​Happiness is Loving Hashem

From Learning to Love Hashem (#675) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller 

I remember in Slabodka an important person, Reb Dovid Rappaport. He was always talking in learning, always talking in learning, and when he walked in the street he was talking in learning. So when he bumped into a telegraph pole, he said, “anschuldig — excuse me,” and kept on talking in learning. He thought he bumped into a person. He was so immersed in learning he didn’t know where he was going. 

The Rambam describes a person like as “intoxicated”: he’s drunk. It’s a happiness. It’s such a happiness that Shlomo Hamelech at the beginning of Shir Hashirim said, “yishakeini m’nishikos pihu — Hashem should kiss me with the kisses of His mouth” once more like He kissed me before.

The Malbim explains that Hashem spoke to Shlomo Hamelech two times; It made him so intoxicated with happiness he could never forget it. All his life he yearned — ah, once more the Ribono Shel Olam yishakeini m’nishikus, kiss me, kiss me in the mouth, “ki tovim dodecha m’yayin — because Your love is better than wine.”

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Why should you waste your life? Discover in the beginning what you really want

​So the great happiness of the ohev (one who loves) Hashem is available in this world. The real longing you have in your heart, this is what you really want. Everything else that you love — money and honor — are only substitutes. After a while you get disgusted and see they are not what you really want. 

So why should you waste your life looking for it? Discover in the beginning what you want. However, because it’s such a great happiness, Hashem reserves the real ahavas (love of) Hashem for Olam Haba (The World to Come). There, “tzaddikim yoshvim — the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads,” and they enjoy looking at their beloved one.

“Esbiah b’hakis temunasecha — let me satiate myself with the love of Your face when You wake me up." When You wake me up in the Next World, I should see Your beloved face bending over me. That’s what I’m looking forward to. That’s the greatest happiness that a man could ever have. Hashem Himself couldn’t invent a greater happiness than that. That’s the reward for those who love Hashem in This World; they’re rewarded in the World to Come. 

Climb the Ladder: Create a daily program (without a neder, vow) of telling Hashem, “I love You, Hashem!” at least once a day.