. Therefore, he is the root of the soul of Moshiach.”

6. The magic word “thank you.”

When for every benefit that we receive and for every thing in which we achieve success, we immediately thank the Creator: “I know that all this is only thanks to You!” – this makes a great correction. For man immediately raises his success to the root from which good comes. And this is what is called: transforming Something (Ego) into Nothing: there is absolutely nothing that would be from me; everything is from the Blessed One. And then our success has a chance for real continuation. After all, now he comes from a higher Source. The light of gratitude leads to humility. And humility leads to joy.

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You had no idea that joy could come so easily! Read on for invaluable Jewish tips for finding true joy.

So, here is a continuation of the listing of the most effective ways to find true joy and “lightness”:

7. Lessons from dancing

Rabbi Nachman says: “Dancing and clapping your hands softens heavy judgments.” Why does a person have heaviness and fear in his heart? What is the root of his fears? They come because of the predestination of the Heavenly Court weighing on him, because of his sins. But when a person dances and claps his hands for the sake of the Blessed Creator, thanks to this, difficult judgments are mitigated. And then the fear and heaviness that “worked” as barriers disappear, and now the light of the Creator can freely penetrate into the heart. And when this light comes, a person suddenly feels lightness and joy. All this comes due to the softening of the courts.

Five minutes of dancing every day is the famous Breslav recipe, which is a great medicine.

Yosef the righteous spent twelve years in prison. Let’s try to understand the secret thanks to which he did not fall into despair because of everything that befell him. What was the “patent” that helped him get out of all the ordeals? Quoted in the Midrash: “Thanks to what, “in everything that Yosef did, G‑d sent him success”? Why? – “Because Yosef likened himself to a trained bear.” This means that throughout the twelve years of imprisonment, every day Yosef danced like a trained bear dances. There are bears that have been trained to dance. Yosef learned this art from them. Every day he danced in the dungeon. This is the secret of dance: when a person dances, it is not stupidity or buffoonery – but this is real advice to get out of sadness and depression; this is the true medicine.

Today we already know that the root of many diseases is depression and sadness, and there are many chemical drugs to suppress them. There is Ritalin for children and Clonex for adults. And medicine moves forward, improving them. Yes, you can swallow sedatives, however, anyone who wants to avoid this should use the advice of the righteous. You should know: Yosef spent from eighteen to thirty years in an Egyptian prison. Even for a righteous man this was a very difficult test. The Book of Zohar describes that he experienced great suffering. He had to overcome the sadness and bitterness of prison everyday life.

One of the tips Yosef found to strengthen his spirit was dance. He turned somersaults, proclaiming each time: “There is no one but Him!” Kabbalists explain that in this way his soul rose to the upper world, which is called Igulim (Circles). Somersault, more somersault. Over and over: “There is no one but Him!” This way he could come out of the clouds. After all, a bad impulse every time envelops a person in clouds of sadness and despair. This was Yosef’s main work on himself throughout the twelve years of imprisonment.

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8. With a song through life

Our imagination works day and night, selflessly trying its best to constantly create a feeling of problems in us, filling our heads with worries, leading us into a state of crisis, heaviness and anxiety.

But we also have a simple and easy patent to resist this onslaught.

It’s as simple as that: listen to a lot of joyful music throughout the day. Listen to and hum cheerful songs as much as possible.

The source of song and melody is extremely high, and the joy they bring brings peace to the soul.

Its healing effect relieves tension and heavy thoughts and brings some air to a tense soul.

Joyful music can change the direction of our thoughts, making them positive and pleasant.

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9. You can not do without humor

Do something stupid!

When Rabbi Nachman taught us to make every effort to be joyful, he said that sometimes it is even worth resorting to slightly foolish behavior. The price a person pays for a little stupidity is much lower than the price for despondency and apathy. Acting a little stupid (being a fool) is not particularly difficult for us… But who knows? Mild stupidity can even serve to some extent as a correction for many “serious” actions that we commit. (Likutei Moaran, 2, 24).

One of Rabbi’s tips for achieving joy when there is none is to force yourself to be joyful and cheerful, especially during prayer. Joy is so necessary that every effort must be made to achieve it. It would be better to drag despondency itself into the circle of fun and joy, and keep it there. (Likutei Moaran, 2, 23).

If only we were in joy, we would not be so oppressed by the weight of life’s problems and the bitterness of suffering. Joy would help us focus and take time to pour out our thoughts and broken hearts to God. When we are depressed, it is very difficult to talk to God. Joy is not a flight of fantasy or an escape from reality. It is simply the realization that sometimes there is nothing we can do in our situation except pray. It would be better for us to rise above grief and make the best of it, rather than wallow and drown in it. Everything will work out in the end. Rabbi Nachman teaches this: Joy opens the heart. (Book of Qualities, “Joy”, 1:2)

A person who is always cheerful achieves success (Book of Qualities, “Joy”, 2:1).

Joy increases the mind’s ability to understand. (Book of Qualities, “Joy”, 1:21).

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10. Soul of a princess

In his famous “Fables” appearing in “The Seven Beggars”, Rabbi Nachman tells of a king’s daughter who fled from a cruel king who, while chasing her, shot her with arrows. Rabbi Nathan of Breslev explains that the arrows of the cruel king, with which he struck the Jewish people, who embodied the divine presence, carried mainly the poison of sadness and despair. And therefore, as soon as a person wishes to return to the Blessed One, sadness and melancholy immediately overtake him, God forbid. And that’s why you need to be joyful every minute. How: Rejoice that you are the owner of a holy soul that strives for the Blessed One. You must understand well what it means to be a Jew, to be a son of the King. To have a soul rooted in His throne of glory.

