The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: The Torah

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Sarah Hurwitz grew up thinking there was little the great texts of Judaism could teach her - she even hatched a plot to get out of Hebrew school. But in adulthood she discovered that The Torah contains instructions to act with gratitude, kindness and solidarity that all chime with the latest happiness research.  Sarah is author of Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There). Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. health these days. But happiness and the desire to be happier aren't just modern preoccupations. And that means that centuries of smart people before us have grappled with this challenge. And a lot of the conclusions they reached are worthy of exploring in more detail. If you're a fan of the Happiness Lab, you know that we've already talked about what the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Buddhists can teach us about improving our daily lives. But there's still so much more to learn from the past. And so in this new mini-season of the Happiness Lab, we'll see what age-old philosophies and religions got right. We'll learn more about the old-school tips that are borne out by the science.

So welcome once again to Happiness Lessons of the Ancients, with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. Now, I'm guessing that at least some of you are pretty familiar with the Torah, those first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Some of you may have even read parts of this text as a child. Think plagues of frogs, burning bushes, and 600-year-old men building arcs to save the creatures of the earth. But it's important not to let these extraordinary adventure stories overshadow the human lessons contained within the text.

To be honest, I didn't even know what I was missing until I picked up a book by Sarah Hurwitz called Here All Along, finding meaning, spirituality, and a deeper connection to life in Judaism, after finally choosing to look there. Sarah and I have a lot in common. Her family comes from my hometown. I really spent a lot of time in Bedford. Like, I have very fond memories. And we attended the same college around the same time.

You remember at Harvard, there was another class. I don't even remember who taught it. After college, Sarah's career took her to D.C. and then the White House, where she became chief speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. And it was only then that she started to reappraise what the Torah and Judaism more generally had to teach her. Because as a child, Sarah wasn't really feeling the whole religious thing. Judaism for me was like two kind of long, incomprehensible services at the major Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And, you know, I went to Hebrew school, but like a lot of kids going to religious school as a kid, I didn't really love it. You know,

it was extra school, after normal school. I kind of resented that. And one day in sixth grade, after, you know, some of my classmates had been mean to me, I was like, that's it. I'm just done. I don't want to do this anymore. And so I went home that night and I gave my mom this totally made up impassioned speech about how this Hebrew school wasn't honoring my true understanding of Judaism and it wasn't giving me the education I really needed. I mean, just all this. I don't know what possessed me't know what possessed me, like only a 11 year old would think to do that. So my mother, bless her heart, you know, she finds me another Hebrew school, which only meets once a week, but it's this long drive.

It's not, it's not a very high quality Hebrew school. So I didn't really learn much after that. And, you know, I had a bat mitzvah, but it was very loosely based on Judaism. And that was kind of it. You know, after that, I thought, okay, I'm a cultural Jew, I'm Jewish by heritage, but if I want meaning or spiritual connection, I guess I'll just have to look elsewhere. This doesn't sound like, you know, the great origin stories of someone who's going to write a book about finding meaning in Judaism, you know? So really, what was the transition there? Yeah. So 25 years later, at the age of 36,

I broke up with a guy I was dating. I had a lot of time on my hands and was kind of bored and lonely. I happened to hear about an intro to Judaism class and I signed up just thinking, okay, I should learn something about Judaism. I'm Jewish. I should know my heritage. And I have to say, I was blown away by what I discovered in that class. It was 4,000 years of crowdsourced wisdom from millions and millions of people who are basically pooling their very best wisdom on how to live a meaningful life, how to be a good person, how to cope with life's challenges, how to find joy, how to find spiritual connection. And I just could not get over how relevant all this ancient wisdom was to my modern life. So let's do the kind of cliff notes version of Judaism, which I realize is impossible

in like a short podcast. But, you know, just like starting with the history for those that aren't familiar with it, like, you know, what is the Torah, for example? Yes, great question. So the Torah is basically the first five books of what Christians refer to as the Old Testament. Jews call it the Tanakh, or you might hear it called the Hebrew Bible. So it's those first five books. And it's basically, you know, it's basically the story of, oh, might hear it called the Hebrew Bible. So it's those first five books. And it's basically, you know, it's basically the story of, oh gosh, it's such a complex, so complicated. But you know, if I were to really fast forward, it's sort of the story of a family, which eventually becomes a nation and, you know, becomes enslaved in Egypt. And then it's a story of this God who

