Now that’s a title not all parts of which will resonate with all of you, but I can guarantee that my brother-in-law David will, as soon as he reads it, be unable to shake from his head the sound of Ken Dodd singing. Others of you will be reminded of Charles Schultz, and, more specifically, Snoopy.

Most of you, I hope, will have realised by now that today’s theme is happiness. Three events in the last seven days contrived to align in suggesting this topic to me. The first was Purim (which, depending on who and where you are, you celebrated either on Sunday or on Monday, or not at all). There has been lots of discussion in Israel in recent days about how we can celebrate Purim wholeheartedly this year. However, on the evidence of what I have seen and heard today, while there seems to be less of the not necessarily appropriate craziness that sometimes marks Purim, there has been much joy, as we take heart from the message of the Purim story.

Last week was marked by the UN’s International Day of Happiness, my second event. This day has been celebrated on March 20 every year since 2013, following a resolution initiated by Bhutan, of which more later. The third event I will come to much later in this blog.

So, how did you celebrate the International Day of Happiness (IDH) this year? Me too. Very little attention seems to be paid to the day itself, but rather more is paid to the annual World Happiness Report, which purported, this year, to rank 143 individual countries according to how happy their citizens are. Before we look at some of those ranks, we need to clarify some issues.

First, the score and, therefore, the ranking for the current year for each country actually represent the average of that country’s score for each of the previous three years: so, 2024’s score is an average of 2021–2023. Given what Israel has been through in 2023 and, so far, 2024, you might question how accurate a reflection of the current situation this year’s score and ranking are.

In addition, the UN’s view of national happiness is, some would argue, a controversial one. Their online announcement for IDH states: ‘Happiness is a fundamental human goal. The United Nations General Assembly recognizes this goal and calls for “a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all peoples.”’

It is arguable whether Bhutan would fully endorse this explanation of how to promote national happiness. Indeed, Bhutan’s adoption of happiness as a national value was quite consciously intended as a rejection of an economic definition of happiness. For at least 400 years, Bhutan’s legal code has recognised that, “if the government cannot create happiness for its people, then there is no purpose for government to exist”.

So, when, in the early 1970’s, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the Fourth King of Bhutan, promulgated the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH), questioning whether the prevailing measurement system’s claim that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) alone could deliver happiness and well-being to society, he found a ready audience. When Bhutan became a democracy in 2008, the Constitution including the statement: “The State shall strive to promote those conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness.”

The measurement and screening of GNH in Bhutan considers 9 domains, divided into 38 sub-indexes, as shown in the following diagram. These domains reflect, among other things, the Buddhism that is a significant part of Bhutanese culture.

For the WHP, the criteria are a little different. The World Happiness Report is a partnership of Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the WHR’s Editorial Board. Their website gives insight into their methodology:

“Life evaluations from the Gallup World Poll provide the basis for the annual happiness rankings. They are based on answers to the main life evaluation question. The Cantril Ladder asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10 and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The rankings are from nationally representative samples over three years.

“We use observed data on…six variables and estimates of their associations with life evaluations to explain the variation across countries. [These variables are] GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption. Our happiness rankings are not based on any index of these six factors – the scores are instead based on individuals’ own assessments of their lives, in particular, their answers to the single-item Cantril ladder life-evaluation question, much as epidemiologists estimate the extent to which life expectancy is affected by factors such as smoking, exercise, and diet.”

This highlights the third area that requires clarification. Just what is the WHP measuring? It labels that something ‘happiness’. However, the quotation in the last two paragraphs would suggest that what is being measured is not, as you might initially suspect, ‘joy’, but, rather, something like ‘satisfaction with one’s life’. If I were forced to offer a one-word definition, I might choose ‘fulfilment’.

Clearly, nobody would want to argue that material considerations are irrelevant to human happiness. However, you can certainly argue that these are not the only, nor even, perhaps, the most important, elements in determining fulfilment.

