This episode is in Hebrew.
Want to be a joyful person? Joy has a price: you have to work at it.
That means choosing your thoughts, loving people and life, dancing, choosing the people around you, paying attention to the words that leave your mouth, asking for guidance when you need it, and taking in what opens your mind and heart.
Being joyful is one of the most important mitzvot (commandments) in Judaism. It doesn’t mean that sadness, pain, loss, confusion, and fear disappear. For me, “choose life” means choosing joy even when they are present. That is the choice to live.
About this episode
Episode 50 is both a celebration and a turning point. Tal and I mark a full year of The Truth Hurts (HaEmet Ko’evet), what we had achieved together, and the end of its first season. At the time of recording, we were taking a two-week break and planning to return on April 4. In the meantime, listeners already had 50 episodes to revisit.
Purim was approaching, too. I spoke about connecting with the meaning and energy of the holiday without shame. No one is going to punish you for not knowing what Purim means, the mitzvah connected with it, what the Megillah reveals, or what Esther conceals. But if you learn to make use of the possibilities this time offers, you can gain from it. We also mentioned a Purim event on the 20th, where Tal and I planned to meet listeners, celebrate, and drink wine as part of our observance.
Then we turned to the questions listeners had sent us: How do I make a change when I never feel ready? What is the strongest tool for healing? How can faith and worry exist side by side? What can I do with anger that is eating me alive? How do I become happier? The answers kept returning to one idea: take responsibility for what is in your hands, and don’t confuse waiting with living.
The perfect moment isn’t coming
We rarely feel like making a change. You may never feel completely ready to start a business, have a difficult conversation, or ask for a raise or promotion. We are drawn to what feels comfortable and safe, so waiting for certainty can become a way of never beginning.
I see this in group exercises when people are asked to form pairs. Some stand up and choose someone. Others sit still and wait to be chosen. I think of them as the pickers and the picked.
Beautiful souls, who are you waiting for? No one else can give you final permission, promise that this is your place, or remove all uncertainty. You won’t ever be at 100 percent. All you have is now, and now is the time to step into the water.
Faith as a healing force
Of all the healing tools we have discussed, I believe the strongest is faith (emunah). I even believe the power of thought can be greater than the power of prayer, because thought shapes emotion and the words we use. This is what I mean when I say that thought creates reality.
For me, faith begins with divine providence (hashgacha pratit): moving through the world with the belief that there is a Creator and nothing exists apart from Him. Tal says this belief makes her calmer. Seen this way, both what feels good and what feels bad come from the Creator. With practice, you can learn to recognize when the Creator is speaking through a situation and showing you where change is needed. A painful situation can become an opportunity for repair and change.
Faith comes before trust in God. You are not being asked to observe every mitzvah at once or set out on a path without knowing where it leads. Begin by making room for faith in your heart. When you believe that someone greater than you is acting for your good, life becomes much easier.
Bring worry down to size
One listener understood the idea of a Creator and still found herself worrying constantly. Her mother worried, her grandmother worried, and we described the pattern as something passed down through the generations, even at a genetic level. When worry is what you have always seen, it can seem like the only way to live.
King Solomon’s words, “Anxiety in a person’s heart, yashchenah,” are read here as an instruction to bring worry down. Worry sends the imagination racing ahead, inventing one “what if” after another until the imagined situation creates more fear than the facts themselves. Think of something that once terrified you but turned out to be less serious than you expected, or even surprised you for the better.
The Gemara describes two forms of effort (hishtadlut) that can ease worry:
- Take your mind off it.
- Share it with someone you trust and get it off your chest.
Sharing can help, but there is a caveat: repeating the story can also give it more weight. The purpose is to release the worry, not rehearse it forever. Make the effort that is yours to make, then let go. The rest is in Heaven’s hands.
Imagine waiting weeks, perhaps almost a month, for the result of a serious medical test that will tell you whether a growth is cancerous and life-threatening or simply a fatty lump. In the episode, we say that the fear and tension of waiting may endanger a person more than the illness itself, and that a person’s emotional state can intensify or lessen illness. We also say that joy increases antibodies and white blood cells, while sadness has the opposite effect, and that tension can kill. I present this guidance as the Gemara’s “living words of God.” Our conclusion is both practical and spiritual: do what you can, then find a way to occupy your mind and remain calm.
The second form of effort is conversation. People sometimes associate the healing power of talking with Freud, but we point to the Gemara: telling a trusted person about your fear, difficulty, or struggle can itself bring a great deal of relief.
Give anger somewhere safe to go
Anger can become another story we repeat until it consumes us. At the time of recording, I mentioned that the Releasing Guilt, Resentment and Anger workshop would return in April, with the exact date still to be announced. But I also offered something anyone could try.
