Finding Joy

Daniel I. Schwartz

Description

Searching for happiness in our modern world of stress and struggle is common; finding it is more unusual. This guide explores and explains how to find joy through a time-honored, creative—and surprisingly practical—approach based on Kabbalah and the teachings of Jewish mystics.

The very core of the Jewish mystical tradition is centered on the belief that if our focus is spiritual, then true appreciation of our lives, and true joy, are possible. Step by step, Finding Joy describes the basis of happiness in the context of Jewish mystical tradition and shows, in an easy-to-understand way, how we can use its concept of the 10 divine “rays of light,” the Sefirot, to remedy the everyday unhappiness in our lives.

Clear, creative, personal, and down-to-earth, Finding Joy introduces the ancient insights of the Jewish mystics, and offers practical week-by-week exercises for the soul which bring them into our daily routines. Finding Joy is not an instant cure for modern life’s burdens. Instead, it’s a guide to a time-honored method for thinking and living ... and finding real joy.

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1 Why Didn't You Enjoy All the Permitted Pleasures? Chapter 2 Mind over Matter: If You Don't Mind, It Doesn’t Matter Chapter 3 The Battle for Our Minds Chapter 4 Wanting It More; Enjoying It Less Chapter 5 Getting Through the Pain Chapter 6 Making Success and Ambition Work for You Chapter 7 Creating a Road Map to Happiness Chapter 8 Getting Your Attitude Adjusted Chapter 9 Making Sense, Not Excuses Chapter 10 The Power of "No" Chapter 11 Be Mystical. Be Happy. Chapter 12 Pursuing Happiness Glossary Suggested Readings

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Mysticism
• Mark Hass
• Jewish Currents (magazine)
• Kabbalah
• Judaism
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 09 mai 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580237529
• Langue: English

Extrait

FINDING JOY
A PRACTICAL SPIRITUAL GUIDE TO HAPPINESS
DANNEL I. SCHWARTZ
with Mark Hass
Jewish Lights Publishing
Woodstock, Vermont
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To the happiest person I know, my wife, Suzi Romanik Schwartz.
Her love, her smile, her hope and her talent have lit up my life with joy.
-Dannel I. Schwartz

For Sherry. For Happiness.
-Mark Hass
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 Why Didn t You Enjoy All the Permitted Pleasures?
Chapter 2 Mind over Matter: If You Don t Mind, It Doesn t Matter
Chapter 3 The Battle for Our Minds
Chapter 4 Wanting It More; Enjoying It Less
Chapter 5 Getting Through the Pain
Chapter 6 Making Success and Ambition Work for You
Chapter 7 Creating a Road Map to Happiness
Chapter 8 Getting Your Attitude Adjusted
Chapter 9 Making Sense, Not Excuses
Chapter 10 The Power of No
Chapter 11 Be Mystical. Be Happy.
Chapter 12 Pursuing Happiness
Glossary
Suggested Readings
About the Authors
Copyright
Also Available
About Jewish Lights
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Being a mystic becomes doubly pleasurable when you can live it and teach it, too. And when the otherwise rational student becomes totally immersed in the deliciously non-rational world of the mystic and can see what his or her teacher sees, then the miracles of teaching and learning occur. To those of my students who saw even more than I saw and were the first to realize that Finding Joy should be a book I give my profound thanks.
I am sure that when one of the scribes was busily at work writing the text of Exodus, some editor appeared and said, For God s sake! Fifteen plagues is overkill. Cut it to ten. The whole Bible will read better and you ll make your point. Behind every good author is an editor who can cut the one story too many and be the unbiased, impartial and practiced eye that keeps a book on target. This book is far from being the Bible, but it had Arthur Magida, who is one of the best. He cut some of the tales, but kept the meat of the book intact. His attention to detail and commitment to his craft made me proud to be part of the whole process.
Stuart Matlins, my publisher, deserves kind words for helping, early in the writing process, to set the tone for this volume. He correctly insisted that the voice of the teacher, the teller of tales, and the mystic be woven throughout the fabric of the book. As much as anyone, he helped give this book its final shape.
Most of all, thanks to my friend and partner, Mark Hass, who has been an integral part of this undertaking from the beginning and kept me believing in it. His capacity to create order from chaos and rescue a meaningful thought from a clich is his God-given gift. His ability to manage the mystic s enigmas and solve some ancient riddles, and to force me into making them useful and usable in today s world, is really the spark that makes this book so unique.
And most importantly, both Mark and I are more than grateful to our wives, Suzi Romanik Schwartz and Sherry Hass. This labor of love would not have been possible without their support, patience and good humor through the late evenings and long weekends that were consumed by our writing process.
And one final thanks. This one to you, the reader, for joining me on this mystical journey.
Dannel Schwartz
INTRODUCTION
In our society, happiness is elusive, but in great demand.
Why can some of us find it in our day-to-day existence, even when that existence is a struggle? Why do others, despite apparent advantages, feel miserable? Is the answer in a diet, an exercise program, a crystal? That s unlikely, because happiness is not in what we eat, how we look or what we wear around our necks. Instead, it lies in a spiritual approach to living, an approach consistent with the teachings of the fundamental texts of Jewish mystical life, which hold remarkable insights for Jews and non-Jews alike who are searching for joy.
Unfortunately, those texts are rarely used today to shape a conceptual basis for making life happier. That s a shame, because the mystics offer some good, practical advice for happiness. The core concepts of Jewish mysticism are built on the belief that joy is possible and the world can be better appreciated if our lives have a spiritual focus. Making life more fulfilling and enjoyable, in fact, is the basis of any spiritual formula for living.
Finding Joy: A Practical Spiritual Guide to Happiness uses that guiding principle to explore the spiritual nature of the joy within us. It is intended as a guide for thinking about happiness in the context of mystical Jewish wisdom. It is not a recipe for instant gratification, nor is it a scholarly text. It doesn t offer potions for dissolving the challenges that accompany everyone s journey through life. What it does provide is a step-by-step understanding of how we make ourselves miserable and of time-honored spiritual approaches for thinking and living that can extricate us from that lessthan-desirable state.
Finding Joy is designed to be accessible to readers of all faiths who are eager to draw on the wisdom of Jewish mysticism. In order to make it accessible, I had to make this a creative interpretation of the traditional Kabbalah. It can enlighten anyone curious about Jewish spirituality. But most of all, Finding Joy is for:

