Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily, a SIMHA project.
As we’ve said, SIMHA is an organization in the Syrian Sephardic community that helps people navigate mental health challenges. The chief clinical officer, Dr. David Katzenstein, besides working in SIMHA, ran a mental health clinic for six years, has a private practice and is a wonderful human being. He’s a Ben Torah who learned in Chaim Berlin and also has a doctorate. Over the next few lessons, I’ve asked Dr Katzenstein to share some of mental health thoughts, and I’d like to follow-up those thoughts with Torah, either to validate or bolster the psychological statements.
I'm sure nothing that he says is off, but it will be interesting to see exactly how it fits with the Torah view.
Our first piece from Dr. Katzenstein is quoted below:
“In order for us to understand or even begin to figure out how to pursue peace of mind and true happiness, it's important to first differentiate the vital distinction between what's considered pleasure and what is considered happiness. Unfortunately, in Western culture, the two have become really interconnected, so there's confusion about these terms.
Pleasure is excitement. It's energy. It’s a force within our minds and our bodies which is a result of something specific, usually external, that creates a momentary feeling of pleasure. It may be a new car, a new house, a raise or anything that can be considered exciting.
Happiness, on the other hand, is not momentary. It's an overall feeling of contentment, of satisfaction. It’s the ability to sit and be with oneself and say, ‘I am happy with where I am in life. I don't need anything specific to happen…I don't need purchase a
particular item or anything material in order for me to be happy. I'm happy because the values and the purpose that I'm seeking and pursuing in life are connected to my identity. They’re connected to the sense of who I am.’
And only by making that distinction between pleasure and happiness can we then think about and pursue what it means to feel content and what it means to feel happy. And by happy we mean in the truest sense, in the authentic sense, and the genuine sense of Real Happiness.”