Beyond the Buffet: From Fleeting Pleasure to Lasting Joy
The world chases pleasure. We pursue whatever makes us feel good—comfort, excitement, the thrill of novelty—and when that experience fades, we rush after the next thing that promises happiness. At some point, almost everyone reaches a dead end: the feeling of satisfaction evaporates, and the chase starts again. Why are we biologically wired to crave pleasure? Is there any way to experience joy that won’t burn out? Is there a path out of the endless loop that leads to lasting contentment?
By way of analogy, imagine an all-you-can-eat buffet. To maximize their dining experience at this buffet, many restaurant goers fast beforehand. But the restaurant has a trick: they bring the cheap, easy-to-serve dishes first, like bread, salad, and simple appetizers. Hungry diners fill up on those starters before they ever reach the expensive and exquisite dishes that come next, the ones that justify the high-priced meal. Later, as they drive home, they think, “I should have saved room.” And yet, the next time, they repeat their mistake. The early, accessible pleasures distract them from the rarer things that deliver deep, lasting satisfaction.
That’s modern life in a nutshell. Small, immediately available pleasures—the “appetizers” of experience—are everywhere because they’re easy and cheap. Truly meaningful rewards, the “main courses,” typically require patience, effort, and self-discipline. Those are the experiences that deliver enduring joy.
Three Kinds of Pleasure
To understand this principle more clearly, it is instructive to distinguish between three levels of enjoyment: pleasure, satisfaction, and joy.
• Pleasure is the most basic level of enjoyment. Pleasure refers to a short, sensory spike produced by food, music, a hot bath, a beautiful view, or a new purchase. It is immediate and fleeting.
• Satisfaction is triggered by achievement and productive action. Satisfaction is the good feeling that comes when you create, accomplish, or contribute. It lasts longer than simple pleasure, but it is still episodic. Though when we recall the experience we feel good again, the effect isn’t continuous.
• Joy is sustained well-being. It’s a positive, enduring sense that life itself is going well. It’s not a spike; it’s a baseline.
Most people are driven primarily by pleasure. Freud called this the pleasure principle: humans seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Physiology explains a lot of this. Pleasure is closely tied to dopamine, a neurotransmitter that signals reward in the brain. Activities like running, listening to good music, eating sweets, dancing, or using addictive substances cause dopamine surges. Receptors in the brain respond more strongly, and the “reward circuit” lights up. Over time, the brain compensates and either reduces dopamine release during the rewarding activity or becomes less sensitive to dopamine. That is why addicts need higher doses to feel the original thrill.
This mechanism helps explain Western consumer culture’s insatiability. Food manufacturers increase sugar levels; entertainment producers raise the stakes; novelty becomes the currency of attention. As our Sages put it long ago: “Rabbi Yudan said in the name of Rabbi Aivu: A person does not leave the world having achieved even half of his desire; rather, if he has one hundred, he wishes to turn them into two hundred. If he has two hundred, he wishes to turn them into four [hundred]” (Kohelet Rabbah 3:10).
Beyond its inherent insatiability, pleasure carries a darker consequence: the crash. After the high comes a sudden drop. A candy binge leads to a sugar crash; an intense thrill is followed by emptiness and gloom. The temporary high is often followed by despair, anxiety, and melancholy. This is why many spiritual traditions advocate renouncing pleasure. If you avoid pleasure, you’ll never become addicted.
But Judaism offers a different path.
Judaism’s View
Jewish tradition does not advocate wholesale asceticism. The world, Judaism teaches, was created by a single, benevolent God. If God deliberately made a world that includes pleasure, then pleasure is not a cosmic mistake; it has value. The Shema (“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One”) expresses that there are no competing creative forces. Everything is created by God and therefore has purpose. If pleasure is part of creation, it can and should play a role in a life of meaning.
As a case in point, consider the nazir (a biblical figure who temporarily renounces wine, among other things). The Torah describes the nazir as someone who voluntarily seeks spiritual elevation, and yet when his period of self-imposed sanctity ends, the nazir brings offerings that symbolize repentance. Midrashic and rabbinic discussions reflect two strands of thought: one maintains that the nazir’s fall back into ordinary life is a spiritual lapse, and another suggests that the nazir is required to bring an offering precisely because withdrawal from permitted pleasures is problematically extreme. In a word, Judaism demands that human beings enjoy the world, but within clear limits.
