Is it wrong to enjoy the good things in life?

Rabbi Landau answers that enjoying life is not a sin, and feeling guilty over your blessings does not make you holy. “Acting guilty over blessing doesn’t make you holy, it makes you blind.”

“Hashem didn’t create a world full of beauty, food, money, marriage, music, and blessings, so you can walk around acting like enjoying it is a crime.” Some people think suffering makes them spiritual: deny yourself, starve yourself, feel guilty for having what others don’t. “But the Torah doesn’t teach that.” The Torah says, “V’samachta b’chol hatov,” be happy with all the good Hashem gave you.

Holiness, he explains, is not a list you make for yourself. “Holy is when you enjoy what Hashem lets you enjoy. Unholy is when you enjoy what he does not allow you.” It is the Torah’s list. And if Hashem gave you a blessing and you refuse to enjoy it, you are not necessarily pleasing Him; “you’re being ungrateful.”

“The sin is not pleasure. The real sin is forgetting who gave it to you.” So enjoy the meal, the house and your success. “The Torah is not against enjoying the gift. It’s against forgetting the giver.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Enjoying what Hashem permits is not a sin. The Torah commands us to rejoice in all the good He gave us.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

Many people feel a quiet guilt in the middle of their blessings, as if enjoyment were a spiritual flaw. Rabbi Landau calls this guilt a kind of blindness, not holiness.

What may be behind it

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the line the Torah draws is not between pleasure and suffering but between permitted and forbidden, and that list is written by Hashem, not by our feelings.

Deepest human truth

The Torah is not against enjoying the gift; it is against forgetting the Giver. Gratitude, not self-denial, is what connects the blessing back to its Source.

More questions from this teaching

• Does denying yourself pleasure make you more holy?