Ki Tavo 5784: Ranking the World’s Happiest Countries

GOOD MORNING!  This week I came across something called the World Happiness Report. This study, first launched in 2002, is a product of a partnership between Oxford University (Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre) and Gallup Inc. (Gallup World Poll), and it ranks the overall sense of population happiness in 143 countries.

The study measures six different metrics – GDP per capita, life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, population generosity, and perception of corruption – and averages them over three years (i.e. 2024 rankings were based on statistics from 2021, 2022, and 2023). In other words, they use statistical analysis to determine the world’s happiest countries.

Here are their top five countries as ranked by happiness for 2024: 1) Finland 2) Denmark 3) Iceland 4) Sweden and (drumroll please…) 5) Israel! The rest of the top ten are rounded out by 6) Netherlands 7) Norway 8) Luxembourg 9) Australia and 10) Switzerland. Aside from the overwhelming domination of Northern European countries, I was more than a little surprised to see that Israel ranked so highly.

Here is what they had to say about Israel; “Israel has displayed emotional resilience in the wake of the October 7th attack.” Remarkably, Israel claimed the world’s second spot in terms of happiness for its younger population (for overall happiness of the older people they ranked 18th). For those of you who are wondering, the United States ranked 23rd overall, tumbling eight spots from its 2023 ranking of 15th.

Looking at Israel’s particularly high ranking, even in the wake of the horrors of October 7th and the well-publicized demonstrations regarding judicial reform that gripped much of the country in 2023, tells you much about her stoic population. It also informs us that happiness is a personal choice – and that one can choose to be happy, even under difficult and trying circumstances.

Author Bronnie Ware drew upon her many decades as an end-of-life nurse to write The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. One of the top regrets was, “I wish I had let myself be happier.” Indeed, we all know people who work pretty hard at being unhappy. Many people constantly mull over their life’s deficiencies: their relationships, their jobs, their luck, their bodies, etc.

Back in the 1980’s and 90’s, I worked as a middle school and high school teacher and, to be perfectly honest, I ran a pretty strict classroom. When I said or did something my students didn’t like I often heard the complaint “That’s not fair!” I always had the same pat response, “Life’s not fair, so get used to it.” A few weeks ago, I was speaking to Mr. George Perlman, a good friend (and brilliant lawyer), and he said it even better; “Life’s not meant to be fair – it is meant to be lived.”

That is to say that we cannot render judgement on the status of our lives simply based on our desires or expectations. A similar vignette is told about one of the most famous rabbis of the 19th and 20th centuries – HaRav Yisroel Meir Kagan (1838-1933), better known as the Chofetz Chaim.

Meeting a former student after many years, the good rabbi asked about his welfare. The student, who was suffering and in difficult straits, responded, “Unfortunately, things are very bad.”

The Chofetz Chaim immediately cut him off, “God forbid! You are not permitted to say that. Do not ever say that things are bad, rather say that ‘they are bitter.’” The suffering student was exasperated, “Bad, bitter – what is the difference? My life is terrible!”

The Chofetz Chaim looked at him with kindly eyes and answered him softly, “No, my son, there is an enormous difference in the two statements. A medicine may be bitter and difficult to swallow, but it is not bad.”

Living in a theocentric universe we must understand that there is a real purpose for the things that happen to us. Nevertheless, we often spend much of our time and emotional bandwidth totally focused on our pain and the question, “Why are all these terrible things happening to me?” Instead, we should be far more concerned with how we internalize and react to those situations that are “our medicine” and how we will learn, grow, and change for the better from these experiences.

Of course, this week’s Torah portion delivers an important lesson in perspective and how we can achieve happiness.

“All these curses will come upon you and overtake you [...] because you did not serve Hashem, your God, with happiness and a good heart, even though you had an abundance of everything” (Deuteronomy 28:45-47).

This week's Torah reading contains explicit details of both the rewards for following the Almighty’s word and the calamitous repercussions for going against it. The Torah commits over fifty verses to detailing the depths to which we will fall and the nearly unimaginable suffering we will endure as a result of this failing; financial and societal ruin, horrible diseases, starvation to the point of cannibalism of one’s own children – need I go into further detail?

