Getting to Know Your Simcha - 021 Happiness Through Accepting Others

Olaz – Connecting To Others

The last kind of happiness mentioned in the Midrash is alizah. The word olaz is the opposite of the letters laaz, which means “strange”. This shows us that being “strange” contradicts happiness.

What is this “strangeness” that the Midrash is referring to, and how does it contradict happiness? Let us explain this.

If a person never talks to other people, he is clearly lacking not only in a social life, but also in a basic understanding of people. If a person never talks with other people, he never dealt with anyone and thus cannot understand others. That is one kind of problem. Then there is another kind of problem: two people can be talking to each other -- and still not understand each other. Reuven is talking, and Shimon is “listening” – or is Shimon really listening?

Conversations are a puzzling phenomenon. We know that relationships are formed only through talking – two people have to communicate to each other in order to have any sense of bonding. If so, why is listening done with our ears – and not with our mouths?

Of course, we listen with our ears, and we talk with our mouths. But Chazal say that talking is what connects us to others. If our mouth is the main factor in our relationships, why is it our ears that hear and not our mouths?

The answer is because even when we listen, many times we are not even hearing what the other is saying. We are listening, but we don’t hear what the other is saying! Why? Because we are only hearing what we understand the other is saying, but we are not really hearing what the other person is actually saying. We are interpreting the other’s words as we listen, but what we are hearing is our understanding, not what we the other is actually saying!

If so – most of what he hear is often “strange” to us. This is the opposite of olaz, and it prevents happiness.

Poor Listening

Many times a person listens to another person talking to him and he misinterprets totally what the other told him. Reuven tells him A – and Shimon hears B! How does this happen?

It is because as Reuven is talking, Shimon is thinking about the ideas Reuven just presented, and Shimon’s mind wanders off into another realm – all in the line of the conversation, of course. Shimon looks like he is listening to Reuven, but the reality is that he’s not even listening. He is hearing what he himself understands Reuven is telling him, but he isn’t hearing what Reuven is telling him.

This we can see all the time. People don’t even “hear” what the other is telling them. Their thinking process interrupts and distorts their hearing, and when Reuven tells Shimon “A”, Shimon hears “B”.

Thus, we usually only “hear” with our ears, not our “mouth” – because we aren’t capable of hearing with our “mouth”, the true connecting force between two people. We only “hear” with our ears, which is superficial hearing. All our hearing is superficial – we never really listen to others. As soon as we listen, we only hear what we understand, not what the other is telling us.

Why We Don’t Listen Well

Although we only hear according to what we understand, we can improve our listening. The only reason why we fail to hear others out properly is because we like our understanding better than someone else’s understanding. A person usually only likes his own Da’as (understanding) – not someone else’s Da’as. Thus, a person is inclined to trust only his own understanding, and he doesn’t really want to accept what another person understands.

The root of the problem is that a person only trusts his own understanding, but he doesn’t believe that someone else can have a different understanding as well.

Believing In Another’s Power Of Da’as

The Gemara says that “Just like no faces are equal, so are no opinions equal.” Herein lies the solution to the problem on not accepting others: we all have the power of Da’as, the power to understand based on our thinking.

Just like a person believes very strongly in his own Da’as – to have a certain understanding in something by thinking about it – so should he believe that his friend also has the power of Da’as.

Let’s say two people are learning together, and one chavrusa says something to the other. The listener hears what his chavrusa says – thinks about it for a few minutes, maybe a half hour – and then he concludes, “Maybe my chavrusa is right…”

Such listening is poor listening. Why? The listener isn’t even prepared to accept that his chavrusa has an understanding of something. Even when he agrees, it’s only a “Maybe.” He doesn’t believe that his chavrusa even has a Da’as of his own.

Accepting Others’ Opinions

What we are saying here is that a person can’t just live in his own world. He has to learn to accept others, that there are others who have an opinion, that he is not the only in the world who has an understanding of something.

Everything we are saying here is directly relevant to our discussion on happiness. A person cannot be happy if he lives alone in his private little world and doesn’t want to accept others into his life. If a person lives alone, he will definitely be sad. This is really why lonely people are sad – the loneliness itself creates sadness, because a lonely person isn’t ready to accept others into his life.

Balancing Social Life With Solitude

However, we must clarify something over here. Many people mistakenly think that if they are popular and have a lot of friends, this will cure their loneliness. We find, however, that many people who are “popular” actually feel very lonely inside. Why?

The answer to this mystery is because in order to be truly happy, a person has to have his own inner solitude. There is a deep place in a person’s soul where a person can live, and there he will never feel lonely. It is called the power of levad -- being “alone” (we have already spoken of this previously in Getting to Know Your Self). This is not loneliness, but an inner place of serenity and solitude in the deepest part of your soul.

A person must retreat into his power of “being alone” whenever he feels loneliness being around people, and this is where a person draws his happiness from.

By having inner solitude, together with being involved with other people and accepting other people into one’s life – a person can be happy, the happiness of alizah.

But if a person remains there and doesn’t want to have anything to do with others, he is misusing this power of being “alone”. Such a person views everyone else in the world as being nothing – “nothing like the dust of the earth”. When a person misuses the power of being alone, he is a baal gaavah (an arrogant person).

Thus, there must be a balance. On one hand, a person must live “alone” in his soul, and on the other hand, he must accept others into his life. When a person has both of these, he will be happy – olaz.

The question is, how is this called being “alone”, if you have to also accept others? The answer is that although one has to be “alone” only in his Da’as, he doesn’t have to be “alone” in the truth. Everyone in the world is allowed to have their own opinion – and they can all be true. This doesn’t contradict the power of being alone; I can be alone yet still accept that others can be right as well.

Happiness cannot be achieved if a person just lives in his own world. A person has to connect to others; a person has to hear others’ opinions and be prepared to accept them. But a person can only accept others’ opinions only if he believes that others as well have their own power of Da’as\understanding.

The Different Kinds Of Da’as

There are generally two kinds of da’as – da’as hamavdeles, (Da’as which “separates”) and da’as hamechaberes (Da’as which “connects”). We need both types of da’as.[1]

If a person only has da’as hamechaberes, he connects to others but he has no opinion of his own, and he only follows others what others say; he never has his own original approach on anything – it is detrimental, because he never thinks on his own.

But if a person never tries to understand others, he only has da’as hamavdeles, and this is also detrimental, because such a person never connects with others, and he has no happiness.

A person needs to be friends with everyone – no exceptions! Try to understand what each person thinks. Only through this can you be happy.