Getting to Know Your Simcha - 019 Closeness To Hashem

Alitzah – The Opposite of “Atzlus”

Another kind of happiness mentioned in the Midrash is alitzah.

Alitzah, from the word olatz has the same letters as the word atzel (lazy one), but the letters are rearranged differently. This shows us that alitzah is a good kind of laziness. What does this mean?

All of the middos come from the four elements of earth, water, wind or fire. Sadness and laziness come from earth. Just like sadness is the opposite of happiness, so is laziness the opposite of happiness. Being lazy takes away from a person’s happiness because the person constricts himself to where he is. When a person is sad, he contracts his soul - he and becomes constricted. (This is called “tzimtzum”).

The same thing happens when a person is lazy – because he stays in one place, he is restricted to where he is, and his soul becomes contracted into itself.

This also shows us that not only is there is a kind of happiness which is the opposite of sadness, but that there is another kind of happiness – a happiness which is the opposite of laziness. This is a whole new kind of happiness that we haven’t learned about yet.

Usually, happiness involves movement. “For with happiness they go out.” Laziness is the opposite of movement; when a person is lazy, either he doesn’t move at all, or he moves slowly. Since laziness is non-movement, it contradicts happiness. But if we use the right kind of laziness – which we will see what it is – we can use it to bring happiness.

Laziness can either be good or evil, just like everything else in creation. Laziness is evil when a person doesn’t move for the sake of not wanting to move. How can it be good?

There is a good kind of laziness. This is when a person stays put where he is for the right reasons – when he stays connected to Hashem and near Him. To be “near Him” is aitzel, which is the opposite of atzel (lazy one).

The Inner Sadness Which Affects All People

The regular kind of sadness we know of comes from our element of earth, but there is a more inner kind of sadness – and this affects all of Creation. This is a sadness that comes to us because our soul feels distanced from Hashem. Because this sadness exists in every person, there is no such thing as perfect happiness in Creation.

Our soul feels very far from Hashem, and this makes us sad deep down.

If we want to link two points together that are separated and far apart, how can we accomplish this? We can place a bridge in between, which connects the two points.

Thus, the solution to the deep inner sadness of Creation is that we must make a “bridge” in between our sadness to get to the happiness on the other side. If we have the bridge, we will be able to go from our sadness and cross over into happiness from time to time.

What exactly is this “bridge”?

The bridge is what we have been describing in the last few chapters (Chapters One through Seven). By developing our inner happiness, we are able to form a “bridge” and leave our inner sadness, and cross over into the happiness on the other side…