People who have never been happy. Here, they might discover a unique path to happiness that finally works.
People who once had happiness, but lost it. Here, they will find strategies for a second chance at enjoying life fully.
People who have suffered personal loss or tragedy. Doctors say that once a broken bone heals, it is strongest at the point of the break. Readers coping with emotional traumas might here discover a therapeutic process that will make them stronger than before.
The idea for Finding Joy came from a class on Jewish mysticism that I taught several years ago to adults at Temple Shir Shalom in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Some students told me that, while the course had been an interesting exploration of theory, it had not given them any ideas about how mystical thought could be applied to real problems. Instead of just historical information, arcane formulas or facts once hidden in ancient texts, these adults wanted lessons for life.
I reshaped the course I taught the next year to incorporate the premise that happiness and spirituality were linked. Enrollment for this new class doubled from that of the previous year, and attendance at each class kept increasing. By the end of the course, more than 100 people were showing up; about a third were not Jewish. Many said they had been attracted by the distillation of the mystical material into easy-to-manage ideas. By combining metaphors, stories and case histories with mystical principles, the students gained an insight into the world of Kabbalah.
Kabbalah, which literally means receiving, is the generic term frequently used for Jewish mysticism. Practitioners of Kabbalah wanted to convince utterly rational people that the world is filled with mystery and utterly irrational events. Believing is seeing, they might say. Centuries before the science of psychology was born, the Kabbalists examined depression and manic joy, creating blueprints and formulas to heal the wounded heart or cure the sickly soul.
None of what the Kabbalists crafted is really counter to modern psychology or science. A recent study of 30,000 Americans over the age of 100, for example, found that the secret to long life was more spiritual than physical. Scientists discovered that diet, exercise and healthy living, while contributing to a good life, were not the prime factors behind the longevity of these centenarians. What, then, was the potion for an extended stay on this earth? Coping successfully with loss, keeping busy, and maintaining a positive attitude.
The difficulty with Kabbalah, as any student of Jewish mysticism knows, is that it can be dense and seem quite disconnected from modern life. With the collaboration of Mark Hass, a journalist and former newspaper editor, I set out to overcome that problem. When my ideas met his skepticism and need for clarity, a practical and accessible form of spirituality was born that is the foundation for this book. He gave a voice to my notion that spirituality isn t something just to be studied, but rather that it can be a pragmatic and functional tool for making our lives more pleasurable.
That s why this is a book that you, the reader, should feel free to use in whatever way makes sense to you. Read the case studies, all of which are the real stories of real people whose names I ve changed, and look for ways that they parallel your own. Read the Exercises for the Soul that conclude each chapter. These concisely list things you can do to bring yourself closer to a spiritual happiness. Incorporate them into your daily routine. Read the text from beginning to end, or study a single chapter that has special meaning to you, and return to other parts of the book later.
Regardless of how you tailor this information to your needs, it is my hope and Mark s that when you re done, you will feel inspired by Jewish mysticism. It will be the essential measure of our success if, af