Does Judaism Frown on Fun?

Kuzari 2:50

The Rabbi: The divine law imposes no asceticism on us. It rather desires that we should keep the equipoise, and grant every mental and physical faculty its due, as much as it can bear, without overburdening one faculty at the expense of another. If a person gives way to licentiousness he blunts his mental faculty; he who is inclined to violence injures some other faculty. Prolonged fasting is no act of piety for a weak person who, having succeeded in checking his desires, is not greedy. For him feasting is a burden and self-denial. Neither is diminution of wealth an act of piety, if it is gained in a lawful way, and if its acquisition does not interfere with study and good works, especially for him who has a household and children. He may spend part of it in almsgiving, which would not be displeasing to God; but to increase it is better for himself. Our law, as a whole, is divided between fear, love, and joy, by each of which one can approach God. Thy contrition on a fast day does nothing the nearer to God than thy joy on the Sabbath and holy days, if it is the outcome of a devout heart. Just as prayers demand devotion, so also is a pious mind necessary to find pleasure in God's command and law; that thou shouldst be pleased with the law itself from love of the Lawgiver.

R' Samson Raphael Hirsch, Nineteen Letters, Letter 4

...Whoever in his time, with his equipment of powers and means, in his condition, fulfills the will of God toward the creatures who enter into his circle, who injures none and assists every one according to his power, to reach the goal marked out for it by God — he is a man! He practices righteousness and love in his existence here below. His whole life, his whole being, his thoughts and feelings, his speech and action, even his business transactions and enjoyments — all of these are service of God. Such a life is exalted above all mutation.

Whether enjoyment or privation, whether abundance or need be one's lot, whether tears of resigned sorrow or joy exultant be shed — the truly human personality, unchangeable almost as Deity, sees in every gain or loss only another summons to solve afresh the same problem. Thus man in his earthly frame belongs to earth, and his terrestrial existence is full of significance. As no passing breath, and no ephemeral grass-blade or butterfly exists for nought, but furnishes its contribution, slight though it be, which God's wisdom uses for the upbuilding of the All ; thus also no pleasure, no thought, no deed, trifling though it be, is empty and purposeless; those which are right are finished work delivered into the hand of God that He may employ them for the completion of His universe-plan. Fulfillment of the Divine will with our property and our pleasures, with our thoughts, words, and deeds, that should be the contents of our lives.

The Religious Thought of Hasidism- Rabbi Norman Lamm (pp. 323-324)

Worship through corporeality, or avodah be-gashmiyut, is one of the most important contributions of Hasidism to Jewish religious thought...

Worship through corporeality brought into the domain of religious significance the entire range of human activity, even beyond the con­siderable aspects of human life already covered by the mitzvot and the Halakhah—the forbidden and permitted and required. Divrei reshut— all that is neutral halakhically, that upon which Halakhah makes no explicit judgment but which occupies most of one’s waking day—was now seen as a challenge and an opportunity to achieve devekut and thus to serve the Creator.

Eating is as good an example of avodah be-gashmiyut as any. As an intimate physical activity, the ingestion of food, no less than its evac­uation, embarrassed the ancients. The Greeks solved the problem by means of aesthetics; they imposed etiquette on ingestion, thus vali­dating it as an acceptable public exercise. Jewish tradition added a sacred dimension: the appropriate blessings before and after eating, attention to the dietary laws, etc. The response of Hasidism was avodah be-gashmiyut: sanctifying the very act of eating itself, beyond the rules of “proper behavior (derekh eretz) and Halakhah.

This idea of worship through corporeality addressed another prob­lem as well. Hasidism had set for its adherents an enormously difficult challenge, that of uninterrupted devekut. How could such a high state of rapture or even fundamental God-consciousness be maintained when a myriad of prosaic and mundane details demanded attention in the course of each day? When these very mundane activities them­selves became the vehicle for devekut, that problem disappeared. The physical or social involvements were exalted and the devekut was con­tinued, albeit in a new form. Whether eating and drinking, plying one’s trade or dealing in business, one must intend to release the ''sparks” that vitalize all that exists and reveal the immanence of the Creator in His creation.