There is also a desire amongst people to take pleasure trips. In the summer months many people go out and spend time enjoying themselves in gardens underneath beautiful trees, or on the banks of rivers and canals, and they indulge themselves in excesses of eating, drinking and making merry with empty enjoyment. There are even people who are obsessed with the enjoyments and worthless things of this world, and they go to enjoy themselves even before praying in the morning. They thereby disregard and do not fulfil the laws of praying with a quorum in the synagogue, and are drawn after the desires to eat and drink excessively, to the extent that the night follows the day in the same occupation, and all is emptiness and wreckage of spirit.

There are occasions where one is allowed and even encouraged to go out for pleasure, for example if one is clinically depressed or just sad and therefore unable to think. In such cases he may very occasionally go out for pleasure to a place which makes a person relaxed and happy so that he will forget his sadness, and by so doing he will then be able to study the Torah, and thereby be able to understand and fathom the Torah and serve his Creator with the complete form of service since he will now be healthy. All of this, however, is only true on condition that one does it totally for the sake of heaven. In this case perhaps Hashem will consider it to be fulfilling a commandment, in the case that there is no possibility of transgression, and no deficiency in any of the commandments. The man who has completed himself and cleaves to Hashem with great love, however, will be disgusted by all of the above. Indeed, he will find no greater pleasure and enjoyment than sitting in the Beis Hamidrash (place of study of the Torah), as Chazal say that the Beis Hamidrash is an “orchard” (ideal place for relaxation) for the righteous and like a prison for the wicked. A person, however, who is not so attached to Hashem, will occasionally need to give in slightly to his desires, but even when doing so, he should ensure that it should be with the intention of honoring his Creator. The intention behind is something which is hidden in the heart and Hashem will check this and all other similar things, for he knows the hidden things of the heart.