5 Levels of Pleasure
What pleasures does a parent want his children to enjoy? Good food, fun vacations, tennis, music. Wonderful!
But when they turn 25 and would still rather play tennis than work,
you start thinking, “Get on with your life, already.” It’s nice to enjoy
an occasional game of tennis, but life has got to offer more than just
“fun.” You’d like your children to have a meaningful career, to get
married, to have children.
If they turn 35 and they are playing tennis day and night, you’re screaming, “Help!”
Judaism says that God is our Father in Heaven, and we are His
children. Just like any parent, God wants His children to enjoy life’s
pleasures.
There are five different levels of pleasure—each a class unto itself.
THE PLEASURE PLANE
The different classes of pleasure can be compared to seats on an
airplane. The best way to travel is first class. The second best way?
Second class. Of course nobody wants to think of themselves as traveling
second class, so they call it Business Class, Executive Class, or
Ambassador Class.
Third class? That’s Tourist, Coach, or Economy.
What’s fourth class? They put you down below with the animals in the baggage compartment.
Fifth class? They give you a rope and say, “Hang on!”
Everybody would rather travel first class. But some people never
figure out how. They travel their whole life in fifth class, just barely
hanging on. And, the sad thing is, sometimes it becomes too hard and
they let go.
THE MEASURE OF PLEASURE
Each of these five classes of pleasures is so unique that you cannot
exchange 10 units of fifth class pleasure for even one unit of fourth
class pleasure. If you were starving, would you trade a good meal for a
sky view of Manhattan? Would you trade the love of your life for a beach
front home on the Riviera?
One pleasure cannot be measured against another. So how do you assign
a value to any given pleasure? Imagine pleasure as horsepower. Pleasure
gives you energy. If you have pleasure, you are raring to go with the
confidence to tackle difficult jobs. You can put up with a lot of
aggravation, because the power you get from pleasure propels you.
In trying to evaluate the worth of a given pleasure, ask yourself:
When I eat ice cream, how much pleasure, how much energy, do I get from
it? If I listen to music, how much energy do I get? If I love someone,
how energized does that make me feel? Is that more, or less, than eating
an ice cream cone? That’s a rational way of measuring it.
COUNTERFEIT PLEASURES
Sometimes, people believe they are getting real pleasure—but they get
cheated. For example, sex is a real pleasure, but pornography is
counterfeit. It only stimulates lust, and you end up depressed instead
of energized. It may seem exciting at first, but excitement and energy
are not the same and should not be confused.
The most widely sold counterfeit pleasure in the Western world is decadence. Here’s why it is counterfeit:
When asked what is the opposite of pain, most people will say
pleasure. But the absence of pain doesn’t automatically equal pleasure!
The opposite of pain is not pleasure; the opposite of pain is
comfort. Many people think the ultimate pleasure is a vacation in
Hawaii—sacking out on a waterbed, a cool breeze wafting through the
window, a tall drink, every muscle in your body relaxed. But don’t let
yourself fall asleep—because then you’ll miss the whole thing!
Sleep and comfort is painless. But that is not the goal of living!
In reality, pain is the price you pay for pleasure. If you want to
graduate college and get a good job, you have to study hard. If you want
to become an Olympic gold-medal champion, you have to experience the
pain of sore muscles. You are not going to get there on a beach in
Hawaii.
Equating comfort with pleasure is counterfeit. Real pleasure comes only as a result of effort.
THE PRICE OF PLEASURE
To succeed in the pursuit of pleasure, you have to focus on the pleasure and not on the effort.
Imagine a team of basketball players, running around the court,
pushing themselves to the limit. Do they notice the pain they’re
feeling? Barely. The pleasure of playing overwhelms any other feeling.
Now what if you asked them to conduct the following experiment:
“Play basketball normally - run, jump, shoot, and defend. But this time do it without the ball!”
How long do you think they could play for? Maybe five minutes?
Without the ball, there is nothing to distract them from the effort.
Every step now seems painful.
Give them back the ball, and they’ll play for another two hours!
In life, keep your eye on the ball. Focus on the goal—and turn every effort into a pleasure.