All of which may go some way to explaining some of the more surprising rankings in the 2024 (actually 32021-2023) table. Consider this, for example. Israel is ranked 6^th happiest of the 143 countries. Among young people up to the age of 30, it is ranked 2^nd, bettered only by Lithuania. Among those aged 60 and above, it is ranked 18^th.

Incidentally, the corresponding rankings for US and UK are as follows:

	Overall	Under 30s	Over 60s
US	23rd	62nd	10th
UK	20th	32nd	20th

Statistics are, unfortunately, not available for Bhutan, because “Bhutan was excluded from the 2021 report due to a technicality: Each country’s scores are based upon detailed Gallup polls, but Gallup did not conduct polling in Bhutan during the required timeframe.” This should mean that Bhutan will be included in 2025’s report (for the years 2022-2024), although conspiracy theorists may remain sceptical.

At this point, I’m going to stick my neck out, and offer an opinion for which I have no tangible evidence. I believe that Israel’s high rank is attributable to three separate key elements. The first is the important role that family plays in Israeli life. Both the nuclear and the extended family are nurtured and celebrated in Israeli national life.

To give one, perhaps trivial, example (and perhaps not). At the ceremony marking the start of Israel’s Independence Day every year, twelve individuals from various walks of life are honoured by being selected to light twelve beacons, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Each honouree precedes the lighting by declaring in whose honour they are lighting: this might typically be, for example, a sector of public life such as the health service, or youth movements.

Each declaration follows a formula: it ends with the words: “and for the glory of Israel”, and begins along the lines of: “I, Jane Doe, daughter of Shimon, of blessed memory, and Dinah, may she live a long life”. In other words, those who have been singled out because of their life achievements, begin by acknowledging their parentage. This, of course, reflects the Jewish religious convention of naming.  

The second key element is that Israel is a country whose citizens recognise and identify with a national purpose. We share and value a common past and seek to work towards a common future. Of course, this is not always obvious, and, national unity is not something that was much in evidence for the first nine months of 2023. However, as I may have pointed out before, both those demonstrating in support of the government’s plans for judicial reform, and those demonstrating against the government’s plan for judicial revolution marched under the national flag. They were united in their desire to achieve what they perceived as being best for the country.

Third is a strong sense of community. Both those who belong to a religious community, and those who are not religious, are very likely to feel a strong connection to, and responsibility towards, their local community. Neighbourly concern, supporting local charities, volunteering, are all typical throughout Israeli society.

That, at least, is my take. Now to come to the third event this past week that got me thinking about happiness/contentment/fulfilment. After a long hiatus, Micha’el uploaded a video to the family’s youtube channel. You can view it here. I recommend you view it now, and I promise to wait here until you come back.

Not the easiest watch, I’ll agree, although easier to watch than to make, I suspect. But my takeaway is this: because Tslil and Micha’el are committed to their vision, they are able to deal with the setbacks that they have faced. I hope you were able to see beyond the downbeat mood of the video and sense, obviously not joy, but the fulfilment of engagement with something that matters to you, or, for want of a better word, happiness. And if happiness can be not yet succeeding with your water pump, then I think you’re in an enviable place.

I am writing this post from the Economy section of an El Al flight. (Paying subscribers get a post written from Business class.) If the post seems radically different from the last written in mid-air, that may be because I am now facing East, rather than West, as we head back home after four hectic but wonderful weeks in Portugal. Friends are advised not to ask Bernice and myself ‘Did you enjoy your holiday?’, but we did, in fact, have a great, if exhausting, time. As we drove back to Lisbon this morning at 120 kph on cruise control through bright sunlight and an outside temperature of 26^o , we remarked, as we often do, how fortunate we are that our children share their house with us so generously for a month at a time, and that our grandsons regard us as so natural a part of their lives.

