Ki Sovoy 2026: Can You Be Punished for Not Being Happy?
by devadmin | August 27, 2026 8:09 pm
Raboyseyee and Ladies,
Can You Be Punished for Not Being Happy?
In Judaism, and mistama in many other religions as well, most of us are familiar with the basic concept of “שכר ועונש” reward and punishment. From a very young age, we are taught a rather simple formula: do good and you will be rewarded; mess up and you will be punished. It begins with our parents and teachers and later shows up in business, in society, and pretty much everywhere else. But above all, avada we chap that the RBSO is watching our every move and that, when He so feels, He can punish us severely for bad behavior. Moishe states this bluntly throughout Sefer Devorim, and especially in our parsha, which contains his final charge to the Yiddin.
We may not like the consequences but, for most of us, the system makes sense -at least to a degree. We understand punishment for stealing. We understand punishment for lying. We understand punishment for violating the heylige shabbis. We understand punishment for cheating, hurting others, and failing to live up to our obligations. The heylige Toirah teaches us about aveiros (sins) and their consequences, and taka, those are relatively easy for us to chap. But this week, Parshas Ki Sovoi presents us with a question that is much harder to understand: Can a person be punished by the RBSO because he isn’t happy?
Not because he stopped keeping Shabbis. Not because he stopped putting on tefillin. Not because he stopped eating kosher. Not because he stopped believing. Not even because he committed some serious aveirah, some over and again. The big sin: The person wasn’t happy. Really? Is a person obligated to be happy? All the time? What about the person who wakes up one morning and isn’t happy? What about someone going through financial issues? Someone dealing with family challenges? Someone who lost a loved one? Someone frightened about his or her future? Someone who is simply having a lousy day? Someone in a bad marriage that’s constantly in a state of unhappiness? Are we really supposed to tell that person, “Nu, be happy—it’s a mitzvah”? That sounds almost cruel. Can a person really be happy when sad? That said, is being unhappy mamish a sin? Does the RBSO mamish punish someone because he is miserable?
That question raboyseyee and ladies, is not theoretical for our community this week. Just six days ago, the community shockingly lost a 40-year-old mother of four. A family I know quite well. A family was suddenly shattered. Four children lost their mother. A husband lost his wife. A mother lost a daughter. Siblings lost a sister. And an entire community was left numb. Hearing the news just took my breath away. How can anyone talk about simcha right now? How can the family be happy? How can the community be happy? We’re not happy. We’re shocked. We’re heartbroken. We’re numb.
These questions are mamish relevant davka because our parsha forces us to confront something remarkably uncomfortable. It contains the terrifying Toichocho, the curses—98 of them—that will come upon the Yiddin. The list is ugly and frightening. So much so that should you decide to miss shul this week, or come late and go directly to the Kiddush Club, many would understand. A good number of the punishments described are so horrific that one could logically conclude that the heylige Toirah is describing the consequences of the most giferliche transgressions imaginable. One might logically assume that such devastating punishments must be connected to catastrophic sins, a number of which you are mistama too familiar with, if you chap. But then the heylige Toirah (Devorim 28:47) tells us something that makes us stop and wonder. It doesn’t leave us guessing about the reason. The posik says befeirush, azoy: The terrible curses so vividly described in the parsha, will come upon the Yiddin for the following reason:
תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר לֹא עָבַדְתָּ אֶת ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ בְּשִׂמְחָה וּבְטוּב לֵבָב מֵרֹב כֹּל
“tachas asher lo avadeta es Hashem Elokecha b’simcha u’v’tuv levav”— “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and with a good heart, despite having an abundance of everything.”
From these words it does appear that the absence of simcha when serving the RBSO is a most serious transgression. But, how can we possibly talk about that this week? How can the heylige Toirah demand happiness from somebody who is hurting? And perhaps even more important: Does the heylige Toirah actually demand happiness, or are we translating the word simcha incorrectly? Because if simcha simply means feeling happy, we have a serious problem. A person cannot simply wake up one morning and order his brain to become happy. You can’t tell somebody who lost a spouse, a child, a parent or a friend, “Nu, be happy. It’s a mitzvah.” That would be cruel. A person can put on tefillin while having a terrible morning. He can daven while his mind is somewhere else. He can give tzedakah while worrying about his own bills. He can keep shabbis while carrying a pain that nobody in shul knows about. He can sit in shul while his heart is somewhere else entirely. Does that make him an aveirah-doer? A bad person? Of course not. And if not, what exactly is the heylige Toirah asking from us? Let’s go veyter and find out.