Boundaries make pleasure sustainable. Judaism permits and even sanctifies marital relationships, eating, clothing, wealth, and pleasure, but places them inside a framework of rules and times: marital intimacy is only permitted within marriage and within certain permissive windows of the month, eating must be accompanied by blessings and the laws of kosher, work is limited to the six days of the week. These constraints create an important rhythm that leads to sanctity. Boundaries prevent hedonic overload and preserve sensitivity.
A Higher Pleasure: The Joy of the Soul
There’s an even more important point. The pleasures triggered by dopamine are necessarily limited because they arise from the body’s finite sensory apparatus. If the goal is to maximize pleasure, sensory pleasure isn’t the answer. Judaism teaches that the deepest, most enduring joy is rooted in the soul.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the Ramchal) writes that human beings were created to delight in God—to enjoy communion with the Divine. This is the highest pleasure, an “everlasting delight” that outstrips all sensory thrills. When joy is anchored to something eternal—doing a mitzvah, studying Torah, or helping another person—it becomes durable. Acts of kindness, moral accomplishment, or spiritual connection leave traces that survive the initial moment; you can recall them years later and be enriched by the memory. That is not true for a sugary snack or a fleeting thrill.
This is why many public figures, artists, and celebrities—people who have tasted the world’s most intense external pleasures—eventually find their way back to spiritual life. They discover that external success cannot satisfy the soul’s need for meaning.
Reaching that higher pleasure isn’t automatic. The Ramchal warns that the world presents constant temptations and distractions, “tests” that can pull us away from the true good. Overcoming those forces demands of us to work on our character by delaying gratification, choosing ideals over impulses, and cultivating practices that connect us to something larger than immediate satisfaction. Through discipline and repeated action—mitzvot (Divine commandments), Torah study, charity, and inner work—we train our hearts and minds to find joy through things that don’t wear out.
The result is a life with direction and purpose. When you wake with a roadmap for meaning, when your days are guided by an inner telos, the baseline of well-being rises. Joy becomes less like a peak and valley and more like a steady horizon.
In the Sefer Yetzirah, an ancient kabbalistic text traditionally attributed to Avraham (Abraham), we read a striking line: “There is nothing higher than oneg (delight), and nothing lower than nega (affliction).”
Though the Hebrew words oneg and nega contain the exact same letters, their meanings are opposite. The only difference is the placement of the Hebrew letter ayin. When the ayin appears at the right, we get oneg—a state of joy and pleasure. When it appears at the left, we get nega—pain or suffering.
Chasidic teachings explain this as more than a linguistic play on words. It’s a lens through which to understand life. The Hebrew word ayin also refers to the eye. The happiest person and the most miserable one may share the same life circumstances. The difference lies in how they choose to see the world.
Those who look through the “right eye”—a metaphor for optimism, generosity of spirit, and seeing the good in themselves and others—will find oneg (delight) wherever they are. But those who view the world with the “left eye”—narrowness, judgment, and bitterness—will experience life as a nega, not necessarily a physical ailment, but a spiritual affliction that poisons the soul.
So the question of whether we suffer or live joyfully is not only about what happens to us. It’s really about how we choose to see it.
Dopamine is a chemical messenger in the brain that produces feelings of happiness, motivation, pleasure, and energy. It sounds almost like a joke, but after wellness trends like juice cleanses and silent retreats, one of the newest “hot” therapies to hit the U.S. is…dopamine fasting.
This practice involves deliberately cutting out pleasurable or stimulating activities, such as eating enjoyable foods, exercising, scrolling through social media, or playing video games, for a set period of time. The goal is to “reset” the brain’s reward system and regain a more balanced relationship with pleasure.
Originally developed as part of addiction therapy, dopamine fasting has been adopted by tech workers and wellness enthusiasts alike. Many who’ve tried it report feeling more focused afterward and rediscovering deep enjoyment in the very things they gave up. Even small rewards—like eating a piece of bread—felt surprisingly satisfying.