Once again, this week I have nothing overly dramatic to report. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Ollie’s advances in speech. In the last couple of days of our visit he seemed to take another dramatic leap forward, and his active vocabulary is now growing every day. He has added ‘Nana’ and ‘Grandpa’ (smart child), as well as ‘bubbles’, ‘down’ (as the natural partner to his favourite ‘up’), ‘bread’ (this is a child who loves his food) and, this morning, ‘please’. He even attempted on one occasion to follow the most difficult instruction in a charming picture book ‘Tickle My Ears’, in which the child being read to is encouraged to adopt a hands-on approach to helping a rabbit get ready for bed. Ollie has long been willing to tickle the rabbit’s ears, pat its back, clap his hands, switch off the light, but he attempted for the first time to say ;’Hoppity-hop’ to encourage the rabbit to get into bed.

Tao, meanwhile, is taking his first major steps in reading. He has, for some time, been able to recognise, and write, his own name. How far-thinking his parents were when they named him! (Pity his cousin Raphael when he first tries to write his name in English.) In our last couple of weeks in Portugal, Bernice spent ten minutes almost every day starting Tao on a reading program. She is not a fan of phonics. Rather, he learnt, as his father and his Auntie Esther did, with ‘Peter and Jane’, and it is fair to say that he took to it very quickly and is thoroughly enjoying the sense of achievement it gives him. It is so exciting when, as one or other of us is reading to him in the evening, he suddenly exclaims: ‘That’s one of my words – ‘and’!’

Our last full day in Penamacor was Sunday, which was Tao’s 5^th birthday. Celebrations actually began on the previous Thursday, when we all went down to the kid’s land for the planting of Tao’s birthday tree. His first birthday was marked by the planting of an almond tree, which was followed by a pomegranate and a plum. For some reason, he missed out last year, but this year, for the first time, he went with Tslil to the plant nursery to choose his own tree. He chose a black cherry (what a great choice, promising, in the fulness of time, delicious fruit and generous shade).

The site that Tslil chose proved to be very clay-heavy soil, which made digging the required hole very hard work. I attempted to help Micha’el with wielding the pick to break up the soil and the spade to drag it out of the hole, but I quickly found that the three years since I helped digging the swale have not been kind to my body, and settled for serving as one of the official photographers. All that remained was for each of us to place a stone by the tree, with, on each stone, a single word representing our birthday wish for Tao.

It proved to be a lovely afternoon on the land. Warmer weather made the last two weeks of our visit even more pleasant, and we could sense that spring is arriving, something I also became aware of on my morning walks in the forest with the kid’s dog, Lua. Over the last week, the forest has come alive with new growth. Purple, white and blue wildflowers are starting to carpet the slopes, and new growth of oak and pine saplings is replacing the mature trees felled in storms last winter. This is all against the backdrop of the still snow-capped foothills of the Sierra da Estrella mountain range on the horizon.

After the Thursday family ceremony, Tao had a birthday celebration in gan the next day, the highlight of which was the chocolate cake Tslil made. He came home with a birthday crown which, in Bernice’s considered professional opinion, was not a patch on what is standard in Israeli gamin, but he seems to have enjoyed himself nevertheless.

Then, on Sunday, Tao had a full day of celebration, starting with opening his presents, from all of which he extracted the maximum enjoyment, as he seems to do from all his toys. Tslil’s parents took out in Tao’s name a subscription to a concept built around a hedgehog’s year-long journey around the world. Every month Tao will receive a personal letter from the hedgehog, whose progress he will follow on the world map included in the first month’s package. In this way, Tao will learn all sorts of fascinating facts about different countries, including their native animals. When I pointed out to him where Portugal and Israel were on the map, and also Britain, he pointed to the tiny clock-tower illustrating Britain and, to everyone’s surprise, announced ‘That’s Big Ben’, a fact he had presumably gleaned from some video or other.

Our present, following Micha’el’s suggestion, was shamelessly much less worthy, being a remote-controlled stunt car. It proved to be a huge hit with all four of us little boys, although the womenfolk seemed less keen to get their hands on the remote control. To my great relief, the rechargeable battery lasted on one charge for as respectable a time as the manufacturer claimed in the product description online. To top it all, we were able to buy it in royal blue, Tao’s favourite colour. Within minutes, he had mastered spins and flips and wheelies and Micha’el constructed a magnetile ramp that allowed Tao to put the car through its paces very effectively.

