 | Nobody needs me to confirm that vast swaths of our world burn like a raging dumpster fire. Judaism is about reality-based reality. We do not pretend away trouble or turn a blind eye. We certainly do not fiddle while Rome burns. Yet even so – precisely so – the Jewish calendar encodes a radical and wise spiritual practice starting now, linked to this week's Torah portion, that at first blush can seem oddly un-real and ill-fitting when the world is a dumpster fire. The practice is one of Judaism's sometimes overlooked superpowers: elevating joy amidst all. |
"I fervently believe that our emotions, when well educated,
are wiser than each individual’s naked stock of reason."
– David Brooks (N.Y. Times, Feb. 13, 2026)
I look at our world and see countless reasons not to be happy – never mind joyful.
How can we see what's happening and not feel it totally? Conversely, how can we live in a dumpster-fire world and not sometimes go a bit numb? We all experience these dynamics. After all, if we let ourselves fully feel it all, then how could we manage? And if we are to manage, then how can we let ourselves feel it all?
So how can there be joy – not staid contentedness, not merely a pleasant pastime, but big unrestrained all-thrusters "bust up the gloomies" shake-the-rafters joy?
A few days ago, a newly married person asked my colleague how they could let themselves fully feel the joy when newsfeeds overflow with outrage and hate spills into the streets. They experienced the ritual of breaking a glass under the chuppah (one reason is to symbolically temper joy in a broken and exilic world), but it wasn't enough. Amidst so much societal hurt, how could they let themselves feel joy at all?
Joy is a powerful protector against going numb. Joy therefore can be a radical resistance that powers our capacity for everything else. The optimistic and outflowingly cohesive nature of joy is what makes sustained social justice commitments possible.
That's why Jewish life cultivated its sometimes overlooked superpower: our capacity, even our duty – to elevate joy. Think Fiddler on the Roof's Tevye singing L'Chayim! –
God would like us to be joyful
Even though our hearts lie panting on the floor.
How much more can we be joyful
When there's really something to be joyful for!
Yes, we are commanded to joy, not just when we feel like it. We are commanded to turn up the joy dial at lifecycle celebrations, Shabbat, holidays, and right now as we enter the Jewish month of Adar heading toward Purim and then Passover. מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה / "From when we enter Adar, we must increase joy" (B.T. Ta'anit 29a).
Can joy be mandated? Yes, it can. So can love: as our V'ahavta puts it (Deut. 6:5), "You shall love YHVH your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all you have." So too generous hearts, as in this week's Torah portion when our ancestors were commanded to give gifts to build the Mishkan (Ex. 25:2). Commanded generosity? Absolutely.
It's not our individualistic Western way, but emotion can be commanded authentically no less than action. Sometimes we learn by doing, which trains the mind and trains the heart.
True spirituality is not merely to validate or reinforce whatever we think, feel or believe when left to our own inertia, but to train hearts and minds to heal ourselves and repair our world. That's why David Brooks, in his final New York Times interview last week, urged that we must well-educate our emotions to become "wiser than each individual's naked stock of reason."
Therefore, yes, Torah commands our emotions precisely to redirect our inertia and keep us from getting stuck, to keep us limber, to keep us inwardly alive. And that means deliberately turning up the joy dial at particular times, especially if we feel like we can't or shouldn't. Now – exactly now – is one of those times.
And behind it all? From this week's Torah portion, God's explicit purpose (Ex. 25:8):
How can we see what's happening and not feel it totally? Conversely, how can we live in a dumpster-fire world and not sometimes go a bit numb? We all experience these dynamics. After all, if we let ourselves fully feel it all, then how could we manage? And if we are to manage, then how can we let ourselves feel it all?
So how can there be joy – not staid contentedness, not merely a pleasant pastime, but big unrestrained all-thrusters "bust up the gloomies" shake-the-rafters joy?
A few days ago, a newly married person asked my colleague how they could let themselves fully feel the joy when newsfeeds overflow with outrage and hate spills into the streets. They experienced the ritual of breaking a glass under the chuppah (one reason is to symbolically temper joy in a broken and exilic world), but it wasn't enough. Amidst so much societal hurt, how could they let themselves feel joy at all?
Joy is a powerful protector against going numb. Joy therefore can be a radical resistance that powers our capacity for everything else. The optimistic and outflowingly cohesive nature of joy is what makes sustained social justice commitments possible.
That's why Jewish life cultivated its sometimes overlooked superpower: our capacity, even our duty – to elevate joy. Think Fiddler on the Roof's Tevye singing L'Chayim! –
God would like us to be joyful
Even though our hearts lie panting on the floor.
How much more can we be joyful
When there's really something to be joyful for!
Yes, we are commanded to joy, not just when we feel like it. We are commanded to turn up the joy dial at lifecycle celebrations, Shabbat, holidays, and right now as we enter the Jewish month of Adar heading toward Purim and then Passover. מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה / "From when we enter Adar, we must increase joy" (B.T. Ta'anit 29a).
Can joy be mandated? Yes, it can. So can love: as our V'ahavta puts it (Deut. 6:5), "You shall love YHVH your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all you have." So too generous hearts, as in this week's Torah portion when our ancestors were commanded to give gifts to build the Mishkan (Ex. 25:2). Commanded generosity? Absolutely.
It's not our individualistic Western way, but emotion can be commanded authentically no less than action. Sometimes we learn by doing, which trains the mind and trains the heart.
True spirituality is not merely to validate or reinforce whatever we think, feel or believe when left to our own inertia, but to train hearts and minds to heal ourselves and repair our world. That's why David Brooks, in his final New York Times interview last week, urged that we must well-educate our emotions to become "wiser than each individual's naked stock of reason."
Therefore, yes, Torah commands our emotions precisely to redirect our inertia and keep us from getting stuck, to keep us limber, to keep us inwardly alive. And that means deliberately turning up the joy dial at particular times, especially if we feel like we can't or shouldn't. Now – exactly now – is one of those times.
And behind it all? From this week's Torah portion, God's explicit purpose (Ex. 25:8):
| וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם׃ | Make Me a Sanctuary and I will dwell among them. |
Make Me a Sanctuary – make God a community core by our own hands, our own hearts, our own mandatorily generous gifts, our commanded love, our joy and all the rest – and by those means make space for God to dwell among us. Not "among it" – not the Sanctuary. God's whole purpose is to dwell among us.
So what's our purpose? Precisely to make that space by raising up the power of our lives so we can share that power where it's needed. The joy we're talking about isn't narcissistic, or pablum, blind to the world. It's precisely for the world, to harness and invest in the world. We turn up our joy dial as if to generate electricity. After all, a beleaguered people left to its own inertia cannot stand up, cannot fight back, cannot go free, cannot fully show up for others or even itself, cannot grow, cannot heal and ultimately cannot fully be with the One we call God.
It takes power. Love is one of those powers. So is joy.
That's why it's time to turn up the joy. Purim is coming, and then Passover. We're on the runway to spring. The world needs all we can be. It's time.
So what's our purpose? Precisely to make that space by raising up the power of our lives so we can share that power where it's needed. The joy we're talking about isn't narcissistic, or pablum, blind to the world. It's precisely for the world, to harness and invest in the world. We turn up our joy dial as if to generate electricity. After all, a beleaguered people left to its own inertia cannot stand up, cannot fight back, cannot go free, cannot fully show up for others or even itself, cannot grow, cannot heal and ultimately cannot fully be with the One we call God.
It takes power. Love is one of those powers. So is joy.
That's why it's time to turn up the joy. Purim is coming, and then Passover. We're on the runway to spring. The world needs all we can be. It's time.
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