Each and every morning, Sisyphus wakes up to find the boulder at the bottom of the hill. The same hill he had climbed the day before and the days before that. He stands up, leans his shoulder into the boulder and begins a new day.
Good evening, Shabbat shalom and many blessings and thanks to each and every one of you. Thank you for the opportunity to address you, to teach your children, and to engage with this wonderful tradition with you. Most importantly, perhaps, thank you for being here this evening, in spite of the boulders you may be carrying with you.
The idea for this sermon came from the most unlikely of places: Tiktok! Rest-assured, this wasn’t any old tiktok video of some kid pouring mentos into a coke bottle to see what happens. This video dealt primarily with happiness in a seemingly futile existence. Sisyphus, as we know, is a rather depressing, yet powerful Greek myth, in large part because each and every one of us can relate to the story. It is for Sisyphus as it is for us: same boulder, different day.
The tiktok video goes on to cite Philosopher Albert Camus stating that, if we are to understand the myth of Sisyphus as an accurate portrayal of life, as a truly endless and futile pursuit akin to pushing a boulder up a hill, “then our only hope for fulfillment in life, is to imagine Sisyphus ‘Happy.’”
This same video also points out that bowling is actually an apt example of this Sisyphean happiness. In both the Story of Sisyphus and bowling, a heavy object is thrust toward a goal, only to return moments later…again and again and again at least until a ball gets jammed in the gutter.
Gosh I miss bowling.
While this tiktok video has certainly shifted my perspective regarding Sisyphus and perhaps bowling, there are however two glaring issues in the comparison of the two. For one, Sisyphus doesn’t get to walk away from the bowling ball or turn in his shoes after a few games and, for most of us, aside from maybe the great bowlers of all time, like the Jeffrey Lebowski’s of the world, bowling isn’t what gets me up in the morning.
Sure, bowling puts a smile on my face, but it doesn’t make me happy in the truest sense of the word.
So, what is happiness and how might we come to understand Sisyphus—or ourselves for that matter—as happy?
Viktor Frankl observed that “happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue.” It must ensue as an “unintended consequence” of personal dedication and surrender to a cause or person beyond one’s self. This notion of happiness — a byproduct or symptom of one’s pursuits in life — means that one cannot achieve happiness directly. Happiness results, indirectly, from other pursuits of intrinsic value and meaning. And what if the completion of these pursuits does not simply bestow meaning upon us? What if, rather, we derive happiness and fulfillment through hard-won experience, by covering the same ground after countless dead-ends and mistakes? What if meaning-making, and the happiness that flows from it, is an iterative, life-long, or even generations-long, exercise?
In that case, Sisyphus is the happiest man in the world!
Perhaps his sheer stick-to-it-ive-ness is the source of his happiness. Did Sisyphus learn something new about himself each time he pushed the Boulder? Did he try different methods? Different routes? How did he grow with each failed attempt?
To answer these questions, I looked to a Sisyphean character who rivals the original: Moshe Rabbeinu. Is there any other character in our tradition more associated with climbing the mountain? In this week’s Parsha alone, Moses ascends the mountain four times to act as courier between God and Israel.
Moses, like Sisyphus, must confront the same challenges over and over again. From Exodus to Deuteronomy, Moses pushes the stiff-necked, boulder of a people known as the Israelites through the desert.
His role as leader of the Israelite people has immense pressures and obligations that persist from on high, from his congregation below, and he must push onward until his dying breath on Mount Nebo. It is, of course, fitting that Moses dies on a mountain, because he spent his life climbing them.
Like Sisyphus, Moses pursues a job that can never be completed. Seemingly cursed to watch his life’s work roll away from him, does Moses die resentful? Infuriated? No! “Moses was 120 when he died” “His eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated.” And we continue his work, in a manner of speaking, still trying to figure it out thousands of years later. Had the Israelites followed through on their promise to “do all that God had commanded,” there would be no reason to read the Torah year after year.
To this day we force Moses to push us up the mountain, the proverbial location of the elevation of the entire Jewish people. Year after year from generation to generation, we reroll our Torah to begin again. We push, we strive, we fail and succeed; we return to the same places: week after week and year after year, and yet we continue to grow with each trip up the mountain.
Unlike Sysyphus who finds himself at the bottom of the hill each morning, we continually take our tradition to new heights and new vistas, looking back only to renew the path ahead of us. By taking on this task of participating in the upward march of Judaism, we have in some small way, taken upon ourselves Moses’ boulder.
We have chosen the difficult, yet rewarding path in pursuit of Torah. It is in the Pursuit of Torah, not its accomplishment, completion or achievement that happiness is derived; Simchat Torah, literally the Joy of Torah,= is about beginning to read Torah - again. We are told to “cling fast to it, grasp at it,” not put it on a shelf to collect dust. Like peace, we chase after Torah and love it, always approaching it even if we never reach it, as Hillel would have us do (Avot 1:12). And as we are told: “those who hold fast to it, find happiness.”
We have made the conscious choice to accompany Moses in pushing Israel towards the top of the mountain; to persevere in the face of obstacle and uncertainty; to make sacrifices, to reconcile, to increase knowledge, to study, to repair the world. We realize that the job is arduous and that it is not to be completed by our hands or even the hands of the disciples that we may raise up.
Ultimately we trust in the promise of the psalmist:
אַשְׁרֵי תְמִימֵי־דָרֶךְ; הַהֹלְכִים בְּתוֹרַת יְהוָה׃
Happy are those whose path is full, wholesome, and integrous; as it is for the ones who proceed with God’s Torah.
Ken Y'hi Ratzon and Shabbat Shalom
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