Sunday afternoon brought a party with a couple of Tao’s friends, involving the usual games, balloons, noise-makers and sugar rushes. It was all a bit too much for Ollie (and, to be honest, me) but for those who fell within the appropriate age range it was a huge success.

And then, before we knew it, it was Monday morning (this morning, though it seems an age ago), and a mad rush of packing, last games, last breakfast, with Ollie, as usual, eating fruit faster than I could cut it for Bernice and myself, last book-reading and then the goodbyes that we try not to linger over too much. Tao, obviously, understands that we are going back to Israel and that he won’t see us until the summer. Ollie, sadly, doesn’t, and we’re sure he won’t find it easy when Nana is suddenly no longer there with her eminently snugglable shoulder, her cuddles and kisses, her songs and stories. Fortunately, the boys have two parents who are completely devoted to them, and we know they are certainly not going to be missing out at all.

As for us, we’re off home to recuperate and make our plans for our summer trip in three months, God willing.

As we move towards our last week in Penamacor, I find myself looking forward, in a way that I never have before, to returning home. Usually, a month out of Israel is a welcome escape from the constant barrage that is the Israeli news cycle. If, as Harold Wilson is often reported as saying, a week is a long time in politics, then in Israel a day is a very long time in the newscycle.

The upside of that, usually, is that if you miss a couple of hourly news bulletins, most of what you have missed may never be mentioned again in the news, so you can feel that you haven’t really missed anything. However, we live in times that are, of course, far from usual, and I feel very cut off from the Israeli pulse.

For the last two months, my staple news supply has been a thrice-daily digest distributed to a quiet WhatsApp group. The organisation that is responsible for this feed is dedicated to presenting news in a non-sensationalist and dry format, and it has certainly made the news easier to digest. Bernice and I are continuing to read that regularly here, but I realise that what I am missing is more the reactions to the news: the radio and TV interviews and background pieces, the exchanges between radio presenters.

Occasionally on my morning walks with Lua, I manage to catch one of those morning programmes live, and even more occasionally I listen to one from the archive. However, I am following events much less closely than I would be if I were in Israel, and I am also failing to read online the range of opinion pieces in the paper that I would read in Israel.

That sense of isolation is, of course, only increased by the fact that I don’t share a language with the kids’ neighbours, and so cannot get involved in discussions with them. I suspect, anyway, that their interest in, and knowledge of, Middle Eastern affairs is pretty limited. Indeed, I am not at all sure that they have any interest in current affairs generally. This Sunday saw Portugal go to the polls in a general election triggered by the resignation of the centre-left prime minister after a long series of corruption scandals. This is against a background of spiralling housing prices in the big cities, salaries well below the EU norm, an ailing health service, and economic stagnation.

The election produced a very narrow lead for the centre right over the centre left, these being the two parties that have, alternately, governed the country since the Carnation Revolution of 50 years ago. However, potentially the most interesting development is that the only recently formed extreme right party almost tripled its share of the vote, winning 48 of the 230 parliamentary seats. To give you a sense of the party’s platform, among its more interesting policies is chemical castration for sex offenders. Meanwhile, the centre-right won 79 and the centre-left 77 seats.

Interestingly, both before and after the election, the centre-right party pledged that it would not seek a coalition with the far-right to form a government. The centre-left announced that, in that event, if the centre-right sought to govern without an absolute majority, the centre-left would not act to bring down the government.

Government corruption? The rise of the far right? Electoral instability? Coalition governments? No wonder I feel homesick.

All of this has, I imagine, made for a spirited election campaign. However, walking around the village over the last two weeks, and even on election day itself, I saw absolutely no signs of an election: no banners, no posters, no loudspeakers. Of course, the entire electoral district of Castelo Branco, in which we find ourselves, returns only 4 of the 230 members of the legislature. Although it is geographically one of the largest districts in Portugal, it is also one of the least densely populated,

I can, however, tell you about one poster. One of the political scandals that led to the government’s downfall involved a police raid on the home of the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, a raid which uncovered a large sum in cash. Apparently, IKEA has launched a poster campaign in the big cities, featuring a bookcase with the following slogan: Good for storing books. Or €75,800.