This might help explain why individuals who live a life guided by Torah learning, spiritual growth, and balance between body and soul often find deep delight in things others have grown numb to.
The Marshmallow Test is a famous psychological experiment conducted by Professor Walter Mischel at Stanford University, designed to explore the mental processes behind delayed gratification.
In the experiment, children between the ages of two and four were each seated in front of a marshmallow. They were told that if they could wait to eat the marshmallow until the researcher returned, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. Some children managed to wait. Others didn’t.
More than a decade later, Mischel followed up with the study’s participants to see how their lives had unfolded. The findings were striking: Children who had struggled to wait and ate the marshmallow early tended to have lower stress tolerance, weaker problem-solving abilities, and more attention-related and behavioral difficulties. In contrast, the children who were able to delay gratification scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT, showed stronger coping skills in stressful situations, had better social skills, and were less likely to exhibit symptoms of ADHD or behavior problems.
The research is clear: learning how to delay gratification has a powerful impact on nearly every aspect of life. It influences the decisions we make, our ability to overcome challenges, and our success in reaching long-term goals.
As it turns out, the ability to occasionally say “no” to ourselves may be one of the most valuable tools we have for personal growth and for building a happier, more successful life.
The concept of oneg Shabbat (delighting in Shabbat) originates in the Tanach itself:
If you turn away your foot because of the Shabbat, from pursuing your affairs on My holy day; and you call the Shabbat a delight, the holy day of the Lord honored; and you honor it by not going your own way, or seeking your own business, or speaking idle words…(Yeshayahu 58:13)
Shabbat isn’t just a day of rest. It is meant to be a day to delight in. That’s why Jewish tradition places such emphasis on preparing the home, cooking delicious food, wearing festive clothing, and engaging in joyful, meaningful activities on this holy day.
Oneg Shabbat (Shabbat delight) is a mitzvah in its own right and it expresses the deeper purpose of Shabbat: a time of joy, pleasure, and spiritual renewal.
Importantly, oneg Shabbat doesn’t contradict the laws of Shabbat—it’s intrinsically connected to them. The limits and restrictions of Shabbat observance aren’t limitations on pleasure. Instead, these limitations enable us to experience a higher form of pleasure—a calm, sacred joy untouched by the pressures and noise of the workweek.
When Shabbat is observed fully, including its halachic (Jewish legal) boundaries, the result is not less enjoyment, but deeper, truer enjoyment.
Jewish psychologist Sigmund Freud was the first to bring the “pleasure principle” into the spotlight. According to this principle, infants will do whatever they can to satisfy their impulses the moment they arise. It is a primitive drive that makes a baby cry out in distress when hungry, frightened, or uncomfortable.
Over time, the infant develops what Freud called the “reality principle,” namely the recognition that not every desire can be satisfied immediately. The demands of reality help regulate the pleasure principle—but they never erase it entirely.
A life of complete denial of the pleasure principle would strip a person of purpose and vitality. Instead of fulfilling physical and emotional needs, the individual would shut down all stimulation, and enter a kind of moratorium that more closely resembles death.
Healthy living requires balance: learning to regulate and create equilibrium between enjoyment and the capacity to delay gratification.
In the Sefer Yetzirah, an ancient kabbalistic text traditionally attributed to Avraham (Abraham), we read a striking line: “There is nothing higher than oneg (delight), and nothing lower than nega (affliction).”
Though the Hebrew words oneg and nega contain the exact same letters, their meanings are opposite. The only difference is the placement of the Hebrew letter ayin. When the ayin appears at the right, we get oneg—a state of joy and pleasure. When it appears at the left, we get nega—pain or suffering.
Chasidic teachings explain this as more than a linguistic play on words. It’s a lens through which to understand life. The Hebrew word ayin also refers to the eye. The happiest person and the most miserable one may share the same life circumstances. The difference lies in how they choose to see the world.
Those who look through the “right eye”—a metaphor for optimism, generosity of spirit, and seeing the good in themselves and others—will find oneg (delight) wherever they are. But those who view the world with the “left eye”—narrowness, judgment, and bitterness—will experience life as a nega, not necessarily a physical ailment, but a spiritual affliction that poisons the soul.