LEARNING TO ENJOY PLEASURE
We think that pleasure should come automatically. But it’s not so
simple. Just like you can’t fully enjoy music without taking a course in
music appreciation, so too you have to learn all about pleasures.
It’s like wine tasting. Wine is far more than a liquid that wets your
mouth and gets you tipsy. If you want to be a connoisseur, first you
have to examine the cork. Then you test the color of the wine. Then you
swish it around the glass. (That’s called “checking the legs.”) Then you
smell the bouquet. Only then do you taste the wine, savoring it slowly,
letting the taste and texture permeate all the different taste zones of
your mouth.
Our world is rich with bounty and treasures. Sights and smells.
Relationships and energies. Potential and achievement. If we wouldn’t
guzzle vintage wine, then shouldn’t we accord the same respect to life
itself?
In summary, remember the three criteria that apply to all classes of pleasure:
- There is no exchange rate between the various levels of pleasure.
- Watch out for counterfeit pleasures.
- For every pleasure, the price tag is effort.
FIFTH CLASS PLEASURE
Fifth class pleasure is the most basic and available. It’s physical
and material pleasure. Good food, nice clothes, comfortable home,
pleasant music, beautiful scenery. This includes anything that involves
the “five senses.”
God made the physical world for us to enjoy. The Talmud says that if a
person has the opportunity to taste a new fruit and refuses to do so,
he will have to account for that in the next world.
What’s so special about fruits? God could have created bland mush
with all the vitamins and minerals necessary for our survival. But
fruits are the dessert the Almighty made for us. It’s a labor of love.
Can you imagine making a scrumptious dinner for a loved one and then he
refuses to try it?! But there is a difference between tasting fruits and
gorging fruits. And this is the counterfeit of fifth class pleasure—too
much of a good thing. When you partake of fifth class pleasure without
savoring this gift, you end up not being able to enjoy it. Wine is
wonderful in moderation; guzzling a whole bottle will make you throw up.
Stuffing your face with food leaves you feeling lowered by the
experience, not energized.
The key is awareness. When you are aware, you won’t lose control and allow your appetites to rule over you.
This does not mean to suggest ascetism or celibacy. Physical
pleasures are from God and are meant to be enjoyed. Sex is considered
one of the holiest acts we can perform. In fact, the Hebrew word for the
marriage ceremony—kiddushin—comes from the word kadosh, meaning “holy.”
That’s why on Shabbat, the holiest day of the week, the Talmud
specifically enjoins couples to have marital relations.
Enjoy all the physical aspects of this world. That’s the fifth class
pleasure which God, Our Father, created for His children to enjoy.
FOURTH CLASS PLEASURE
As we said earlier, there is no exchange rate. No amount of fifth
class pleasure can buy you even one morsel of fourth class pleasure.
What is worth more than all the money in the world?
Love.
Here’s proof:
Imagine Mr. Schwartz, an investment banker in a
major Wall Street financial firm. He spends most of his days trying to
reach his lifelong goal of earning $10 million. He and his wife have
three kids.
One day, a wealthy philanthropist named Cohen decides to make
Schwartz a very generous offer. Cohen says, “You’re spending your whole
life trying to make $10 million dollars. So I’ll give you the biggest
shortcut of your financial career. I’ll give you $10 million dollars
right now for the right to adopt one of your children. Your child will
have the best of everything. The only condition is that you will have to
break off all contact—you will not be able to see or hear from your
child again.”
What does Schwartz say? His financial dream in an
instant! But to give up a child? Impossible. “No deal. Get out of my
office.”
Ten million dollars. A mind-boggling amount of fifth class pleasure
won’t induce him to sell one child. Love is not worth trading for any
amount of money.
But how much time does Schwartz spend with his children? If they are
so precious, why does he forgo this pleasure of loving his kids?
After his encounter with Cohen, Schwartz has a flash
of inspiration: “I have to spend more time with my treasures!” He
buzzes his secretary and announces he’s taking a two week vacation to
spend with his kids.
