It is the beginning of the new month of Adar. This is certainly one of the best months of the year for the Jewish people: a month of good “mazal”. A month of joy. In fact, the Torah tells us that when Adar enters, we must increase in joy. But how do we do that? Joy is an emotion: it is very hard to turn joy on and off at will. And to increase every night in joy? How do we do that realistically?
Well, true joy comes simply from the knowledge of being a Jew with the great honor of serving G-d and hosting the Almighty every day by making a dwelling place for Him in this physical world. When we keep in mind that this world is created by G-d Himself, we will realize that we are in control of nothing in life and everything is from G-d. Therefore, we can adjust our way of thinking and remember that we need to be grateful for every blessing we have. If we feel we are lacking something in life, that obviously diminishes our joy. But if we start to recognize each and every blessing, and concentrate on that rather than on what we feel we are lacking, that will generate feelings of gratitude. Gratitude and joy are closely connected.
So if we need to increase in joy every day of Adar, we need to think of another blessing each day. We can make a general accounting of all our blessings, but then we need to think of extra blessings we have: to see how every little thing we have is actually a blessing. And we need to pay attention to details. That will help us to feel joyful. Every day we must increase our recognition of our blessings and the good bestowed upon us, and through that we can increase in joy.
Of course, what really helps us is to also do something physical to feel that joy: in Adar that amounts to dancing. Every night we should dance. Just put music and dance. By dancing and expressing simcha (happiness or joy) we will actually start to feel happy. Even if a person is feeling down, when we put music and get up to dance, the sadness, depression or anxiety will disappear. We dance it away.
And that is the secret to the month of Adar: to increase in joy , which then will banish darkness and harsh decrees and change everything to happiness. In Adar, everything changes constantly. It is like a monkey who constantly turns somersaults. In Adar our mazal constantly changes around. We are capable, through increasing in joy,to completely change our mazal to the better and get rid of problems, enemies and negativity in our lives. And this is why Adar is the happiest month for the Jewish nation: the month when Hashem changed everything around and turned sadness to joy, darkness to light, and destroyed our enemies . It is the month when Hashem destroyed the evil plans of Haman harasha, the wicked Haman, and nullified the decree to destroy the Jewish people. It is the month when we can prevail over our enemies: internal and external. So start dancing! Start thinking about all the blessings you have and every day add in joy by adding in your gratitude for all the good G-d bestows upon you each day, whether or not you deserve it.