Levi Brackman’s Website

We humans can be destructive to ourselves. Many people live unhealthy lifestyles because it gives them short-term enjoyment, ignoring the long-term suffering it causes. The same thing applies to religion. It has now, yet again, been proven that religion and belief in God make us happier and better equipped to deal with life’s troubles. Still, there are many people who would rather indulge in irreligiosity than lead a religious and therefore happier life.

Prof. Andrew Clark of the Paris School of Economics and Dr. Orsolya Lelkes of the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research recently presented their research at the conference of the Royal Economic Society in Coventry, UK. They said that religious believers are happier overall than atheists or agnostics.

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Ki Tisa was my Bar Mitzvah portion. It always brings back memories of the most embarrassing experience of my life and simultaneously the cause of the most important lesson I have ever learned. As a rebellious twelve-year-old, I refused to go to Bar Mitzvah lessons. Instead I insisted that I could learn the Torah portion by practising on my own with the help of a cassette recording. My Mum did not want to fight with me over it and reluctantly asked the teacher to record the portion. I started to learn it from the cassette with some success, but I quickly became bored and constantly put off listening to the recording.

The day of my Bar Mitzvah arrived and I did not know the portion. In order not to disappoint the many guests who had come to hear me I felt compelled to go up and read it as best I could. Needless to say, my rendition that Shabbat afternoon was far from perfect. Undeniably, I found the whole exercise of having to learn my Torah portion parrot-fashion an unmitigated waste of time.

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Instead of competing against each other, Jewish outreach groups should join forces to battle assimilation

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We are constantly perusing it but find it difficult to find. I am talking about happiness of course. As a society happiness is a much sought after commodity. We go to great length to ensure happiness. The divorce rate in this country and the amount of children brought up by just one parent shows that we are prepared to destroy the lives of others in order to obtain this elusive thing we call happiness.

We marry and divorce; we change jobs and careers all in the name of achieving happiness only to find that after all our efforts we don’t actually obtain it in the end. So why can’t we seem to reach what we are deeply yearning for?

The answer is because most of us are searching for the wrong type of happiness. The thrill of the moment might give us an adrenalin rush that makes us feel good temporarily, however, it does not have any long term effect. Few of us have long-standing strategies for obtaining happiness.

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