Schwartz rushes home. After struggling for an hour to
get the stroller open, he finally makes it to the park. He and the kids
are having a grand time. But then comes dinner, bath and story time.
After enduring food fights, floods in the bathtub and endless readings
of “Babar Goes to the Circus,” Schwartz flops down on the couch, turns
to his wife and says, “Perhaps I was a bit hasty taking that two week
vacation…”
LEARNING TO LOVE
Schwartz knows that his children are more valuable than $10 million. But he doesn’t know how to enjoy this pleasure.
The first step is to get a definition of “love.”
The Talmud defines love as the emotional pleasure we get when
focusing on the virtues of another. If you do that, then even if the
kids are throwing meatballs across the room, you can still love them
(and discipline them at the same time).
Without a clear understanding of what love is, all you’ll be able to
focus on is the effort and pain involved in raising kids, and you’ll
come to conclude that it’s just too taxing.
What is the average parent’s greatest “pleasure?” Their children.
What is the average parent’s greatest “pain?” Also their children.
It’s not an accident that a parent’s greatest pleasure is also the
source of his or her greatest pain. Because the greater the pleasure,
the greater the effort required.
Therefore, if you want to succeed in life, the key is not to
eliminate pain entirely—that is impossible. Rather, focus on the
pleasure which you receive as a reward for all that effort.
LOVE VS. INFATUATION
The counterfeit of love is the notion that it is
effort-free—something that just happens to you. Love is a stroke of fate
with no rhyme or reason. You don’t work on loving people. It either
happens or it doesn’t. Therefore just as easily as you “fall in love,”
you can “fall out of love.”
Bob and Sue are alone in the park, walking beneath the full moon. Cupid flies by and shoots an arrow. Presto—Bob and Sue are madly in love!
They get married, have kids, a big house, a heavy mortgage. Bob
works hard to pay the bills, staying overtime at the office. While Bob
is working late one night with his secretary Carol, Cupid sneaks up and
shoots another arrow. Boing! Now Bob’s in love with Carol.
Bob returns home to Susie and proclaims, “I fell in love with the secretary. But what can I do, honey, the bum shot me!”
Out goes Susie, in comes Carol.
The problem? Bob did not delve into an exploration of character and
then fall in love after coming to a deep understanding of who she is.
Bob’s love is not based on commitment and effort to reveal virtues. The
Bible says that “Adam knew his wife Eve.” Love is built on knowledge.
The more intimate the knowledge, the more you can love.
But the Western world thinks that love is not something you choose,
love is something you are a “victim of.” So if you want to stay married,
all you can do is hope that you don’t get shot by Cupid again! Is it
any surprise that there is a 50 percent rate of divorce?
Infatuation is not love, it’s just physical attraction, the counterfeit. Real love is forever.
We see this in the relationship between parents and children. No
parent ever gets up in the morning and decides: “I’ve decided I like the
neighbors’ kids better. They don’t cough at night, and they get better
math scores. You kids get out. The neighbors are moving in.”
Crazy, right? We don’t fall out of love with our kids, because we’re committed to loving them.
How do you know if you are in love or infatuated? If you hear
yourself saying, “He’s perfect,” or “She’s perfect!” then beware! That’s
not reality. That’s a sure sign of infatuation.
Real love takes work. You have to be willing to make the effort.
THIRD CLASS PLEASURE
What in the world could compel someone to give up what they love most dearly?
A cause. The drive to do make a difference in the world. The desire for greater meaning in life. The need to do the right thing.
Imagine that terrorists have taken a plane hostage
and they turn to you: “Kill all the other passengers, or we will kill
you and your children.”
You still cannot do it. You cannot kill innocent people even if it means saving your own family. You’d rather die.
In Judaism we say: If you don’t know what you are willing to die for,
then you haven’t begun to live. Otherwise you are merely playing a
game. If you don’t have meaning in your life, then all the physical
enjoyments, the beautiful vacations and even the wonderful spouse and
children, can make you feel that something is missing.
LEARNING TO APPRECIATE GOODNESS
It takes great effort to be a genuinely good person. But most people
never reach this goal. They end up being “not bad”—that is, they don’t
murder, steal, or commit adultery. But being good is much more than just
“being not bad.”