So the question of whether we suffer or live joyfully is not only about what happens to us. It’s really about how we choose to see it.
The Marshmallow Test is a famous psychological experiment conducted by Professor Walter Mischel at Stanford University, designed to explore the mental processes behind delayed gratification.
In the experiment, children between the ages of two and four were each seated in front of a marshmallow. They were told that if they could wait to eat the marshmallow until the researcher returned, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. Some children managed to wait. Others didn’t.
More than a decade later, Mischel followed up with the study’s participants to see how their lives had unfolded. The findings were striking: Children who had struggled to wait and ate the marshmallow early tended to have lower stress tolerance, weaker problem-solving abilities, and more attention-related and behavioral difficulties. In contrast, the children who were able to delay gratification scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT, showed stronger coping skills in stressful situations, had better social skills, and were less likely to exhibit symptoms of ADHD or behavior problems.
The research is clear: learning how to delay gratification has a powerful impact on nearly every aspect of life. It influences the decisions we make, our ability to overcome challenges, and our success in reaching long-term goals.
As it turns out, the ability to occasionally say “no” to ourselves may be one of the most valuable tools we have for personal growth and for building a happier, more successful life.
Jewish psychologist Sigmund Freud was the first to bring the “pleasure principle” into the spotlight. According to this principle, infants will do whatever they can to satisfy their impulses the moment they arise. It is a primitive drive that makes a baby cry out in distress when hungry, frightened, or uncomfortable.
Over time, the infant develops what Freud called the “reality principle,” namely the recognition that not every desire can be satisfied immediately. The demands of reality help regulate the pleasure principle—but they never erase it entirely.
A life of complete denial of the pleasure principle would strip a person of purpose and vitality. Instead of fulfilling physical and emotional needs, the individual would shut down all stimulation, and enter a kind of moratorium that more closely resembles death.
Healthy living requires balance: learning to regulate and create equilibrium between enjoyment and the capacity to delay gratification.
Dopamine is a chemical messenger in the brain that produces feelings of happiness, motivation, pleasure, and energy. It sounds almost like a joke, but after wellness trends like juice cleanses and silent retreats, one of the newest “hot” therapies to hit the U.S. is…dopamine fasting.
This practice involves deliberately cutting out pleasurable or stimulating activities, such as eating enjoyable foods, exercising, scrolling through social media, or playing video games, for a set period of time. The goal is to “reset” the brain’s reward system and regain a more balanced relationship with pleasure.
Originally developed as part of addiction therapy, dopamine fasting has been adopted by tech workers and wellness enthusiasts alike. Many who’ve tried it report feeling more focused afterward and rediscovering deep enjoyment in the very things they gave up. Even small rewards—like eating a piece of bread—felt surprisingly satisfying.
This might help explain why individuals who live a life guided by Torah learning, spiritual growth, and balance between body and soul often find deep delight in things others have grown numb to.
The concept of oneg Shabbat (delighting in Shabbat) originates in the Tanach itself:
If you turn away your foot because of the Shabbat, from pursuing your affairs on My holy day; and you call the Shabbat a delight, the holy day of the Lord honored; and you honor it by not going your own way, or seeking your own business, or speaking idle words…(Yeshayahu 58:13)
Shabbat isn’t just a day of rest. It is meant to be a day to delight in. That’s why Jewish tradition places such emphasis on preparing the home, cooking delicious food, wearing festive clothing, and engaging in joyful, meaningful activities on this holy day.
Oneg Shabbat (Shabbat delight) is a mitzvah in its own right and it expresses the deeper purpose of Shabbat: a time of joy, pleasure, and spiritual renewal.
Importantly, oneg Shabbat doesn’t contradict the laws of Shabbat—it’s intrinsically connected to them. The limits and restrictions of Shabbat observance aren’t limitations on pleasure. Instead, these limitations enable us to experience a higher form of pleasure—a calm, sacred joy untouched by the pressures and noise of the workweek.
When Shabbat is observed fully, including its halachic (Jewish legal) boundaries, the result is not less enjoyment, but deeper, truer enjoyment.