rescues these, these Israelite, these Jewish slaves from Egypt, you know, assembles them at the base of a mountain, Mount Sinai, and basically gives them a mission. And the mission is to build a society that is the exact opposite of Egypt, a society that rejects all of these old power structures that value kings and emperors and pharaohs, but that instead really focuses on the most vulnerable, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor. And, you know, it's this mission to create this society that's the opposite of Egypt. And that's sort of the, and it's really, it's a presentation of a covenant to the Israelites, and they have to choose, right? This is a partnership between God and the Israelites. It is not an order that they are forced to accept. It's a covenant that they willingly

choose to accept. So in Judaism, you know, you have a sense of empowerment, of having free will and agency, and there's a real focus less on professing a certain faith and much more on acting in a certain way, in treating others in a certain way and living life in a certain way. You know, when you say it like that, it sounds fantastic. But, you know, I've kind of gone to the Torah, like, you know, through the Old Testament. And you sometimes find things there that seem, at least to our modern ears, a little weird or maybe in some cases even disturbing. I mean, did you have that when you kind of that. But the Torah is not meant to be a historical document, right? This is not like an accurate historical blow-by-blow account of ancient people. It is a document that I personally believe was written by people. There are some people who believe that it was written by God. I don't believe that. I think you'll find that most Jews believe that it is a human-generated document, and maybe these humans were divinely inspired somehow. But it's not meant

to be read as a scientific document or as a historical document. This is a moral document, and maybe these humans were divinely inspired somehow, but it's not meant to be read as a scientific document or as a historical document. This is a moral document, right? It is articulating a certain moral sensibility that's basically a protest against the values of the ancient Near East, where human life was degraded, where emperors and pharaohs and kings were worshipped, and ordinary people were thought to be valueless. This document is saying, no, no, no, no. This God is not concerned about emperors, pharaohs, and kings, just the opposite. This God cares about the most vulnerable, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor. So it's articulating a

moral sensibility. And yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there that's 2,500 years old, right? And I think what a lot of Christians don't really understand is that we didn't stop with the Torah. For the past 2,500 years, we have been reinterpreting and reimagining the Torah. You know, you'll notice that Jews don't put each other's eyes out anymore, right? It's not an eye for an eye because 2,000 years ago, ancient rabbis said, oh, no, no, no, no. Eye for an eye means that if you put out someone's eye, you have to compensate them monetarily. That's what that means. And there's a lot of that kind of interpretation over 2,500 years. So today, you have women serving as rabbis. You have gay people serving as rabbis. We marry gay couples in 90% of the Judaism that

American Jews practice. It's actually a lot like the Constitution. If you look at the original version of the Constitution, it allowed slavery. Women couldn't vote. I mean, very troubling. But over the last 250 or so years, we've been reinterpreting it. And it's a very similar process in Judaism. And it seems like part of the reinterpreting is really going back to the basic concepts, right? You know, not like the stories of bushes burning and, you know, seas being parted and things like that. In your book, you talk about one of those fundamentals being this idea of the three fundamental truths, these three inalienable dignities. What are these dignities? You know, this is based on this core Jewish idea that we're all created in the image of God. And you don't have to believe in any kind of God or higher power to understand the value of that. There are three inalienable dignities. One is that every human being is of infinite worth. You can't put a price on a human life. The second is that we are all equal. No one

is more or less valuable than anyone else. And the third is that we are completely unique. There is no one else like us. The truth is, you might say like, oh, that sounds so obvious, Sarah. We all believe that. No, we don't. That's not true. We don't believe that, right? Think of how many times you've walked by someone on the street who said, hey, can you spare a dollar? And you said, oh, I'm sorry, not today. Or you've given the person a dollar and then walked on. If that person had been a celebrity, you know, I guarantee you, you would have stopped. You would have wanted to talk to them, get to know them. We don't value people equally. We value people differently based on their status, their net worth, their beauty, their likes, their fame.