So why don’t we try? Because the responsibility involved seems like a burden instead of a pleasure.
You are on vacation in New York City, sightseeing in
one of those excursion boat rides around Manhattan Island. As you are
admiring the Statue of Liberty, one of the other sightseers falls off
the boat. He can’t swim—he’s drowning. So you jump into the East
River—filthy with garbage, dead fish—but you don’t care, you are trying
to save a life. You grab him, he struggles—you go under the murky
water—finally he stops struggling, but now he is heavy as lead—you pull
him with all your might—you are gasping, the water stinks.
Finally, after what seems like eternity, you drag him to the
shore. People are there to lend a hand, and an ambulance takes the
drowning victim to the hospital. Thank God, he’s alive, coughing and
spitting a little murky water, but he’s gonna be okay. You go back to
your hotel and take a dozen showers to wash off the muck and smell of
rotting fish. You say, “I’m never coming back here for the rest of my
life!”
Now 30 years and 100 vacations later, what is your most
memorable vacation? It was the time the guy fell off the boat and you
saved a life!
It’s great to take pleasure in doing a good thing in retrospect. But
why not proactively look for the opportunity to do good? And even
more—focus on the good you while you are doing it! Wouldn’t that be some
pleasure high?
LOOKING GOOD VS. BEING GOOD
Sometimes people will perform acts of courage that are really stupid.
Kids play “Russian Roulette” or “Chicken” and they get killed. They get
confused and think they are doing the noble thing. This is one
counterfeit of third class pleasure.
Western society has another version of counterfeit third class
pleasure: financial success. You can be a good husband, a good friend, a
loyal human being, a thinker, and an intellectual—but if you haven’t
made a lot of money, you are a failure.
A few years ago, a Brink’s delivery truck lost
several bags of money. The back door flew open and millions of dollars
tumbled into the street, scattering the money in the wind. Everybody
grabbed what they could. But there was one fellow who walked into the
bank and returned $50,000.
The press interviewed his father, who said: “My son is a
wimp!” And they interviewed one of his fellow workers, who said, “God
gave him a gift, and the idiot gave it back.”
The counterfeit of “being good” is “looking good.” Too many people
expend enormous effort trying to win the admiration of others. That’s
why people so readily identify themselves by profession or career. “I’m a
stockbroker, a vice president of marketing, a Harvard graduate.” If
others are impressed, it reassures us that we’re important.
Don’t fall for “looking” good. True goodness comes from doing the right thing.
What made Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish businessman, establish the Nobel Prize?
Nobel was the inventor of dynamite and one of the world’s largest
producers of explosives. When his brother died, the local newspaper made
a mistake and printed Alfred’s obituary instead of his brother’s. When
Alfred Nobel read it and saw that his life amounted to so much
destruction and killing, he was devastated. “This is my life?! I’ve got
to do something good.” It was then that he decided to establish the
Nobel Prize for those who do good in the world.
SECOND CLASS PLEASURE
Second class pleasure can be best identified by its counterfeit. For
what goal will people sacrifice innocent lives? To obtain power.
Stalin, Idi Amin, Hitler—a long list of tyrants were willing to kill
millions to get power. To create a Communist state. To create a world
dominated by the pure Aryan race. But that kind of power is counterfeit.
That power only destroys.
True second class pleasure is the power of creativity. For example,
the artist has control over his eye, his arm, and the paint, in order to
translate his ideas into reality. He takes inert matter and turns into
something productive, useful, beautiful.
But people sometimes make the mistake of going for forced control.
The dictator is manipulating the pieces, but in the process is
destroying lives and society. It’s only an illusion of creativity.
The way to tell if you are creating or controlling is by the result.
Creativity gives other people pleasure. Control leads to destruction.
Which would you rather be: a worker or the boss? Even though a
company cannot function without workers, there is greater satisfaction
in being the boss. Rather than simply following orders, you have the
power to create, to direct, to plan and to conceive. You tap into the
source of creative power—wisdom and understanding.