Early on, Avichai Cohen was spotted as a model with tremendous potential. He soon found himself walking the runways of top designers. But just when he seemed to be living a life of endless pleasure and success, something completely unexpected happened. This is his story.
Growing Up and Breaking Away
I grew up in Kfar HaRo’eh, in a warm Jewish home filled with tradition and values. As a kid, I loved studying Tanach, but by the time I was eleven or twelve, I had lost interest. Judaism and tradition began to feel boring, even irrelevant.
I was always a thinker, and slowly I started questioning everything I had been raised with. I wondered if religion was really true, or if it was right for me. Quietly, I stopped fasting, stopped keeping Shabbat, and ignored the laws of kosher. Outwardly, I still looked the same, but inside, I was living as a secular kid.
In time, it was impossible to hide. I was hungry for explanations, and when I didn’t find them, I turned away completely. On Friday nights, I would park my car outside the community and head out later to meet friends. I got into bodybuilding, karate, and martial arts. Faith was no longer part of my life.
The Army Years
I was drafted into Duvdevan, a covert IDF unit. It suited me well—balancing intellect with emotional control. Those were intense years: the intifada, constant operations, and long ambushes that demanded nerves of steel.
After two and a half weeks of leave, the contrast hit me. One moment, I was living in the world of counterterrorism, and the next I was out at clubs, enjoying total freedom. The gap was jarring. I decided that I wanted to see the world.
An Accidental Model
I never dreamed of becoming a model. After moving to Tel Aviv, I joined a gym. One day, I helped someone struggling with weights. He turned out to be in the fashion world and suggested modeling. I laughed it off, but something about it drew me in.
The next day, he gave me the address of an agency. I went, and things took off quickly. Within months, I was getting noticed, swept into Tel Aviv’s bohemian nightlife. After just a few months, I was invited to appear in Milan’s international fashion shows. At the time, it was rare for an Israeli model. There was even a farewell party for me on a Tel Aviv rooftop, with all the city’s elite in attendance.
Italy was a whole different world—runway shows, Versace and Armani parties, famous faces everywhere. I thought to myself: I’ve made it. I have everything.
But when you live without limits, the thrill doesn’t last. Even the most powerful pleasures start to lose their impact.
Searching for Meaning
I reached a breaking point. Surrounded by all the excitement and pleasure, I realized that I wasn’t on the right path. I needed to know what life was really about.
I began devouring books and asking people tough questions. At fashion shows, I carried a bag of books and read between walks on the runway. While others mingled, I was searching.
The more I read, the more frustrated I became. The ideas were interesting, but where was the proof? Who said this was true? Why should I trust it? The answers I got—”If it works for you, go with it”—left me cold. How could anyone build a life just on feelings? If drugs make someone feel good, does that make them right? I wanted something solid.
I even explored religions, but Judaism was the last place I looked. Growing up with it, I had completely blocked it out. Then I had a striking conversation with a Buddhist teacher. He told me that knowledge and faith were two different paths, and you had to choose. But then he added: “If you’re really looking for a way to bring faith and knowledge together, the only place I’ve ever heard that exists is Judaism.”
That comment stunned me. A non-Jew, who didn’t even know I was Jewish, pointing me back to my roots?
Coming Home
I immediately bought books on Judaism and took them with me to Barcelona. For the first time, I saw a complete, coherent structure. Unlike other religions, Judaism’s chain of transmission was whole and consistent.
At 25, I realized that the foundations of Jewish belief—God’s unity, Torah, Sinai, the Jewish people—could be understood rationally. It was a powerful, undeniable truth.
It wasn’t easy to accept. On one hand, I felt I had wasted years ignoring what was right in front of me. On the other hand, I knew that if this was the truth, I had to live it. I remember crying for the first time in years: “God, I’m used to falsehood, but You are truth. Help me connect to Your Torah.”
I threw myself into study, stubbornly working through the challenges. There were moments of deep frustration, but also moments of indescribable joy when I felt I wanted nothing else in life but Torah. No worldly pleasure could compare.
A Life Transformed
Slowly, I met inspiring people and began building a balanced Jewish life. Today, nothing from my old world comes close to what I have now. The wildest thrills of the fashion scene can’t touch even the smallest joy of Torah.
This is real life—simple, pure, true.