Earlier today, Bernice and I went with both the boys to the local supermarket, to start our purchases of provisions for Tao’s birthday party next Sunday. As I was returning the trolleys after loading the car, a woman in her 60’s greeted me with a cheery ‘Shalom’. This is, of course, one of the advantages of wearing a kippa. At least, for most of my life, and in almost every country I have been in, it has been an advantage. I have struck up many enjoyable conversations as a result of advertising my Jewishness.

These days, of course, I would hesitate to wear a kippa even walking around one of the big cities of Portugal, let alone anywhere more aggressively antisemitic. However, in Penamacor, everyone knows who Bernice and I are, and what our background is.

Anyway, this lady introduced herself as a Belgian who has lived in a village a few miles away for the last three years. She clearly feels an affinity with Jews, because she mentioned a number of Israelis that we have met. She also expressed sympathy and concern for what we are going through now in Israel.

In the course of our conversation, she mentioned an Israeli whom we have met several times. Retiring early from a successful career in Israel, he moved his family (his wife and, I believe, six children, from kindergarten to high-school age) to Portugal, bought a piece of land, and had a family home built on the land while renting a house in Penamacor. He and the family clearly lead a very traditional Jewish life, and Bernice and I have speculated about how the family would cope, particularly as the children approached marriageable age.

Well, my new-found Belgian friend informed me that his oldest boy insisted that he wanted to accept his call-up to the Israeli army and so the family are letting out their newly-built house and have all returned to Israel. When I asked her whether she thought they would return to Portugal, she was sceptical. I must say I share her scepticism.

Other than that, there is little new to report from here. The weather has swung between fairly heavy rain and bright sunshine, so we have been able to get out with the boys on several occasions. Later this week, if the planets all align, Bernice and I are planning a half-day in Castello by ourselves, including lunch, before we enter the mad turmoil of the last few days with family birthday celebrations, Shabbat, a party for a couple of Tao’s friends, laundry, packing and saying our farewells until our next visit which, we hope, will manage to include both Michael’s and Ollie’s birthdays, which will give us a calendar grand slam.

I updated you last week about Ollie’s great linguistic leap forward, adding ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye-bye’ to his existing vocabulary of ‘ə’. This past week saw another dramatic, though not, ultimately, particularly helpful, development in his speech.

Before his first breakthrough, Ollie had realised that ‘ə’ lacks a certain specificity, and he had almost always accompanied it with hand gestures or other body movement that clarified whether he meant: ‘Don’t you get the feeling that the old minute hand has edged its way round to teatime-ish?’ or ‘Do you fancy a quick game of marble helter-skelter, old chum?’. (Who knows, incidentally, whether ‘realises’ way back at the beginning of that last sentence is really an accurate word? Does a child of 19 months ‘realise’, in any sense that an adult can understand? I must access my second year teacher training notes on Piaget.)

After that breakthrough, Ollie had clearly understood that he, like others, could make sounds that had specific meanings. Unfortunately, he had only mastered two sounds: ‘Hi!’ and ‘Bye-bye!’ Now he quickly developed the considerable skill of working these into almost any conversation. If anyone so much as approached the door to the kitchen, or put on a pair of shoes, Ollie would be there like a shot with his cheerful ‘Bye-bye!’ and his rhythmic hand-wave.

He then added to these two the really useful: “Up’, which initially tended to mean he wanted to be carried but now means that he wants to go upstairs. The problem here is that he is incapable of explaining why he wants to go upstairs, and so, more often than not, one or other of us will go up with him to see what he wants. This morning, I discovered at the top of the stairs that what he wanted was for me to carry him downstairs. I suspect he was actually just trying the “Up’ on for size.

