Don't Worry, Choose Happy
Question
So, Purim is pretty much the Jewish Halloween, right? Wear costumes and eat candy?
Answer
Well, yes, if you generally experience exultant levels of meaningful spiritual growth and connection on Halloween. Something about those skeletons…
In truth, there’s a lot more to Purim than just costumes and candy. Although there is, admittedly, a lot of costumes and candy.
Most of the Jewish holidays include some element of joy as part of the observance of the day. The age-old Jewish holiday wisecrack, “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat” applies to many of them. Or, it’s the joy of atonement or the joy of a fresh start or the joy of receiving the Torah.
But Purim is the quintessential happy day on the Jewish calendar. The whole Jewish month of Adar is one where our joy is supposed to increase.
Yes, I know. You want to know how exactly one is supposed to just increase their joy at the drop of a hat. Well, think about the things that make you happy… Winning the lottery, going on a cruise, closing a huge deal, your son shoots the winning basket in his league game, you get taken out to dinner at an incredible new restaurant, your favorite team has a big win (please, NYG, this year...), you get a clean bill of heath, your boss awards an unexpected bonus… So, simple. You just snap your fingers and make all those things happen. In one day. Right? Right. Exactly. You can’t.
Happiness is elusive when we associate it with things that are out of our reach, or out of our control. When the Torah tells us to increase our joy, that’s based on the premise that we have a choice. So the Torah is teaching us an invaluable, priceless lesson for living: that happiness is within our reach. We don’t have to sit around and wait for someone to hand it to us, don’t have to wait for the random, isolated moments of good fortune.
Reading the story of Purim is a huge part of the day’s festivities. Which is interesting for a Jewish holiday because there’s none of the usual incredible miraculous salvation. It’s more of an intricate web of everyday affairs that end up coming together in the most beneficial way for the Jewish people. But that’s exactly the point -- the greatest joy in the Jewish calendar isn’t surrounding sweeping miraculous events, it’s embedded in the simple, mundane everyday moments that constitute our lives.
It’s definitely easier to feel fortunate in the “big” moments. Huge bonus, big win, special occasions. But those don’t usually happen on a constant basis, and if we depend on them for our happiness then we may have to wait a really long time. The other option is to seek a constant joy, a happiness that we can find in the “little” everyday moments that we might not always notice. Seeing a positive quality in a spouse. Noticing the beauty of the natural world even on a rainy day. Enjoying a moment with a child. Focusing on how amazing a “regular” food can taste. A bodily function that works just right. A paycheck. A friend. Life is full of gifts if we open our eyes. We can wait for the big ones, but then we might spend an entire lifetime missing out on billions of small moments of joy.
But it gets even better. Because there’s a difference between eating your favorite food, even mindfully and gratefully, when you’ve made it yourself versus when someone who loves you made it just for you and delivered it directly to you just to make you happy. Think of something kind that someone did for you to cheer you up when you were having a bad day. That feeling of being enveloped in love and completely understood and cared about.
So yes, we can appreciate all the small moments of our lives, and it can be amazing. But it’s even better when you can see them as personalized gifts from God. Everything comes alive and is saturated with a whole new level of amazingness. This orange! Wow! Someone Up There really loves me. My child! Sunshine! My car works! My eyes work! Someone invented pizza!
You want joy? The Torah says Purim is coming, happiness is yours to grab by the horns. Notice the gifts, feel the love. And you got it.