Rebbe Nachman from Breslov, the founder of the Breslov movement was famous for his teachings but is world famous for this one: “Mitzvah gedoilah lihyos b’simcha tomid” (It is a great mitzvah to be in a state of simcha always.) The phrase became so deeply embedded in Jewish culture that it eventually escaped the boundaries of Breslov and became part of the soundtrack of Jewish life. Mordechai Ben David, Avrohom Fried, Yosef Karduner, Aharon Razel, and Shuli Rand all have songs to those words. Many others have incorporated it into their music. We sing about simcha at weddings. We sing about simcha at kumzitzes. We dance about simcha. We scream “Simcha! Simcha! “But did we ever stop to ask what Rebbe Nachman actually meant? Did he mean that sadness itself is a sin? Did he mean that a person is supposed to walk around smiling even when his heart has been broken? Or did he mean something much deeper? Because the heylige Toirah seems to be saying something equally powerful when it explains the terrible Toichocho: Because we did not serve Hashem with joy and goodness of heart?! What’s pshat? And that’s where the questions begin. Is simcha merely a beautiful middah (trait)? Is it actually a mitzvah? Is the absence of simcha an aveirah? Does the heylige Toirah really punish a person for not being happy? And perhaps the biggest question of all: Can the RBSO command an emotion? I can control whether I put on tefillin. I can control whether I give charity or enough of it. I can control whether I show up to shul. I can control whether I eat kosher. But can I control whether I wake up tomorrow morning feeling happy? Can I flip a switch in my brain and say, “Okay, Yitz, enough already. From now on, be happy”? Of course not. So perhaps the problem begins with the English word “happiness. “Maybe simcha isn’t happiness. Maybe simcha is something much deeper. And perhaps the clue is found in the rest of the posik.
The heylige Toirah doesn’t merely say “b’simcha.” The sentence continues: “b’simcha u’v’tuv levav.” With joy and with goodness of heart. Why does the posik need both? And then there these two words that complete the posik that may completely change how we understand the entire passage. “Merov kol” meaning despite having an abundance of everything. Says Rashi that this in the context of having had all good things. Suddenly, perhaps we’re looking at a very different type of person. Maybe the heylige Toirah isn’t describing somebody who lost a loved one and is crying. Maybe it isn’t describing somebody sitting Shiva. That person may be temporality exempt from having to be happy. Maybe it isn’t describing somebody going through a terrible illness or financial crisis or a broken marriage. Also on recess from having to be happy. Maybe it’s describing somebody who has everything—food, security, possessions, children, parnoso, comfort, abundance—and nevertheless fails to serve the RBSO with gratitude and joy. In other words: Maybe the problem isn’t that he is sad. Maybe the problem is that he is spoiled. An ingrate. Now that’s an accusation we can chap. And taka, the Gur Aryeh, in discussing Rashi, raises precisely this tension: if a person has an abundance of good things, shouldn’t that abundance give him even more reason to serve the RBSO with simcha? Says the Rambam, (end of Hilchos Lulav), azoy: the joy that accompanies performing a mitzvah and loving the RBSO is an avoida gedoilah, a great form of service. The mitzvah itself matters, but the way we perform it matters too. Rabbaynu Bachya – who always adds great color- says this: A person can do any mitzvah, but if one does not do it with joy, something is still missing. The simcha itself has value independent of the mitzvah. In other words, simcha itself is a mitzvah enhancer. Gishmak!
And that brings us to a distinction I think we desperately need to make. Sadness is not the opposite of simcha; ingratitude may be. A person can be sad and still have simcha. A person can cry and still have emunah. A person can be frightened and still daven. A person can sit Shiva and still recognize that the life shared with the person who died was a gift. A person can be completely devastated and still have moments of gratitude. Maybe that is what the heylige Toirah means. Not: “You must always feel happy.” But: Don’t lose your capacity to recognize the good. Because happiness depends on circumstances. Simcha may not. Happiness says, everything is going my way. Simcha says, even when everything isn’t going my way, I still recognize that there is meaning, there is goodness, there is something to be grateful for, and I still have a relationship with the RBSO. That’s a very different concept. And perhaps that’s why the last words of the phrase “merov kol” matter so much. The person who has everything but sees nothing, is missing something. The person who has very little but can still recognize what he has may possess something far greater.
It so happens that Jewish music -and all uplifting music- helps us chap this concept. We know how to manufacture happiness. Put on the right song. Bring out the keyboard. Turn up the drums. Add a few thousand watts of amplification. And suddenly everybody is dancing. For a few minutes, the mortgage disappears. The kids disappear. The nagging shvigger disappears. The business disappears. The stock market disappears. At least that’s what it looks like. But that’s not necessarily the simcha of the heylige Toirah. Because it’s easy to be happy when the band is playing. It’s easy to be happy when your son gets engaged. It’s easy to be happy when your daughter gets married. It’s easy to be happy when the business has a great month. It’s easy to be happy when the doctor tells you the test came back clean. The real test is what happens when the music stops. Can we still find something? Can we still recognize a blessing? Can we still daven? Can we still say thank you? Can we still open our hearts to another person? Can we still perform a mitzvah? Can we still believe that despite everything we don’t understand, the RBSO has not abandoned us?