The Torah makes a remarkable statement – why did all these horrible things befall the Jewish people? “Because you did not serve your God, with ‘simcha – joy’ even though you had an abundance of everything.”

This is actually quite astounding. Nowhere in the Torah are we commanded to serve God with joy! Likewise, there is no positive commandment to be happy. So, what exactly is this failure – of not serving with joy – that it would lead to such horrific consequences? The key to understanding this is the last part of the verse – “even though you had an abundance of everything.”

It is part of the human condition to focus on the problems we are having, and this sometimes obscures that which is good in our lives. A simple example of this is how we view certain bodily pains. Even though it may be, in the grand scheme of things, a rather minor pain, it tends to color our mood and outlook and even our interactions with others. We often do the same things with business and/or family issues, and sometimes with actual stupidities and things we have no control over, like when our favored sports team loses and it puts us in a bad mood.

In addition, we also have an innate motivation not to internalize all the good in our lives because it means we owe something to someone.

No one likes the feeling of owing. King Solomon, known as “the wisest of all men,” wrote: “A borrower is a servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). The feeling of being in debt to someone is painful to the point of almost feeling that your very identity is lost.

For this reason, a common reaction to receiving a kindness from someone is over analyzing what the benefactor has to gain by his action. This is done in order to lessen the feeling of obligation to him.

This is also why most people give a very lukewarm response when asked how they are doing. You will very seldom hear someone answer “GREAT!” or “never better!” Being happy comes with responsibilities that many of us don’t want to own up to. First, if we internalize how lucky we are then it leaves us with very few excuses for not achieving and growing. This type of personal responsibility can be daunting; if we set the bar low enough then we are relieved of the responsibility of success and the disappointment of true failure.

Second, if we are happy and satisfied with life, then we need to be filled with appreciation – and this equates to a debt of gratitude towards whomever helped us; a parent, spouse, teacher, mentor, kind stranger, or any combination thereof. It is simply easier to justify a lack of obligation to others if one is simply unhappy.

We seldom focus on everything that is amazing in our lives and we usually only appreciate things once they are gone. The clearest example of this is the fact that most people do not really appreciate a lifetime of good health until they experience a medical crisis. The same can be said for many other elements in our lives such as relationships, security, finances, etc.

Almost paradoxically, the only way for God to correct this issue is by going to the opposite extreme; by causing such pain that we begin to recognize our lack of appreciation for how amazing our lives truly were before all the calamities befell us. This invaluable lesson is then burned into our psyche allowing us to appreciate all that we have for the rest of our lives.

Thus, quite incredibly, the Almighty in his infinite kindness gives mankind suffering in order to provide perspective on how to properly internalize all the good in our lives. The key for avoidance of pain is for us to stay focused on all that is positive in our lives and to be appreciative. In this way we will “own up” to being happy and the responsibilities that come with that, and mindfully enjoy all the wonderful gifts in our lives.

Therefore, we must make the decision to choose happiness for ourselves. If the general Israeli population can somehow manage to do this given all the almost inconceivable difficulties in their lives, then we too can focus on the abundance that the Almighty has bestowed on us and live happier and more fulfilled lives.

Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 26:1 - 29:8

This week's portion includes: Bringing to the Temple as an offering the first fruits of the seven species special to the Land of Israel, declaration of tithes, the Almighty designating the Jewish people as His treasured people (Deuteronomy 26:16 - 19), the command to set up in the Jordan River and then on Mount Eival large stones that had the Torah written upon them in 70 languages, the command to have a public ratification of the acceptance of the law from Mount Gerizim and Mount Eival; the Torah then sets forth the blessings for following the law and the curses for not following it, and concludes with Moses’ final discourse. Verse 28:46 tells us the importance of serving the Almighty with “joy and a good heart.” The last verse of the portion instructs us, “You shall fulfill the words of this covenant and do them so that you will succeed in all that you do!”