And so that idea of being created in the image and those three inalienable dignities is quite radical. This actually gets to something we talk a lot about on the podcast, which is this idea of being more other-oriented. It seems like these dignities really are about treating other people in a really important way, right? Like focusing on people who need your help, who can't help themselves. And this seems to be a real core tenet of the Jewish faith too. You are right on. You've just gotten to the exact beating heart of Judaism. I think modern secular law and ethics are very much you do you as long as you don't hurt other people too much. It's about rights and freedoms and what people and things that you are not obligated to do. Jewish law is the opposite. It's very much about what

you are obligated to do. And you're exactly right that a lot of those obligations are around how we treat others. And I hear sometimes this old lie that Christianity is a religion of love and Judaism is a religion of law. But if you actually look at Jewish laws, what they're doing is they're actually mandating a very high bar for how you treat other people. It's not just like, oh, give money to the poor. It's like, okay, how exactly are you going to do that? There's a lot of law around supporting people in a way that doesn't humiliate them, that empowers them. There's even a law that says that

if you've loaned money to someone in need and you see them on the street, you should avoid running into them if you know they can't repay you. Because to do that would be to embarrass them, right? It was to stress them out. Now that's so specific. Like, why are you getting that specific? But it's actually saying to you, hey, you need to be constantly thinking about the needs and sensitivities of others and really making sure you act in a way

that respects their dignity and their feelings. There also seem to be two concepts that come from the Torah that are related to this, right? This idea of tzedakah and hesed. So walk me through these concepts. Yes. So the idea of tzedakah, it's often mistranslated as charity, but it actually means justice. And that's our obligation to give financial assistance to those in need.

So when you label it as justice, it has a mandatory aspect to it. It's like fair procedures in a courtroom. That's justice. You don't just do that when you're feeling particularly kind or out of the goodness of your heart. It's mandatory. We have to support those who are struggling financially. Chesed, that means loving kindness. And it's not just about being nice to people, which you should be. It's a little bit deeper than that. It basically, it kind of requires your presence to help one who is vulnerable or in need. So a lot of the laws around chesed have to do with people who are ill or people who are in mourning. When someone is sick in Judaism, you don't just send them flowers and say, oh, I hope you feel better. You're actually supposed to go and visit them

and support them. If someone has just lost someone they love and they're in mourning, you don't just send a text saying, I'm sorry. You actually show up for the funeral for the shiva, which is the mourning period after the funeral. However it is that, you actually show up for the funeral for the Shiva, which is kind of the mourning period after the funeral. However, it is that you can really show up for someone and show your loving presence in a very deep and serious way. And I think this idea of kind of showing up gets to a different misconception I think a lot of people have about Judaism and the Jewish faith, which is it's just a set of beliefs, right? Or it's a set of laws. But this was really a very action-based faith. Explain this Jewish concept of tikkun olam. Yes. So right? Or it's a set of laws. But this was really a very action-based faith.

Explain this Jewish concept of tikkun olam. Yes. So this basically means it's like to repair a broken world. The idea is that there is a lot of brokenness in the world and that it's our obligation as Jews to repair brokenness that we see. So you are absolutely right. Like this is a very action-oriented faith. When another Jew is trying to suss out how religious I am or how observant I am, they don't really ask me, well, how strongly do you believe in God? They want to know what I do. Do I help other people? Do I give tzedakah? Am I part of a community that I support? They're really going to be concerned about the actions that I perform and less about, do I have a particular belief in my head? People will say, well, Judaism isn't just about creed, it's about

deed. And that's a little bit of an oversimplification, but that action orientation is very important. And another part of this is this idea that, you know, through these actions, we can actually get better, which is something else we know from the science, right? By doing these actions, we can actually, like, you know, improve our happiness, but also, like, become a person of stronger character. This is what the faith is all about. Obviously, you know, your sense of wanting to be kind will lead you to do kind acts. But Judaism says that, you know what, even if you don't feel like being kind, be kind. You got to go do it. Even if you feel like, gosh, I don't feel like visiting this

person who's sick. I don't feel like showing up for that funeral. Judaism says, that's okay. You don't have to feel like it, but you got to do it. And the funny thing is, once you do it, it actually can create the feelings, right? Once you actually go there, you show up for the funeral and you're supporting someone, you actually do begin to feel in your heart like, oh, this was the right thing to do. I'm so glad you did this. So it's not just that the feeling leads to the action. Oftentimes it's that the action leads to the feeling. And you found the power of this feeling like firsthand. In your book, you mentioned that you've never regretted doing these kinds of acts, right? Right. The times in my life where I didn't show up for someone, I really regret it. But firsthand. In your book, you mentioned that you've never regretted doing these kinds of acts, right?