And that brings us back to this week’s terrible loss. We should not insult grief by pretending that a grieving family should be happy. We should not tell four children who lost their mother to “be b’simcha.” We should not tell a husband who lost his wife that he has to smile. We should not tell a community that is still in shock to move on and celebrate. That’s not simcha. This week, we mourn. We cry. We sit quietly. We show up. We bring food. We make phone calls. We say Tehillim. We hug. We listen. We remember. And perhaps, in the middle of all that pain, we discover something else. A story about her. A memory. A child smiling. A friend telling us what she meant to them. A moment when we realize how many lives she touched. And for one brief second, perhaps we manage a smile and even a chuckle. Not because we have forgotten the tragedy. Not because the pain has disappeared. But because we are grateful that she was here. That’s exactly what took place at Allison Rahmani’s levaya this past Sunday.
Maybe simcha doesn’t mean being happy when we’re supposed to be sad. Maybe it means that even when we are sad, we haven’t completely lost our ability to recognize goodness. Maybe the heylige Toirah isn’t punishing us for crying. Maybe it’s warning us about something else entirely: Don’t become so consumed by what you don’t have that you forget everything you do have. Don’t wait until something is taken away to realize its value. Don’t become so accustomed to your blessings that they become invisible. Maybe that is why the heylige Toirah speaks about simcha u’v’tuv lay’vov to remain capable of seeing the good—even when the tears are still falling.
But can we really do that? Can we really remain capable of seeing the good when the tears are still falling? Maybe that’s the real avoidah, that’s the challenge. Because taka, it’s easy to be grateful when everything is going well. When the kids are healthy. When the business is doing well. When the bank account looks good. When the doctor says everything is okay. When the house is quiet and everyone is getting along. We say thank You, RBSO, and we mean it. But what happens when something goes wrong? What happens when the phone rings with terrible news? What happens when the person you assumed would be there tomorrow suddenly isn’t? That’s when we discover just how much we took for granted. And perhaps that is where “מֵרֹב כֹּל — merov kol” becomes even more powerful. Maybe the heylige Toirah is warning us not to wait until the kol is gone before we appreciate the kol.
Perhaps, that’s what the Toirah is really telling us with “בְּשִׂמְחָה וּבְטוּב לֵבָב מֵרֹב כֹּל.” Serve the RBSO with simcha and with a good heart from the abundance of everything. Not because life is perfect. Not because nothing bad will ever happen. Not because we frum Yiddin are supposed to walk around with a permanent smile plastered across our faces. But because while we have the kol, we should know that we have the kol. We should see it. We should count our blessings. We should appreciate it. We should say thank You for it. And maybe that’s the lesson our community has been forced to confront this week. We don’t know how much time we have. We don’t know which ordinary Tuesday morning will turn out to have been one of the most precious days of our lives. We don’t know which conversation will be our last conversation. We don’t know which hug will be our last hug. We don’t know which person sitting next to us today won’t be sitting there next year.
Perhaps the words were not intended to have us quaking in our boots. Perhaps they were meant to wake us up. Maybe simcha is not about pretending that life doesn’t hurt. Maybe simcha is about not becoming blind to the blessings that are still in front of us. We can mourn Allison Rahmani. We can cry for her children. We can ache for her husband and her family. We can be angry. We can be numb. And we can still be grateful that she was here. We can remember her smile. We can remember what she gave to others. We can remember the lives she touched. And perhaps, at some point, someone will tell one of her children a story about their mother, and that child will smile through the tears. That smile doesn’t mean the pain is gone. It doesn’t mean the loss is okay. It doesn’t mean anyone has “moved on. “It means something much more profound: Love survived the loss. And maybe that’s simcha. Not happiness. Not forgetting. Not pretending. Gratitude. The ability to look at what we have and say, “RBSO, I know this is a gift.” Because maybe the greatest tragedy isn’t that life sometimes makes us sad. Maybe the greatest tragedy is having everything—and not realizing how much we have until something is taken away. Maybe that’s what “מֵרֹב כֹּל — merov kol” is really teaching us. While we have the kol (an abundance and even more), we should see it, appreciate it, and say thank You for it. And maybe the greatest expression of simcha is simply knowing that we have been given it.
A gittin Shabbis –
The Heylige Oisvorfer Ruv
Yitz Grossman
Source URL: https://oisvorfer.com/ki-sovoy-2026-can-you-be-punished-for-not-being-happy/