The downside of this newly acquired vocabulary was his fairly swift realisation that ‘ə’ no longer cut it; it belonged to an earlier stage of development, which, from the plateau of his verbal 20^th month, he now spurned. And so he decided to replace all the ‘ə’s with something that more closely resembled adult conversation. He settled on exhaling in a single breath while sounding an ‘a’ sound as in ‘apple’, while simultaneously moving his tongue swiftly back and forwards and up and down in his mouth. If you try this at home (I recommend alone in a room with the door closed), you will soon discover that you produce a sound resembling ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’.

In fairness to Ollie, this seems to me at least as close an approximation to human speech as the ‘Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb’ first used, apparently, by the actor Charles Kean’s company at the Princess Theatre, London 200 years ago, to simulate background conversation on stage that the audience is expected to register but not understand. I learn that the variation favoured by radio producers is: ‘Walla, walla’. ‘Peas and carrots’ is another option sometimes used, but that seems silly.

But I digress. Where Ollie went wrong is that he appears to have convinced himself that, just as his ‘Hi’ and ‘’Bye-bye’ are understood, so should his ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’ be. After all, we all seem to understand adult conversation, which, as we have established, sounds quite a bit like ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’. And so he no longer sees the need for hand signals and body language. Unfortunately, his ‘Ba-la-bla-la-ba-la-ba-bla’ is usually incomprehensible to anybody else, and so we’re in a mildly frustrating time. Fortunately, his oral comprehension means that a quick cross-examination can usually establish what he wants to say.

If I tell you that I have now shared the most exciting thing that happened this past week, you will understand that we are buried in deepest rural Portugal in deepest winter. So far a bit less rain than I anticipated, but the weather is, for those of us who usually live on the edge of Judean desert, very cold. The insulation of the house, and the efficiency of the heating, are currently being challenged by the conditions, but, fortunately, we have a fairly decent winter wardrobe out here permanently, and multiple layers and scarves work very well.

I’ve been nursing a cold for the last few days. (I choose the word ‘nursing’ carefully, to win favour with Bernice, who always contends that women soldier on through mild inconveniences such as colds, while men wallow in them. I keep telling her to talk to me again when she’s my age, and not the young girl she is now.) Fortunately, the local honey is excellent, the lemon tree in the garden cannot be seen for fruit, and I have a number of bottles of whisky to work though, so lemon toddies are the order of the day.

Despite the cold, I gamely went with Bernice and the boys to a park in a village 15 minutes’ drive away. In the middle of the day, it is actually considerably warmer outside in the winter sun that huddled inside on a sofa. This park has a slide that is long enough for Tao to welcome the challenge of climbing up the chute, and for Ollie to feel considerably braver climbing up the stairs than standing at the edge of the slide wondering how good an idea this is. However, guided down by Grandpa’s restraining palm on his chest he couldn’t wait to climb, and hesitate, and thrill again.

The park also boasts a few swings, at various heights for various ages, a fair-sized open space for running around and kicking a ball, and, major attraction, a water fountain operated by foot pedal. Bernice and I spent some time remembering how, the last time we were there, Tao was very timid about trying anything. The problem this time was, it is fair to say, the reverse.

As we were racking our brains over ways of disposing of lemons last week (fortunately, Tslil now teaches a few yoga lessons in person, and so can make her students an offer everyone is too polite to refuse), I suddenly remembered the citron pressé that I enjoyed every day of our summer holiday in the South of France 40 years ago.

Retrieving a recipe from Google was the work of minutes, and I had soon reduced a lemon sugar syrup. The next morning. I added a generous dollop to the juice of two freshly squeezed lemons, added cold water (no need for ice in a Penamacor winter) and found that I had managed a passable reproduction of what I had drunk all those years ago. Not quite a madeleine, but very refreshing.

And that’s about it. The days, and, indeed, the weeks, seem to be galloping by. We are already halfway through our trip. It’s just as well that we never come out here with any grandiose plans. Just keeping up with the boys takes all of our energy.