Right. The times in my life where I didn't show up for someone, I really regret it. But I've never regretted showing up for someone. I look back and there have been moments where I've thought, well, do I know this person well enough to show up for the funeral? Do I know them well enough to visit them when they're sick? And when I've erred on the side of doing it, never regretted it. I've always felt like, oh, so glad I did this. So far, Sarah and I have talked a lot about the importance of showing up for others. But being other-oriented is just one of the happiness lessons Sarah found in her reappraisal of the Torah. As we'll see after the break, there's much more that Judaism can teach us. The Happiness Lab will be right back. If you're a fan of The Happiness Lab, you probably

know that being grateful for the people and things in your life is an important tool in your well-being kit. Counting our blessings and expressing thanks to others improves our resilience, strengthens our social bonds, and makes us more willing to take positive steps to improve our happiness. The science shows it even helps us do things like exercise more and eat better. The problem, though, is that gratitude doesn't always come naturally when we're feeling down or super busy. We're just facing the sorts of challenges that life tends to throw our way. But Sarah Hurwitz has found ancient Judaic wisdom has an answer to this conundrum. It instructs us to start feeling grateful from the second we open our eyes in the morning. Traditionally, the first prayer that a Jew would say, it's a prayer people refer to as moda ani or moda ani, depending on your gender. And it's basically a prayer where

you are thanking God for restoring your life to you, sort of a loose translation. And the idea was people a long time ago associated sleep with death. They actually kind of were worried that they actually wouldn't wake up in the morning. So it's this idea that you wake up in the morning and you're alive. And it's just this moment of thankfulness. Like, oh, I'm so grateful I'm alive. And it's pretty amazing that the first word in the morning that you say is moda or moda, which is thankful. And by the way, the thankful comes before the I, which is ani, moda ani. It's like your gratitude comes before self.

There's an idea that I am grateful no matter what is happening in my life. I am just grateful to have this life. Like I did nothing to earn this gift of my life. Even if everything is terrible, even if life is a nightmare, I'm just going to be grateful for this life that I never did anything to earn. And this is like straight out of the modern happiness playbook, right? I mean, there's so many studies like telling us that gratitude is super important for our happiness. You know, just like paying attention to a few things you're grateful for every day can boost your happiness significantly in as little as two weeks. And this is exactly what, you know, the Jewish faith suggests you should do

as soon as you wake up. Like, don't waste any time. Just like gratitude immediately. It's so funny because I hear people who are like, oh, I have a gratitude journal and this and that. And I'm like, that's great. This was not invented in 2009, right? Like, it's like, it's like, I'm like, that's great. This was not invented in 2009, right? It's like,

I'm so happy you've discovered this thing that Judaism discovered thousands of years ago. This is sort of time-tested wisdom for what makes for a happy life. And it's not just in the morning that you say this. You're saying prayers of thanks and gratitude throughout the day. Gratitude is actually a key theme of the Jewish liturgy. One of the things you did in your book was you walked through some of these kind of seemingly funny blessings, but that really have this powerful root in a grateful emotion. One of them was a kind of a blessing about going to the bathroom or something like that. Judaism has this very rich blessings practice where you basically say a prayer or blessing of thankfulness at so many different points during the day. So you say it, you know, traditional Jews will say before they eat, they'll say a blessing of gratitude for the food. After you go to the bathroom, you will say a

blessing just to express thankfulness that your body is working properly. Okay, you can say that's kind of weird and gross, but actually it is miraculous when your body is functioning properly. And this is something that people have learned during this era of COVID, right? We can't take our health and our proper functioning of our bodies for granted. And so Judaism is telling you multiple times throughout the day to stop and just say, how amazing is it that my body works?