Write a letter to the person you are angry with. Put every furious thought on the page. Don’t make it pretty, and don’t hold back. Then fold the pages and burn them, or tear them up and throw them away. I happen to prefer burning them because I am dramatic, but either method works. The other person never needs to receive the letter. Writing lets you put the anger somewhere outside yourself.
Not every conflict needs a confrontation. Sometimes telling the person exactly what you think would only complicate matters or cause more harm. You can still be kind to yourself and release the tension.
A less effective but memorable method comes from a book referred to in the episode as Janice’s Mother. A refined, elegant woman living in Europe would buy sets of the cheapest glasses at the market. When she was furious, she would go to the sink, smash one, release the pressure, and move on. Tal prefers to run when she is angry. Walking helps her in general, but in moments of real anger, running gives the energy somewhere to go. I still prefer the letter: write, unload what is in your heart, and continue with your life. Then run too, if that works for you.
Joy is work
People often ask me, “How can I be happy? You’re always so happy.”
First, I am not happy all the time. I am happy most of the time, and that counts. I work at it. If you want to become a joyful person, you have to change how you live: think constructive thoughts, love people, love life, choose what you look for, dance, and notice what you consume.
If you spend the day doing nothing, moving from one screen to another and feeding yourself a steady diet of news, it is bad for the soul and can deepen depression. Ask yourself what you want to take in instead.
One listener wrote to us for a second time, saying she was trying to climb out of this state. My answer was direct: get up and take action. Get guidance. Ask for help. Listen to stories and teachings that open your mind and music that opens your heart. Fight for joy. Insist on it. Choosing joy is the work of a lifetime; it doesn’t come from waking up and passively accepting whatever the day brings.
And if you don’t know where to begin, there are 50 episodes here tracing the road toward happiness.
Watch the words you make permanent
One of our strongest tools is speech. When a security guard at a mall used to ask whether I was carrying a weapon, I would answer, “Only my mouth.”
There is truth in that joke. An offhand sentence of self-pity can bind you to a temporary state. Jewish teaching calls this “a covenant made with the lips”: the words we say aloud have power. The Gemara tells stories in which people speak negatively and the very act of saying the words brings immediate harm.
When you say, “I have no strength left. I can’t deal with my wife, my ex-wife, my business partner, my children, or my work,” you are saying to the Creator, “I won’t manage.” When you say, “I can’t make ends meet,” you risk turning a situation that can pass into your identity. Many of us slip into victimhood without considering what those words mean at the level of Heaven.
Speech is one thing you can control and take responsibility for. If “I have no strength” slips out, cancel it: “Null and void.” Then say, “I have strength, and I will succeed,” whatever your present situation may be.
Self-confidence is not pride
In our understanding, a believer is not afraid, because faith changes the way you face a conflict, dilemma, or difficulty. The Creator stands beside you and says, “If I am with you, you can do anything. I gave you this task because you can face it. I brought it to you for a reason.”
We lose confidence when we use past failures as proof of who we are. Seen this way, a new test is the Creator’s invitation to believe in yourself instead of treating old failures as your identity. Everyone can remember at least one moment of help or salvation, one difficult situation they made it through, one success or breakthrough. Why insist that failure is the only possible outcome?
Self-confidence is not pride. In this conversation, it is the opposite: trust in your soul alongside faith in Heaven. I say that this faith helped me come through a serious illness and choose a joyful life. Tal describes my greatest success as placing my trust in something greater than myself while still taking responsibility for what was happening to me. She says I made a real physical change and that we now have medical confirmation. Along the way there were plenty of “demons,” meaning doubts and voices telling me I was wrong. I kept answering: “I know what I know.”
Three short answers for listeners
We love receiving listeners’ questions, and at the time of recording we invited people to keep sending them during the break. We carry those questions with us throughout the week. They make us think from new angles and help us work through things in ourselves. Before the break, we offered three direct answers:
- To the listener still consumed by what happened with her parents: you will be ten times happier if you forgive them and stop blaming them for your problems. The longer answer is in earlier episodes, but that is the heart of it.
- To Yoav: you will become more emotionally resilient when you train yourself not to take everything personally. In this view, what happens is happening for you; it is not random.
- To Lilach: you don’t need 100 self-help books, or even 200. Change requires action plus self-discipline.
The song that took me back
One listener asked how I choose songs and whether I remembered the first empowering song I ever added to a playlist. I sat with the question and even meditated on it. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s would know the song. To me, it was one of the great empowering songs of our childhood. The question took me back to 1986 or 1987, when I stood onstage at Beit Barbur for my fifth-grade end-of-year show.
I had asked my teacher what the song’s words meant. She told me to look them up and translate them for myself. I still remember the power of standing on that stage and singing those words.
That song closed our jubilee episode. We let it play a little longer so listeners could dance, feel joy, and lift their energy. Its message came from the soul and from Heaven, not from ego: self-confidence, faith in my own soul, and faith in the Creator.