Resistance as Happiness

Abstract

Resistance as Happiness David R. Blumenthal Introduction Human beings have been asking the question, “What is happiness” since time immemorial. Is happiness the gratification of basic human needs such as food, shelter, safety, and reproduction? Is happiness the satisfaction of basic social and intellectual needs such as community, education, peace, and justice? Is happiness the fulfillment of “higher” human needs such as meaning, virtue, inner peace, and reason? The answer of Jewish tradition is most clearly stated by our late and revered teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel: [T]he essence of religion does not lie in the satisfaction of a human need. As long as humanity sees religion as a source of satisfaction for one's own needs, it is not God whom one serves but one's own self…. It is not utility that we seek in religion but eternity. The criterion of religion is not in its being in agreement with our common sense but in its being compatible with our sense of the ineffable…. Elimination of the self is no virtue. To give up life or the right to satisfaction is not a moral requirement. If self‐effacement were virtuous in itself, suicide would be the climax of moral living…. In fact, only one who truly understands the justice of one's own rights is capable of rendering justice to the rights of others. It is upon this understanding of happiness as a struggle to make life compatible with the Ineffable that I wish to focus this essay. To be happy is to struggle with oneself, with society, and even with God to make life more holy. To be happy is to challenge God, the world, and one's inner being to live up to the covenant of justice and love for all beings. To put it another way: Happiness is resistance. Resistance to evil is happiness. To be sure, we all stumble as we struggle, and we fail as we strive. Achieving happiness through moral effort cannot be accomplished easily or without failure. But the path is one we must walk. As Rabbi Tarfon says, “It is not for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” Resistance within society One of the first conferences that the United States Holocaust Memorial Council held was the one at which, at the behest of Elie Wiesel, the Council brought together rescuers of Jews. Many members of the Council, especially the Jews, bent over backwards to acknowledge the courage, indeed the heroism, of these people. But they would have none of it. Instead we heard: “I was not a hero.” “I did nothing extraordinary”? “I was just doing what was expected of me.” “I was just doing the normal human thing.” At first, I thought these people were just being modest but then I realized that they really meant it. They did not see themselves as heroes, nor as exceptional people. Rather, they saw themselves as ordinary people who were just responding to what they knew was being demanded of them by their church, by their pastor, by their resistance leaders, by their parents, or by their conscience. They were being normal. This led to one of the strangest outcomes of the study of the shoah: the observation that, when the perpetrators are asked “why did you do what you did,” they always respond “I did nothing special; I was just doing what was expected of me” (a variant of “I was just following orders”) and, when rescuers are asked, “why did you do what you did,” they, too, always respond “I did nothing special; I was just doing what was expected of me.” While one would expect this response from the perpetrators, hearing it from the rescuers is always puzzling. We, the observers, see the rescuers as heroes, but they never see themselves that way. Why would they think of themselves as “normal,” and appear to excuse themselves by saying that they were “only doing that which was expected of them”? Further, studies in the social psychology of both perpetrators and rescuers show that social class, education, economic class, religion, and gender are not determinative in the choice a person makes to be...