HAPPILY EVER AFTER SYNDROME

Why is it that the whole world always wants to see a happy ending?  I realized that when people read books, watch movies, hear stories, they always want to know that there was a happy ending. Everybody wants to know that the good guys win and the bad guys are defeated.

I was pondering this idea.  From Hashem’s perspective everything is a happy ending. Everything is all good.

But from our perspective we want to see the good. In fact, it is such an obsession that even when watching a fictional show we sit riveted to our seats, nervous (and almost praying ) for the good character to win and not to be harmed. Why is that?

Well, in our personal lives we also want to have good endings: we want things to be happy ever after. And it is not just an imaginary thing. We really have a need for happily ever after.  But is it realistic?

Should we allow our children to be indoctrinated with this idea of happily ever after? Of the princess marrying prince charming and having a dream life? Of the good guy always winning?

Well, the answer is perhaps yes and no.  It is not reality of life. Certainly from our perspective the good person does not always win. Good people suffer. Good people lose. Good people are murdered in terrorist attacks. And yet we need to know that even those happenings are also from G-d, and also for the good, but it is a good that only G-d can appreciate and understand from His perspective of reality and from His plan for creation and for each individual.

So our children need to know reality is not always happily ever after.

On the other hand, we want our children to yearn for a time when there will be perfection in the world. Why are we so obsessed with good triumphing over evil? With good people being happy and evil people being punished? With seeing a happy ever after life? Because deep inside each one of us yearns for that perfection of the world, for the Messianic era, when everything will be happily ever after. When there will be only open revealed good and when good will totally defeat evil. Why do we yearn for that? Because G-d created the world that way. Because G-d Himself wants that. Because intrinsically good will always win over evil in the long run. Because evil will be punished at some point in time; certainly with the coming of Moshiach G-d will avenge the death of innocent people.  Because we each have a part of G-d inside us, our souls, and we therefore have a strong sense of justice and an optimistic happy nature that wants to see good revealed openly in the world. We want this world to be a dwelling place for G-d and therefore it needs to reveal G-d and G-d’s will. That is why we feel uncomfortable if we see immorality or evil or cruelty in any form. It disturbs us to the core.  Because we want to see the time when truth and goodness and G-dliness will truly be revealed in this world the way it is meant to be. The way G-d wanted when He originally created the world. On the way to realizing that goal many things happen: not always kind things, not always things that seem fair or just. But in the end it will all be fair and good and when Moshiach comes we will understand all the suffering and what appears now to be injustice. We will see the higher picture. But until that time we need to demand Moshiach. We must never be content with a world that is imperfect, cruel or immoral. We must fight anything that opposes Torah and pure values. We must fight evil, fight terrorism, fight cruelty and injustice. We must work to make this world a pure and holy place, and very soon we will merit the complete redemption through Moshiach tzidkenu.