By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
Are you the type that is happy?
Or the type that is grumbly.
Or perhaps the answer to that question depends on your circumstances?
Some people think that if X, Y and Z will happen, THEN they will be happy.
‘If I only had enough money, I would be happy’ says one who has a meaningful career, but it doesn’t pay enough, and he is struggling with covering the expenses of his family.
Another fellow, who is comfortable and maybe even wealthy but doesn’t have a steady job, says ‘how can I be happy if I don’t have a career?’.
Hmm. Happiness is clearly not only hinged on outside circumstance.
Being unhappy even when things are quite good, is not something new.
The Jews got Manna from Heaven in the desert, yet they found what to complain about. The Torah lists the complaints about this miraculous G-dly nutrition from Heaven.
I suspect that many of us are not totally innocent of this kind of discontent. We learn, after our initial needs are met, how to be dissatisfied with things that are not perfect in our estimation. Even if they may be extravagances compared to essentials.
What do our sages mean when they instructed us ‘when the month of Adar enters, we should increase in our joyousness’?
Who were the Sages talking to? Someone who has a perfect life?
I mean, if I win the jackpot in this month, certainly I will be happy.
If another lockdown occurs, I will likely be quite unhappy (as we hold our breath to see what the local rules will allow us to do in celebration of Purim please G-d).
Interestingly, the follow up to this statement about increasing in joy is: ‘therefore (because the month of Adar has a ‘healthy’ and positive ‘energy’) if someone has a court case with a difficult, dishonest litigant, he should try to have it judged during the month of Adar’.
If you have ever been involved in a court case, you will know that it is hardly something joyous. Court proceedings of any kind are anxiety provoking. One could definitely be excused for being morose and downcast knowing that they will have to fight vigorously to get their money back from the dishonest litigant. That should entitle you to a bout of unhappiness.
Yet, it appears that our Sages were talking to that harried and stressed-out person as well.
Increase in your joy!
Even if you have a court date pending which may cause low-spirits.
Not on this month. This month you must be joyous!
For it was in this month of Adar that we, the Jewish people were saved from the would-be holocaust that Haman plotted against our entire nation in Persia. Haman’s plan was to kill us ALL on ONE day. This sinister plot covered the entire region. The plan, if it would have come to be, was to exterminate every single Jew, of any gender or age, in one fell swoop, on one day.
We were saved from that diabolical and heinous plan.
Imagine if you could go back in a time capsule and change the history of the late 1930’s thus averting the Holocaust? Now that we know of the horrors that did take place, we cannot even imagine the joy if it would have been cancelled.
The joy would be indescribably euphoric.
It is this joy that spreads over the entire month.
Purim was that kind of epic salvation.
Now, granted, there may be other things that still cause us anxiety here and there. We may still be struggling with money issues, or even worse with health issues, or yet worse, with the loss of loved ones.
Yet, the joy that wells up in our heart when remembering out great salvation, from total decimation, brings us joy and jubilance. On Purim. And during this entire month.
By the way, even back there in Persia, the Purim miracle didn’t mean the end of all their troubles. They still remained in their exile without self-governance. I am sure they still had plenty of ‘headaches’ in their lives. But they rejoiced with abandon and so do we, till today, because of the great miracle and salvation that took place.
The point being, we should upgrade our rejoicing for the good things, even when not everything is perfect.
Another daily example of this.
Every time we eat bread, we say the ‘Birkat Hamazon’ (Grace after Meals). It is comprised of four individual blessings/sections.
The first of the four blessings was composed by Moshe in thanks for the satiation provided by the Manna in the desert.
(The second is for the gift of our connection to G-d through the covenant and the Torah. The third is a blessing for the success and rebuilding of the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem).
The fourth blessing was composed after the Roman conquest of Israel. It was a prayer of thanksgiving for the Romans finally allowing the myriads of Jewish corpses to be brought to burial more than a decade after they were brutally murdered.
Yes, even in the aftermath of such a horrible tragedy, when there are rays of kindness and light, we ought to give thanksgiving for them.
One can complain even in Paradise. On can find things to be positive about even in the throes of the Roman exile.
Quite a sobering thought?
In the month of Adar I didn’t come to make you sober 😊
On the contrary, I am pointing out that the GIFT and OPPORTUNITY given to us by our Jewish heritage. Let me not call it the obligation to be joyous.
Let me refer to it as the opportunity and permission we have been given to be joyous during this month. This month we have the ‘entitlement’ to be happy even when things are not perfect.
And they are far from perfect…. Unfortunately…
A case in point.
I chose to use the picture of a funeral this week as my weekly picture. I didn’t get confused about the date. Even on this joyous day of the head of the month of Adar, the JOYOUS month this is the picture I chose.
I call it ‘The Hummus Funeral’.
Did you ever know that Hummus could be powerful and holy?
It is now the two-year anniversary since we opened the JCafe and Kosher Shoppe.
A while back, a bris was celebrated to a boy born of a Jewish mother whose only outward sign of connection to her heritage was a weekly visit to JCafe to eat Hummus. Thanks to the friends made at the JCafe, when her son was born, he had a bris and entered the covenant with G-d like all other Jewish males, since Abraham our Patriarch.
Two weeks ago Otto didn’t show up for his Wednesday Hummus at JCafe.
One week passed, and then Otto didn’t show up again on the following Wednesday.
This caused an alarm to ring in Yossi Goldberg’s mind and he called him. The phone rang for a long time unanswered. When his telephone was finally answered, it was by his caretaker who said that Otto has passed away ten days before. He was lying unclaimed in the morgue of the hospital after suffering a heart attack.
Our dedicated team of ‘Chevra Kadisha’ swung into action.
Thank G-d, last Sundasy we were able to bring Otto, (Oded) to a proper Jewish burial.
Oded was born in Czechoslovakia a few years after the Holocaust. His father had fought the Nazis as a partisan in Slovakia. His mother had jumped off the train to Auschwitz. After the war Otto (Oded) was born. He had lived in Israel and then in Switzerland and finally in Thailand.
In some ironic twist, it was his weekly Hummus ritual that he enjoyed in the ambiance and Jewish atmosphere of the JCafe that brought him to his final Jewish rest.
It’s sad when someone passes away. He was only 72.
Yet, even when someone passes, which is generally sad, there are rays of light.
For a Jew, the greatest final statement that can be made, is that G-d created the world and all that is in it. This is the statement made loud and clear when a Jew gets buried. It’s a pronouncement that G-d gave me my body to use for 120 years, and now, after benefiting from this gift, I return it to G-d in the way He requested. By laying it gently into the earth as instructed in the Torah.
Let me get to the action.
Increasing in joy is the ‘order of the day’ for every Jew on this day.
I hope that you have every single reason in the world to be happy.
Health. Steady income. Meaningfulness. Nachas from children and loved ones. And peace of mind and heart.
That is the best way to be happy. when you have many happy things to be happy about.
If, however you have a whole list of things that are making you unhappy. You will have a more challenging time.
But don’t give up. Take up the challenge.
Our Sages say that this is the month we increase in joy.
This means that we have the power to increase in joy as when G-d gives us an instruction he also gives us the ability to fulfill it.
Even if G-d forbid things are far from perfect, try your hardest and best and ‘pop up the volume’ of JOY and SIMCHA!!!!
Chodesh Tov,
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor
PS when your grumpy acquaintance takes you to task for being too cheery, tell them that you have a 'permission slip' from the Torah that 'entitles' you to be HAPPY. Hey, happiness is contagious, this is where contagion can be used in a positive way!!!! so by you being happy, the others around you will have not much choice... they too will be happy.....