Mintz: An extra month for joy
Valley Voices
Joy is the natural state of a child. For adults, it’s not as easy.
Helen Keller said “Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” Yet, when struggling with internal dark demons and external obstacles galore, we often find it hard to experience that inner joy and to remain joyous through thick and thin.
In Jewish tradition we are instructed “When the month of Adar enters, we increase in joy.” Adar is the month in which we celebrate Purim, the holiday that commemorates Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai rallying the Jewish people in prayer and intervening with King Ahasuerus to annul the decree of the evil Haman. We celebrate our survival amid rampant antisemitism, and we are obliged by Jewish law to permeate the entire month with Purim happiness and exhilaration.
This year we have a bonus opportunity for “Simcha,” the Hebrew term for joy. While the Jewish calendar normally consists of 12 months, every couple of years, or to be exact seven of every 19-year cycle, we change it up and add an extra Adar month, making it a 13-month year.
Why this odd type of leap year? It’s actually quite simple. Since the Jewish year is comprised of 12 lunar months, averaging only 354 days, and Jewish holidays are associated with seasons of the year, like Passover, which is always meant to be in the spring, we add a month every now and then, ensuring that the lunar and solar calendars are in sync and the holidays are celebrated in their correct time.
Support Local Journalism
This year, 5782, is a leap year and we get two months of Adar, which means we have 60 days infused with joy, double the normal 30.
Interestingly, there are no instructions on how to imbue our day-to-day with Adar joy. My mentor the Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory taught me that the Adar joy is purposefully vague, leaving the door open for us to bring joy to every facet of our lives.
So, let’s allow the joy to take over, bringing extra joy to our marriages, excitement to our parent-child relationships, more smiles to our workplace, bonus zest to our place of worship. Let’s let joy take over.
It doesn’t mean that our problems disappear or that everything feels peachy, it just means that we are allowing all our obstacles to be submerged in our joy and the joy changes our reality for the better.
It’s Adar now, so gift yourself with Simcha, and allow the happiness to break all your boundaries.
Rabbi Dovid Mintz directs Vail Chabad Jewish Center. He and his family live in Vail since 2006. He can be reached at info@JewishVail.com.
