When Ms. Rachel "Likes" Antisemitism
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The five rungs of pleasure that move from mindless consumption to genuine fullness, connection, and transcendence.
Most people treat pleasure like a buffet. Grab some physical thrills. Load up on validation. Maybe sprinkle in some meaning if there's room.
In life, there are five different levels of pleasure, each one deeper than the last. Each pleasure reveals something you're actually hungry for and unites you with the object of your desire.
Here are the five levels, moving from the bottom up.
The Sleepwalker
David was 38. He'd eaten approximately 41,610 meals in his life. He couldn't remember a single one.
A successful consultant with a good life on paper, but for two decades he’s been wolfing down food with zero awareness, scarfing at his desk, in the car, while checking Slack and doom scrolling.
Food was just fuel. Calories in and keep moving.
Then his cardiologist said something that stopped him cold: "Your bloodwork is concerning. But I'm more worried that you couldn't tell me what you had for lunch yesterday."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because if you're not present for 41,000 meals, what else are you missing?"
David started an experiment. For one meal per day, no phone or laptop. Just him and the food.
The first week was torture. His hand kept reaching for his phone like a phantom limb.
During week two he noticed food had textures.
Week three he realized he'd been eating the same lunch for eight years and it tasted like cardboard.
Month two he was actually tasting things: the sweetness of a blueberry, the bitterness of coffee, the way salt changes everything.
He texted his wife: "I think I've been dead and didn't know it."
Physical pleasure is unity of body and attention.
Most people consume but never connect. They eat the whole bag of chips while scrolling, unified with nothing.
Counterfeit Pleasure: Overindulgence. More quantity, zero presence. Dopamine hits that never actually satisfy.
Tom's son was failing everything. Sophomore year. 1.8 GPA, skipping classes, coming home at 2 AM smelling like weed.
Tom's wife wanted to send their son to military school. His friends said tough love; cut him off and make him hit rock bottom.
Tom did something else.
Every morning at 6 AM, he knocked on his son's door. "Breakfast is ready."
His son ignored him. Tom waited and knocked again.
"I'm making eggs. Come eat with me."
Three weeks of this and the kid wouldn't even look at him.
Week four, his son shuffled out, sat down and didn't speak.
Tom put a plate in front of him, sitting across from him. They ate in silence.
The next morning, same thing. And the next. And the next.
His wife asked him what he was doing.
"I'm showing up."
"He doesn't care. He won't even talk to you."
"I'm not doing it so he'll care. I'm doing it because I'm his father."
Six months in, Tom's routine hadn't changed. Up at 5:30. Make breakfast. Knock on the door. Eat together, even if "together" meant sitting in silence.
Then one morning, his son said something: "Why do you keep doing this?"
Tom looked up from his eggs. "Because I love you."
"Even though I'm failing?"
"Even though."
"Even though I'm a screwup?"
"You're not a screwup. You're struggling and I'm your dad. That's what dads do."
"But I don't deserve..."
Tom cut him off. "That's not how this works. Love isn't something you earn. It's something you receive and learn to give."
His son started crying.
It wasn't instant. But something shifted.
The kid started showing up for breakfast on his own. He started talking. He started asking Tom about his day. He started opening up about what was actually going on.
By senior year, he had a 3.2 GPA and got into college. He called his father from his dorm room freshman year and said, "Dad, I'm making breakfast for my roommate every morning. He's going through some stuff. I don't know if it'll help but I figured I'd try what you taught me."
Tom sat in his kitchen at 6 AM, now alone, and smiled.
Because his son finally understood: the pleasure isn't in receiving love. It's in giving it.
Love is unity through giving.
Not giving to get something back or to keep score. Not waiting for the other person to deserve it.
It's gift-circulation, becoming a conduit instead of a collector.
The Counterfeit: Transactional love. "I'll give if you give back." "I'll love you when you earn it." Keeping a ledger of who owes whom.
Real love is giving without expectation. You unify with another person not by getting from them, but by giving to them.
It requires you to stop waiting for them to deserve it.
Marcus got the job offer on a Tuesday. VP of Sales. Fortune 500 company. $340K base. Stock options. Corner office. Everything he'd worked toward for 12 years.
One problem: the company made products he didn't believe in. Borderline scammy subscription services preying on people who didn't read fine print.
He knew because the recruiter opened with: "Look, I'm going to be honest—this company's ethics are... flexible. But the money's real. You interested?"
Marcus laughed him off and then looked at his bank account.
Then he thought about his daughter's college fund and called him back.
The interview was smooth. They loved him. He was perfect for the role. He just had to say yes.
He spent a week trying to rationalize it. Everyone compromises. It's just business. I'll donate to charity to balance the karma. My family needs this.
Friday night, his daughter asked about career day at school. "Dad, what do you do?"
He explained his current job—actual sales for a company making industrial safety equipment. Boring, decent money, genuinely useful products.
"That's cool. So you help keep workers safe?"
"Yeah, basically."
"I'm gonna tell my class my dad saves lives."
