Sherre Hirsch

I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and kindness that my family and I have been receiving since we learned of my mother’s illness. She had surgery yesterday and is doing well. We are all focusing on her recovery at this time and so I will be resuming this blog sometime after the High Holy Days. My brother, the techie, has set up a website for her friends and family with updates - you can find it at http://bzscolnick.blogspot.com. Shana Tova Umetucha (a very sweet new year), Sherre

I was recently preparing to speak to the Haddassah Convention with Rabbi Harold Kushner and Rabbi Laura Geller on “Happiness” when I came across a shocking statistic. In 1957 economists called the United States “The Affluent Society”, today we are twice as rich. We own twice as many cars per person. We eat out twice as often and we have technology in our homes that our ancestors never dreamed of. Yet -and this is the biggie - our happiness levels have decreased. The divorce rates have doubled. Depression and teen suicides have been on the rise. Not surprisingly, having more ‘things’ does not make for well being. (Of course in places where the people are dealing with basis survival on a daily basis this principle does not apply in quite the same way.) I have been thinking about it a lot. When have I been the most happy? Was it related to my financial status or something else? I can tell you that when I was in college, going to school full time and working at a consulting firm 30 hours a week all while watching my parents marriage crumble I was not happy. But I was very happy when I was sharing a small studio in Los Angeles with my best friend; eating dinner out of a toaster oven while going to Rabbinical school. Maybe this study is onto something. We can excel at making a living but fail to making a life.