My soul is holy, and even though I am fallen, I am rooted in perfect goodness in my nature, and there is no power in the world that can undo it. Therefore, there is always hope and I can always return to the holiness of my soul and the Creator of the world, no matter how long it takes. And this alone is enough to thank His Blessed One for this and rejoice that I am the owner of a holy soul and not a stone or a camel. And besides: The Creator gave me an amazing power to wake up and realize this high holiness of mine in the world (All this also applies to representatives of other nations who are aware of the holiness of their souls).

11. Loans from the future

All creation was meant only to reveal the mercy of the Blessed One. Because absolutely everything is good. But if this is so, why do we see anger and suffering in this world? -The reason is that man was created primarily to achieve his goal. What is its purpose? – This is Queen Shabat. The whole world is in trouble because the sin of the First Man was committed on the eve of the Sabbath – before the Sabbath came into the world. But if the Sabbath had come as it should, it would have brought such a wonderful and blessed light, the enjoyment of which one cannot imagine.

And therefore a person can attract joy to himself by looking at the goal, at his destiny. Because he realizes that he is on his way to the World to Come, where the light hidden for the righteous shines, the light of the Queen of Shabbat. And then everything becomes good, everything brings unity – even what now seems to us to be two complete opposites. And then we are rewarded with a bliss that is incomprehensible and immeasurable. And if a person now draws this light to himself – in everything that passes through him, then he is certainly worthy of leaving the exile of substitute palaces and worthy of all good things. (Rabbi Nathan of Breslev, Likutei Halachot)

12. The joy of holiness

Rabbi Nathan of Breslev says: “The joy of holiness is certainly an extremely great thing, because this is the perfection of service: to serve the Creator with joy. Joy is the core of the sanctity of all commandments. Truly, he in whom holy faith lives must rejoice all the days of his life, at every moment, by reminding himself of the mercy which the Blessed Almighty bestows upon us—and thus attracts holy faith—to each man according to his status. Because the basis of joy is when a person can experience the reward of the presence of the blessed Creator and the understanding that all hopes, expectations and salvation are from Him. For the Holy One, blessed be He, is the source of true light—affection, delight, and great joy—incomparable to the joy of any thing. And the essence of this joy is impossible to describe, but it is possible to experience it a little through the joy of Shabbat and holidays, the joy of weddings and the taste of feasts. For it all comes through the joy of feeling in the depths of our souls the light of the blessed Creator here below.

However, one should be careful and guard against the error of those who distorted the image of the joy of holiness discussed above, and therefore fell into the error of those who chose the fun of revelry and drunkenness, which has no connection with true joy – their consequences – sadness, melancholy and with gloom, for that is part of the joy of the pleasures of this world.

There are people who, because of the feeling of inner emptiness, try to fill it with joy. They try to fill themselves with its surrogates, accumulating property, money, striving for honor and glory. They try to find joy by increasing food, drink and other pleasures of this world… However, such “joys” eventually lead to great sadness because it is a joy corrupted by the pleasures of this world. As soon as this taste passes, emptiness and hopeless melancholy fall upon the person again, which only increases as the search for pleasure continues. And now man needs even greater joys to fill the gaping void. And this is essentially the cause of all the evils and bad attachments in the world.

However, if a person fills himself with joy in holiness, namely with the joy of commandments, gratitude and dance, with the joy of prayer – on the contrary, he removes from his heart another layer of desires and sadness, heaviness and fears – and his heart opens to the feeling of the light of the Creator.
And when the blessed Creator fills hearts with His light, it is boundless joy, independent of any material cause, limited and finite in nature.
It’s a pleasure to feel included to the Creator, to feel the source of goodness and the divine soul that is present in me and the divine light that comes through it. It is the joy of returning to the Father’s house—to the blessed Creator.

13. Prayer for joy

May it be Your will, Almighty God of us and our fathers, that You help me and save me in Your great mercy, that I may be rewarded with truly great joy in serving You, as it was said: “Serve God with joy and rejoice with trembling.”

And in your great mercy grant me indeed to fulfill all the commandments with great joy. That my joy may be in the commandment itself, and that I may be exceedingly glad and exulting at the fulfillment of every commandment, because by Your mercy I have been worthy to fulfill it.

And let all my joy come exclusively from the commandment itself, and not from the reward for it in the world to come.
And more than that, and of course, let it not even occur to me, God forbid that I would want to impress anyone or get any benefit from carrying out the commandment.

Just humble me to fulfill all the commandments with great joy in the commandment itself. And let all my Future World be in this commandment, so that I need no Future World reward for this commandment. And let all my reward be that You oblige me to fulfill another commandment for the fulfillment of this commandment, as the sages of our blessed memory said: “The reward for a commandment is a commandment.”

And let me be one with You because of Your holy commandments, which are inseparable from You. And let what was said come true for us: “God delights in His creation.” After all, You are pleased with us because You oblige us to do what pleases You.

And we rejoice over You. And help us in Your great mercy to attract vitality, abundance and blessing with great joy through the fulfillment of Your commands to every organ and sinew of our body and to the whole world and all seasons so that all three dimensions – time, space and soul – receive blessing and vitality, goodness, holiness and purity, thanks to the fact that we fulfill Your commandments with great joy.”
(Likutei Tefillot)
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Compiled based on the materials from Rav Ofer Erez’s book “From the Depths”.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/breslev.russian