What is the good life?
I’ve been in a funk of late, worried about work, about enough work; money and direction of my own career. In the last few days, I have been picking myself back up again, trying to get back in the game!
This morning, I returned to a little of the Rambam, [12th century]; on his commentary on the Mishnah he launches into a whole discussion of the good life, what is it that we are doing here? The discussion opens: ‘כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא’, ‘All of the Jewish people have a share in the World-to-Come’ [MISHNAH SANHEDRIN 1:10], he is exploring the words of the Mishnah, what do they mean according to the Rambam? He presents five options of what Olam Ha’bah, ‘עוֹלָם הַבָּא’, the world to come is: 1. It is the Garden of Eden, blissful presence in the plentiful garden, 2. The Messiah, provision in a new world, with everything that you need magically appearing, 3. The resurrection of the dead, all the people you miss and perhaps even those you don’t will be back again to live forever, to hang out. 4. The good life in the here and now, we do good, we will receive good, all of our physical needs taken care of, 5. A mixture of all of the above, the pick and choose version of the heavenly realm where we get the best of everything.
The question that the Rambam delves into is more severe. He says, what is it all for? Perhaps jumping off number four above – ‘we do good, we will get good’ – he delves deeper into our tradition and brings to the fore a clear rabbinic voice which says: ‘אַל תִּהְיוּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס’, ‘don’t be like the labourer who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward’ [MISHNAH AVOT, 1:3]. He raises a problem with one of the most fundamental tennets of being alive from the most religious person to the most secular. In many different veins, most people live for some kind of reward, financial, spiritual or otherwise, I am doing it to get the reward that will come. Ultimately the Rambam’s pushback is: ‘don’t do it for the reward, do it for love!’
I have been in a social media hole; I’ve been in a spiral of news consumption, both uplifting and utterly depressing. The war in Gaza has come to some kind of pause, although it is unclear if we have even left the cycle of violence. The return of hostages has been uplifting; the realisation of the devastation in Gaza, depressing. How will these two sides extricate themselves from an unending war? What does this mean for the soul of Jewish life?
In a more personal space, what is the purpose of our time here on earth? It is all too easy to get dragged into the cycle of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, simply working to pay the bills, working for some shiny news things, a new car, a holiday, perhaps things that will never quench our thirst, things that we do not even need. But even when we are not in the space of the daily grind of life, if we hold ourselves to spiritual pursuit, to be people who live in search of the riches of Jewish life, even there we are warned away: ‘do not serve in the expectation of receiving a reward!’
I think the direction here is towards a non-attachment to reward or recompense. The greatest space of spiritual pursuit is to be in a place unburdened by what you are going to get out of it! We are called to attempt to be in unity with the holy blessed One, the source of all life. That is the goal.
What lofty ambition, will I ever move from my couch and my phone in that direction!
At the beginning of this week’s Parsha, Beshalach, the parsha in which the Children of Israel cross the sea and head out of Egypt for the promised land, the parsha recalls, they did not go the fast route, they took the slow road, so they would not be inclined to head back to Egypt. As we enter the desert and forty years of wondering (as a 42 year old), I hear that message – this is tough, life takes us on all sorts of detours, big highs and big lows but your journey and your service does matter, it is only you who is holding you back.
Someone in our community passed this week and I was lifted up by his words that were said in his name at his funeral, paraphrased: ‘real change is possible if we believe in ourselves’.
Shabbat shalom