Similarly, one of the greatest forms of second class pleasure is
creating a family: giving birth to children, then inculcating them with
values, and molding them into healthy, productive, caring individuals.
Why is creativity such a thrill? Because it touches the essence of
God. The ultimate expression of creativity was God’s creation of the
world. He made something from absolutely nothing. Only an Infinite Being
can do that. Expressing our own creativity is a taste of that power.
FIRST CLASS PLEASURE
Imagine someone who has mastered the four classes of pleasure. She
enjoys enormous wealth and material pleasures, a beautiful loving
family, meaning in life, power used to create good in the world. Yet
there’s still something missing.
An encounter with
God.
No human being is totally satisfied unless she’s in touch with the
transcendent dimension. When all is said and done, what we each seek is
to reach out of this finite world and connect with the infinite. To
become one with God.
What if I said to you, “I have a room where you can sit down and
speak to God Almighty Himself for an hour.” Wouldn’t you jump at the
chance? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate experience?
It would be awesome.
We’ve all had moments when we’ve been struck by the awesomeness of
life—the birth of a baby, seeing the stars above us, watching a
lightning storm. It takes our breath away.
Awe is the experience of merging our small, relatively insignificant
selves with something much greater. We break beyond our own limitations
and connect to the unity of God.
First class pleasure is incomparable to any other experience. Nothing
finite, nothing bound up in this world, can compare to the infinite.
GRATITUDE ATTITUDE
For the greatest pleasure, we have to pay the greatest price. Gratitude.
In order to connect with God, you have to learn to appreciate all the
good He has done for you. That means giving up the illusion that you
alone are responsible for your achievements. It’s all a gift from God.
Just as every stroke of Picasso’s brush has his signature on it,
everything in this world has God’s signature on it. We have to learn to
appreciate it.
If you make the effort to appreciate the gifts God has bestowed upon
you, then you’ll have such a keen awareness of God’s presence that
everything you do is accompanied by a sense of His love and guidance.
You’ll be overwhelmed above and beyond any other pleasure possible.
In fact, this is the ultimate goal for which man was created. We were
put on earth in order to overcome the illusions and use our free will
to build a relationship with God. He could have made robots, but God
doesn’t want that. He wants a real relationship—which means we have to
choose it.
Why is gratitude such a difficult awareness to sustain? Because a
human being’s ego always craves recognition and independence. We balk at
the concept of indebtedness. We prefer to believe we’ve done it
ourselves!
Another counterfeit of first class pleasure is thinking that someone
or something else is providing for our needs. If you think your career
or your lover is the bottom line that will fulfill your needs, then you
are mistaken. Because all those things can disappear. Only God has
absolute power and only God is Eternal!
REACHING FOR THE STARS
Imagine the launch of a rocket ship. When the fifth stage ignites
there is lift-off. In the fourth stage of ignition, the rocket pierces
the atmosphere at 100 miles per second. The third stage propels the
rocket into orbit. The second stage puts the rocket on a path to a
specific destination. And finally, the first stage lands you on the
moon.
So too with the five levels of pleasure. Fifth stage is physical
pleasure, giving you energy for lift-off. But if you don’t get to fourth
stage—marriage, children, love—plop. But what really puts you into
orbit is self-respect, meaning, and doing good in the world. Once you’re
in orbit, you still need the propulsion of second stage—power—to hurl
you toward your destination. And finally, the first stage is living with
God.
In Judaism, Shabbat represents our opportunity to enjoy all the
classes of pleasure in one day. First you have a table set with a
beautiful white tablecloth, the best china and silverware, flowers, a
brightly lit candelabra, delicious food and wine. That’s fifth class
pleasure, lift-off. Then, you give your children a blessing and some
hugs and kisses, and as you all sit down around the table together, the
warmth of family shines. You have love, fourth class pleasure, and you
are traveling a mile a minute. If you sing some inspirational songs and
speak words of Torah, then you understand the meaning and depth of the
day, and you’re now in orbit. If you know what your goals in life are,
that’s the power of second class pleasure. And then you reach the
purpose of the day - connection with God.
