‘Comm-unity’ requires happiness

Rabbi Elimelech Biderman relates that someone once asked Rav Avigdor Miller how he should prepare for the judgement of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rabbi Miller replied, “Smile.”

“How does smiling grant someone a good judgement?” he asked. “I will explain with a mashal [parable]: someone owns a chain of stores. At the end of each year, he takes inventory and decides what changes have to be made for the upcoming year. Some stores will need more advertising, some employees will be laid off, and so on. The proprietor’s advisor says, ‘Even if you let go of some employees, don’t fire this one. He always has a smile on his face, which gives consumers a good feeling. There are people who come to the store just to see him and be greeted by his smile. We need him around.’”

Similarly, at the end of the year, Hashem takes inventory of His world to make determinations for the year ahead. If someone always has a smile on his or her face, bringing joy to others, he or she has positioned themselves as an indispensable asset to the world, and Hashem will take that into consideration when making a determination for the year ahead.”

We’re blessed to live in a large, vibrant Jewish South Africa. We are comprised of thousands of people. On the one hand, that affords us countless opportunities like diverse friendships, multiple shuls, extensive programming, and more. At the same time, the larger our community gets, the harder it is to know others and feel like you matter.

In advising large religious institutions, pastor Rick Warren describes our mission as growing larger and smaller at the same time. We grow larger by attracting more people and families who share our vision, values, and mission, but we must simultaneously grow smaller by providing programmes, opportunities, and experiences in which people know each other, feel like they belong, and connect with others.

You can’t spell “community” without “unity”, and you can’t have a thriving community without the people who comprise it being committed to uniting with one another.

This is what we should be striving for this year – being there for everyone. We need to reach out to others. We need to create a real love, passion, and drive, but we need to do it through simcha – innate happiness!

Dr Nicholas Christakis, a physician at Harvard Medical School, authored a study that concludes that happiness is contagious. The same way that when one person yawns it affects others, when one person smiles or is happy it leads to others’ happiness and smiling as well. Be the person who sets off the chain reaction of smiles, and make yourself indispensable to Hashem this yamim noraim (high holy days) season.

As we grow larger, we cannot also grow smaller without everyone’s help.

Wishing you and your family a ketiva ve’chatima tova.