The Pencil of Joy

It’s true. Scientists found that people who watch cartoons while holding a pencil in their mouth, forcing them to smile, found the cartoons funnier than those who held the pencil in a frowning position.

Because smiling does that to us. It actually changes our mood, our perception.

In the Torah it lists some terrible punishments for wrongdoers. It explains why those punishments are meted out: “Because you did not serve G-D with joy.”

Really?! That’s all it takes to get that extra million in the bank? A little bit of joy?

Even more puzzling is that this wonderful joy isn’t listed as one of of the 613 commandments. Not once!

There’s a wonderful saying: “Joy isn’t a good deed. Yet it will achieve more than any good deed can.”

Because joy completes us. It isn’t an end to itself. It’s the start of everything.

Smile a little. And watch the world become the perfect world you were always waiting for.