Like, I'm so thankful for that. It's not just the kind of one-time gratitude journal in the morning or at night, it's actually a constant gratitude practice throughout the day. And this idea of recognizing that your body is amazing, the amazingness part, that gets to another happiness practice that we actually haven't talked about that much on the podcast yet, which is this concept of awe, right? Like really

recognizing the beauty and the amazing things around us. So from the perspective of Judaism, what is this concept of awe? Yeah, there is, you know, if you look at a lot of like the Jewish liturgy, it is trying to cultivate this feeling of awe. You'll see lines about the grandeur of nature, the beauty of the world around us, the sun, the moon, the coming of the dawn, the coming of dusk, just the sense that every day in the world, these beautiful things happen, sunrises, sunsets, and they just keep on happening. We do nothing to deserve them. We do nothing to orchestrate them. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was an iconic American rabbi, he talks about this idea of radical amazement, where one of the core Jewish sensibilities is to just feel this sense things, like looking at the plant in my apartment, which through this incredibly intricate process is turning sun into food. And it has millions of cells and it's so intricate and complicated. And that's just one plant in my apartment.

If you actually look at the world this way, you would kind of walk around in a constant state of awe. The research shows that this is so important because, you know, if we're not paying attention, we can just miss this stuff. We actually have a practice that I do with my students that I'm doing with the high school students I'm teaching right now during COVID, where we have them take time to savor something. And during COVID, the students said like, savor something. I'm not leaving my house. Like, you know, what can I really savor? And it's like, well, pick something to savor in your house, you know? And then again, it's like, you notice like, oh my gosh, the plants are, oh my gosh, like a chair, like, you know, thousands of years of like, you know, modifying this piece of wood so I can sit

on it and feel comfortable. If you take time, you can really notice that there's just wonders all around you if you take a time to look. That's exactly right. It's this idea of being present, like actually being present and noticing, which is known as mindfulness, which again is like the super trendy thing that everyone's like, oh, this was so invented in 2004. Actually, if you look at Judaism, it's kind of one big mindfulness practice. We are constantly called to be present in your life. We are constantly called to stop, notice some blessing that you have and express thanks for it. some blessing that you have and express thanks for it. So you're just being constantly called to stop,

notice and appreciate throughout the day, as opposed to what many of us, including too often me, do, is that we kind of walk through our lives lost in our thoughts. Like someone is talking to us and we're kind of half listening because our mind is wandering into the thing we need to do next week or the fight we had yesterday.

And we're not there. We're actually missing that time with our friends. Think about the number of times that you've driven somewhere or walked somewhere, and you get there, and you can't remember how you got there. It was safe. You were paying attention while you drove, but you were lost in thought. And maybe you missed something really amazing along the way. I mean, this seems to be this idea of showing up, both in terms of showing up for other people, showing up for your own life, showing up to be this idea of showing up, both in terms of showing up for other people, showing up for your own life, showing up to notice the wonders around you. It seems to be part of this ethic of non-indifference that you talked about in your book,

right? This is a phrase by this rabbi named Daniel Hartman, the ethic of non-indifference. And this is a really core Jewish ethic. At its heart, Judaism is saying you can't be indifferent to others, right? You actually have to care about others. You have to notice others. I think if you look at the modern American ethic, I'm not required to help someone if I see them struggling when I drive by them. It's like, oh, not my problem. Not my problem. I can be indifferent. That's perfectly legal. And that's fine for secular law. But Jewish law says, no, actually, you do need to notice the people around you. You actually do need to help them out.