He stared at her. The next day he sent the email declining the offer.
His wife found him in the kitchen at midnight.
"Did you turn it down?"
"Yeah."
"Good."
Being good is unity of actions and values.
It's integrity-alignment—being who you say you are when no one's watching.
The Counterfeit: Status. Looking good instead of being good. Performative virtue while selling out privately.
Real meaning costs something. If it doesn't, it's not real.
What are you willing to get cancelled for? Because if you don't know that, you haven't started living yet.
Nobody wanted to teach Jayden. He’s in eighth grade, reading at third-grade level. He’s got behavioral problems, the kind of kid veteran teachers saw on their roster and immediately requested a transfer.
Ms. Chen got stuck with him. She’s a first-year teacher with no seniority.
First day, Jayden tested her, refusing to sit down. He made a show of tearing up the syllabus and told her she was wasting her time.
She said: "You're probably right, but I'm stubborn. So we're doing this anyway."
She tried everything. Positive reinforcement, structure, consequences.
Nothing landed.
Then one day she caught him drawing in the margins, a detailed sketch of a dragon that was actually good.
"Jayden, that's incredible."
He crumpled the paper. "It's stupid."
"No, I'm serious. Have you taken art classes?"
"Nobody cares about that stuff."
She made a decision that probably violated 17 district policies.
"New deal. Every week, you show me you can read one full chapter—any book you want—and I'll give you 30 minutes of class time to draw whatever you want. And I'll provide the supplies."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I think you're smart and nobody's bothered to prove it to you yet."
Six months later, Jayden was reading at grade eight level.
Because Ms. Chen made a choice: she was going to create something in him that everyone else said didn't exist.
She unified an idea—this kid has potential—with reality.
That's creation.
At graduation, he gave her a framed drawing of her standing in front of a classroom, with wings.
Creation is unity of idea and reality.
It's vision-manifestation—making real what others can't see yet.
The Counterfeit: Control. The teacher who just wants the class to shut up. The manager who wants compliance. The parent who needs obedience.
Control destroys; creation empowers.
You can tell the difference by the result: Creation gives others pleasure. Control just takes it away.
Jake sold his company for $47 million when he was 34, achieving everything he'd dreamed about since he was 22. The exit, the freedom, the proof he'd made it.
He bought the house, a fancy car, took the trip and invested wisely, setting up his family for generations.
Then sat on his couch at 10 AM on a Tuesday and thought: Now what?
He tried filling the void. He started another company (sold it, didn't care). Angel invested (made money, felt nothing). Tried meditation, therapy, ayahuasca retreats—the whole Silicon Valley enlightenment circuit.
Everyone told him: "Dude, you won. Just enjoy it."
But he couldn't shake the feeling he'd climbed the wrong mountain.
Then his seven-year-old asked him a question:
"Dad, who gave you all this stuff?"
"What do you mean? I earned it."
"But who gave you the brain to do that? And who gave you the chance to be born in a place where you could start a company? And who—"
"Okay, I get it. You think God did?"
"I don't know. But somebody did. Did you say thank you?"
Jake sat with that. He'd spent 15 years attributing everything to himself. His intelligence, his work ethic, his vision.
It was all him.
But that wasn't actually true, was it?
He hadn't chosen his parents, his country, his era, his DNA, the economic conditions that made his timing perfect, or the thousand other factors that had to align.
He'd been taking credit for gifts he didn't earn.
He started a practice that felt uncomfortable: real gratitude. Not the fake kind you post on Instagram. An actual accounting of what he didn't create but benefited from anyway.
It changed everything because it connected him to something larger than his own achievement.
For the first time since the exit, he felt full.
The highest unity is connecting your finite self to the infinite source.
It's gift-recognition—acknowledging that everything is given, not earned.
The Counterfeit: Drugs and cults. Shortcuts promising transcendence but delivering destruction.
The real thing requires gratitude—giving up the illusion you did it all yourself.
Your ego hates it. But it's the only thing that fills the void.
Look at what's happening:
Every level is about ending separation.
Each level requires the one below it.
You can't build relationships while ignoring your body.
You can't find meaning without love.
You can't create without integrity.
You can't touch transcendence without all of it.
Like a rocket. Each stage launches the next.
Are you accessing all the pleasures life has to offer?
Adapted from the works of Rabbi Noah Weinberg, the founder of Aish
A version of this article originally appeared at https://x.com/NoahOmriLevin/status/2014073961621909754
Click here to purchase the biography of Rabbi Noah Weinberg.
Rav Noach Weinberg zt"l spoke frequently of his search for “ten men” with whom he would change the world. One day he said he found his first one in Rabbi David Geffen, zt"l.
Rabbi Geffen, zt"l, shared that when today's Aish building was being designed, he proposed offering an experience in which four rooms would take visitors through each of the first four level of pleasures. Then, as the climax, for the fifth level of pleasure, the visitors would exit the Aish building via its ground-level doorway to the Kotel Plaza.
The idea still sounds as awesome, fresh and relevant as ever.