Do rituals make you happy?

[nili]

Ritual manufactures a comfort zone.

And comfort leads to happiness?

Sometimes, but mostly it serves as a navigation guide.

So we tend to do things that make us comfortable, rather than, as they say, reach outside our comfort zone?

I'm really not at all sure where this conversation is going. Let me try something else ...

Back in the mid sixties I participated in civil disobedience training aimed at teaching people how to handle physical attack. It was all fairly simple stuff, and I remember being told that more important than the specifics of what to do is having specifics of what to do.

It's a lesson that stuck with me. one that was reinforced much later when my daughter died. I knew what to do -- Jewish tradition provided me with a roadmap.