And that's so important because the research shows that when we show up to help other people, it doesn't just help the people we're helping. The research shows it helps us. Like our happiness gets boosted every time we're taking time to pay attention to other people, even if we don't realize it at the time. You know, I love in your book, you kind of admit that like, you don't always feel like going to the funeral. You don't always feel like helping, but in some ways having a law that forces you to can kind of get you there, even if the emotions aren't in sync. Yes. And you know, it's funny, what you're saying really makes me think of this story about these ancient rabbis. So Rabbi A gets sick and Rabbi B shows up, takes Rabbi A's hand and heals Rabbi A. Then Rabbi B gets sick and Rabbi C shows up, takes Rabbi B's hand and heals him. And these ancient rabbis are like, wait a second, if Rabbi B could heal Rabbi A, why does Rabbi B need Rabbi C to show up and heal him? And the answer they give is that the prisoner cannot get himself out of prison. There's a sense that when we are stuck in the prison of our own sadness,

anxiety, fear, loneliness, we really need someone to show up, take our hands and pull us out. And we also need to do that for other people, right? I think we're all Rabbi B in some way where we are trying our best to help all the Rabbi A's around us get them out of prison, but we need someone to get us out of prison as well. So how is engaging in these practices, whether it be about kind of non-indifference, presence, like how has it really changed your life so far? It's very much changed my sensibility in terms of like how I just walk in the world in a daily way. I used to be the kind of person who like when I had a friend going through a struggle, you know, I would try to support them. I would try to help them out. But I didn't have as much of a sense of urgency and obligation around physical presence. You know, now, like when something happens to a friend, I really do try to get myself there physically. I think that's important. The idea of showing up, I really try to think more carefully about that.

we use our speech and the impact our speech has on others. So a lot of thinking about gossip, about not shaming other people, which when you think about it, the whole discourse of social media is just endless shame, right? Just endless shaming, humiliating others. And even those of us who aren't nasty on social media, think about the number of times in your life when you're debating with someone, you want to win. So you kind of embarrass them a little bit. You kind of try to make them look bad. I'm now so much more conscious of how I do that. And let me tell you, I still gossip way too much. I still shame people. I am not perfect. And that's not what it's about. I think more what it's about is a number of times now, I'm about to send an email. And I'm like, do I really need to share that little piece of gossip? Like, is that something I should be saying? And I'll just stop. Or I'll be kind of,

you know, about to make some point to just really take someone down in an argument. And I'll think, can I phrase this in a different way? Like, can I phrase this with a little more kindness and a little bit less shaming? It's really like a lens through which I now see the world. And I get things wrong a hundred times a day, but I used to do so 200 times a day. So I now see the world. And I get things wrong 100 times a day, but I used to do so 200 times a day. So I think it's making me just a little bit better of a person. Do you think it's also making you happier? I do. I think it's making me so much happier because I think that Judaism gives me some sense that I am tied to something very, very ancient that has been passed down from generation

to generation to generation for so long to make its way to me. It's like this incredible inheritance that I feel really honored to receive. And I think engaging in Judaism, it makes me feel like my life is not just some random accident of faith that has no meaning. I have a sense that each of us has a purpose here, that each of us has incredible worth, that each of us has a sense of unique createdness. Whether you think that's by a god or just it's just the science that says that we are all completely unique, that gives me a sense of purpose and meaning. And I also just have a greater sense of gratitude in my life. I have a greater sense of awe and wonder where I stop and notice things. I think before I kind of became familiar with Judaism, I don't know,

I just kind of like walked through my days, didn't appreciate a lot of things. It was a bit of a kind of more of a numb kind of checked out kind of life, sort of a sleepwalking through life kind of feeling. And, you know, I still feel that way sometimes. It's not all like, you know, and, you know, I still feel that way sometimes. It's not all like, you know, radical amazement and awe, but I think I have many more moments of real connectedness, real presence, real joy. I'm so thrilled that Sarah was able to give us a whirlwind tour of thousands of years of Jewish thought.

We've already touched on scientifically backed concepts like gratitude, mindfulness, awe, and even being other-oriented. It was a lot to pack in. But we're not finished with Sarah or the Torah just yet. Because in the next episode, we're going to tackle one of my favorite happiness tips from Judaism. And this one is a biggie. In fact, it's even one of the Ten Commandments. But to my shame, it's the commandment that I personally am most likely to break.

That simple instruction to take a day off. The Happiness Lab is co-written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The show was mastered by Evan Viola, and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to the entire Pushkin crew, including Mia LaBelle, Carly Migliore, Heather Fane, Sophie Crane-McKibben, Eric Sandler, Jacob Weisberg,

and my agent, Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and me, Dr. Laurie Santos.