Three Kinds of Joy: Becoming, Completing, and Being

Joy reaches us in different ways. Sometimes it comes through movement, as we learn and grow. Sometimes it arrives with completion, when our efforts bear fruit. And sometimes we experience joy simply in being: feeling connected to our Creator and receiving life itself as a gift.

In his teaching on the four elements, Rav Dov Ber Pinson associates earth with heaviness, laziness, and discouragement. This is a spiritual discussion, rather than a description of clinical depression. During Sukkot, the season of our joy, he invites us to explore what restores our inner vitality through different forms of joy.

There is a joy we experience along the way. We have not yet reached our goal, but we can feel ourselves developing: learning to understand, create, choose, and meet challenges.

Someone absorbed in meaningful work knows this feeling. Building, exploring, and experimenting bring their own satisfaction. Even difficulty can be rewarding when it awakens our abilities and reveals new possibilities.

This is the joy of growth. It reminds us that life is already happening in the process of becoming.

Another joy arrives when the work is done. Something we have labored over takes shape. A question becomes clear, a doubt is resolved, a task is finished.

We exhale and feel satisfaction. We can pause, recognize the distance we have traveled, and feel grateful for what has become possible.

This joy teaches us to receive the fruits of our efforts. Sometimes we move so quickly to the next task that we barely acknowledge what we have finished. Completion deserves a place in our lives, too.

There is also a third joy: the quiet bliss of existence itself. We feel connected to our Creator, held in a sense of closeness and fullness. In that moment, it feels good simply to be.

Imagine one of your happiest childhood memories: you feel safe and loved, and the whole world seems gentle for a moment.

Or imagine resting beside your beloved, with nothing that needs to be said and nowhere you need to hurry.

Or remember those first moments after waking, before the concerns of the day have approached you. You are awake, yet still resting in that soft quiet.

These moments offer a glimpse of the joy of being. They can be delicate and fleeting, and we can easily pass over them.

Try to notice one and fill it with gratitude: “Thank You for life. For love. For this moment. For being here.”

Gratitude becomes a way of responding to that closeness, of turning our quiet joy toward its Source.

The joy of becoming accompanies our growth. The joy of completion allows us to receive the fruits of our work. The joy of being reveals the preciousness of our existence and our connection to the Creator.

There is room for all three: to act with enthusiasm, celebrate what we have completed, and notice those moments when existence itself feels like a blessing.

With gratitude to my teacher, Rav Dov Ber Pinson, for this teaching on joy and for reminding us to notice these moments and fill them with gratitude.