Daniel Lapin: The Meaning of Joy (LIFE Today)

we're here at live today TV I am with rabbi Daniel lapin who is the president of the American alliance of Jews and Christians rabbi thank you for spending a few minutes with us oh I'm delighted to do that Randy thank you very much normally I ask questions of guests and do an interview I'm asking you to educate me and and the topic I want to discuss is happiness or joy and I I'm very interested in this topic because I've been looking at this in the Old Testament in the Hebrew language and you know we have a couple of words we have you know happy happiness say more joy rejoice basically say more things like glad yes Hebrew has many many does there's a tremendous focus on happiness in Hebrew and I think that's probably what attracted your attention yes and and and the thing I found and I'd like you to enlighten me on this is that while we think of happiness and more of an adjective form to put in there no grammatical terms is it something we feel in the Hebrew language it's and in the Old Testament it's it's a noun or a verb primarily right which doesn't line up with the feelings well I'm really pleased you asked about this because my ministry is is entirely focused on making all of ancient Jewish wisdom accessible to people of every background and the study of the Hebrew language is of paramount importance that's why I got so excited when when you introduced me to what your interests are because many of the founders of America were very knowledgeable about Hebrew William Bradford for instance would be came the second governor of the Plymouth Colony in his history book wrote the first 20 pages in his own handwriting in Hebrew really remarkable and many of the great colonial pastors and preachers like Cotton Mather for instance and many many of these remarkable men very knowledgeable in Hebrew and and they saw the wisdom in what I call the Lord's language so happiness is a great place to start what are the examination what are we missing by not understanding the over two dozen words that are used in the Hebrew to convey the idea of happiness well the most important of the Hebrew words is SEMA car simcha okay and we can have to work on your pronunciation on that one it's like the like the name of the music composer Johann Sebastian Bach okay that's that's the sound so simcha but here's what's so important about this and and it sort of takes me back to to a memorable moment when I was a little boy and I was moping around the house and my mother said I want you to be happy so I said to her well if you got me a bicycle I would be happy and all of a sudden um you know the four finger marks on my cheek she said don't ever do that again so what did I do he said you've made your happiness my problem it isn't it's yours what are you talking about and she went and got a Bible and she opened it up and in the five books of Moses there are several emphatic Commandments to be happy or in Hebrew of a high eita of Samara you have to be happy so it's not anyone else's responsibility to make you happy it's not even a question of creating the circumstances in which you're going to be happy you have primary responsibility for your happiness you have to be happy now is that now the simcha is a noun correct yes that is so it's not really be happy it would be some Hollywood dude well here's a key thing you see in Hebrew words are linked and I do a lot of teaching of this on my website and it's important because there is so much of God's wisdom that is embedded in his language and an example of it is exactly this point which is that a word that is closely linked to the word samara is the word summer now you probably can hardly hear the difference but those are two different words that are very closely linked summer means growth some half means happiness and that is to tell us that we have to understand that the surest way to feel happy is through growth and through achievement if you can do something about yourself that is better than you were yesterday you on the road to happiness if you want to lose weight and you stuck to your diet and you went to the exercise and workout you're gonna feel happier because you grew hopefully not in white then commitment and in character strength to take that example the person who says I would just be happy if I could lose 30 pounds yes that's right what you're saying is no you would be happy in the process you would take that step exactly right and so if if you have worked to do you know tackle the hardest part the part you you like least do it first because their happiness you will get from that will fuel you in the rest of the project and then the rest of the DA of the task you have to undertake and that happiness is a fuel how so it drives you you're able to do it just look at the way people who are happy walk they walk as if they're on Springs yeah and people who are gloomy and miserable drag themselves along and I don't even want to look at people like that they bring me down then goes to the whole idea of countenance yes and I'm just radiating from the inside out as opposed to if I could just have these things like I said if I could have that back I would be yeah it's externally a waste of time thinking in those terms and and one of the mistakes that people make is of course the a way of overcoming misery and gloom by shopping it's it's a very sad thing and although it's almost drug like and people run into debt because the deep in inner yearnings for happiness are so powerful that they even compel you to act destructively drugs and alcohol another way of accomplishing that and yet all that people are trying to seek is the is the the magic panacea of happiness of Sin Cara and and we have that in our own hands we can do that ourselves we don't need to go shopping we don't need to do anything all we've got to do is move ourselves in some way or another giving charity that's a growth step and anyone who does it speaks of the deep inner joy they feel from doing that it's a it's a longer-lasting in a joy than you get from spending the same money at a department store and what's more you don't get a bill at the end of the month yeah Wow let me ask you this question is there significance to the fact that there are more references to happiness in the context of the noun and the verb than the adjective and by that I mean happiness is something you possess or something you express or do as opposed to something you feel that's exactly right and although the feeling is the important part of it it's it's not something that is done to you that's the important thing so you can you can in Hebrew you can have a happy boy all right so there the word happy is serving as an adjective but it is that same word simcha that is that same word and again the implication is a very clear one which is how did he get that way interesting and and and there there are growth there are a lot of words like that in in Hebrew learning is one of them there is no word in Hebrew for a teacher no no it's somebody who helps you learn it says you see a teacher means somebody who can inject it into you make it from the outset I can't if I'm a teacher all I can do is create an environment in which you want to learn draw it out you see that's all that can happen I thought rabbi meant teacher is that it though it does but in in in in a more general form the Hebrew word learning is law made and a mill I made is is the word we use for a teacher but you can hear it's the same word right law made LM D are the operative letters mill I'm ed again LM D with an M at the front and all that we're saying there is I can't do it to you it's it's like it's like the word jump I can't jump you I can encourage you to jump if it's in our interest that you should jump but I can't do it to you for you I can't happy you either it's not possible so no no person can make you have no and lots of words a lot are different right I can kick somebody I can punch somebody I can I can do all kinds of things to do to people but I can't happy anybody it's not possible you can only do it for yourself and it comes through growth and it comes through an achievement do bringing yourself in some way or another closer to the ideal that God has in mind for you wow thank you so much for spending just a couple moments to to help me and hopefully help some other people that are watching on the show with a very important subject of understanding God's language what is your website for people that want my website is www.seannal.com but there's another way of getting to the same website which I kind of prefer it's the same same place but I kind of like this one it's WW you need a rabbi calm interesting clever well-liked and your book thou shall prosper is out and doing well I presume you have very lot of wonderful things about it so congratulations on that check out very much his book and be sure to check out Rabbi laughing on life today thank you wonderful thank you you

Channel: lifetodaytv

Views: 14,231

Keywords: Daniel, Lapin, fix

Id: SxFDYHoM6sM

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 21 2012