 | Emotions are complex interactions of reactions and choices. We feel what we feel in response to thoughts and experiences, and we have at least some measure of choice in how we respond, what emotions we choose to elevate. In Jewish life, this time of year calls on us to elevate joy and lean into the frivolity of Purim. Especially during times of difficulty and strife, at first these callings might sound tone deaf or even perverse. But there's deep Jewish wisdom in this call, especially when times are tough. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Happy March, Shir Ami! At last, we're on the runway for spring. The sun is rising higher in the sky, baseball's Spring Training has begun, first flowers are blooming, and next week our clocks will "spring ahead" to Daylight Saving Time.
Which means Purim is coming, and it's time to turn up the joy dial!
Huh? Judaism has a "joy dial" that we can "turn up"? Isn't spiritual life about feeling what we feel when we feel it? Yes, yes, and yes.
Purim and Jewish Touch Points of Emotion
One of Judaism's great wisdoms is its emotional touch points throughout the year, which becomes an organic whole aligning with the wholeness of the human spirit. In an electrical metaphor, each holiday is a capacitor for the emotions and values of that holiday. For most Jews, the most palpable energy points are the High Holy Days and, six months opposite, Passover. With them come common values – family, community, ancestry and meaning – but also different ones for each. The liberation, feasting and outward celebration of Passover aren't the same as the sobriety, fasting and inward reflection of Yom Kippur.
Joy, frivolity, unbridled humor, play, busting out of emotional straitjackets – these too are Jewish values, and we have a holiday that celebrates them. It's Purim, which Shir Ami will celebrate this year exactly on time – on the evening of March 23.
Happy March, Shir Ami! At last, we're on the runway for spring. The sun is rising higher in the sky, baseball's Spring Training has begun, first flowers are blooming, and next week our clocks will "spring ahead" to Daylight Saving Time.
Which means Purim is coming, and it's time to turn up the joy dial!
Huh? Judaism has a "joy dial" that we can "turn up"? Isn't spiritual life about feeling what we feel when we feel it? Yes, yes, and yes.
Purim and Jewish Touch Points of Emotion
One of Judaism's great wisdoms is its emotional touch points throughout the year, which becomes an organic whole aligning with the wholeness of the human spirit. In an electrical metaphor, each holiday is a capacitor for the emotions and values of that holiday. For most Jews, the most palpable energy points are the High Holy Days and, six months opposite, Passover. With them come common values – family, community, ancestry and meaning – but also different ones for each. The liberation, feasting and outward celebration of Passover aren't the same as the sobriety, fasting and inward reflection of Yom Kippur.
Joy, frivolity, unbridled humor, play, busting out of emotional straitjackets – these too are Jewish values, and we have a holiday that celebrates them. It's Purim, which Shir Ami will celebrate this year exactly on time – on the evening of March 23.
Purim may be a "minor" holiday on the Jewish calendar, one that many adults let slide as pediatric and unimportant. But Purim frivolity is serious business, and it's not minor in Jewish spirituality.
On the Jewish calendar, Purim's joy, humor and antics stand opposite Tisha b'Av, the Jewish year's lowest day that marks the destruction of the Second Temple and the breaking of our own inner walls to begin the seven-week updraft to Rosh Hashanah. Purim is the opposite: it celebrates the foiled plot of destruction, and the inversion of misogyny into the heroine Esther's triumph.
And because the Jewish calendar is an organic and flowing whole, Purim's full moon tells us that the next full moon will be Passover – so we'd better get ready for liberation anew.
That's where Purim works its magic. True liberation, we've learned, starts from the inside out. Purim comes precisely amidst the Book of Esther's tumult, political upheaval, antisemitism, misogyny and homophobia – rather timely, huh? – to greet them with empowerment.
And there's nothing more empowering than joy – not a joy blind and deaf to the world, but a joy that can animate and power our response.
After winter and before we can feel our own exodus at Passover, emotionally we all need to limber up. We can't truly feel free until we can fully feel again. That's why it's such a great mitzvah to inhabit Purim's joy, humor, puns, costumes and silliness. It may seem pediatric, but it's for a spiritual cause: to bust us out of winter doldrums and our emotional straitjackets, so we can deeply and fully feel the liberation that's to come.
After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, our ancestors recorded that just as we'd forever let ourselves feel at that time (i.e. the late summer month of Av) the grief that can tear down our own walls in preparation for Rosh Hashanah, so too we must lean into Purim joy when the Purim month of Adar begins (ּB.T. Ta'anit 29a):
On the Jewish calendar, Purim's joy, humor and antics stand opposite Tisha b'Av, the Jewish year's lowest day that marks the destruction of the Second Temple and the breaking of our own inner walls to begin the seven-week updraft to Rosh Hashanah. Purim is the opposite: it celebrates the foiled plot of destruction, and the inversion of misogyny into the heroine Esther's triumph.
And because the Jewish calendar is an organic and flowing whole, Purim's full moon tells us that the next full moon will be Passover – so we'd better get ready for liberation anew.
That's where Purim works its magic. True liberation, we've learned, starts from the inside out. Purim comes precisely amidst the Book of Esther's tumult, political upheaval, antisemitism, misogyny and homophobia – rather timely, huh? – to greet them with empowerment.
And there's nothing more empowering than joy – not a joy blind and deaf to the world, but a joy that can animate and power our response.
After winter and before we can feel our own exodus at Passover, emotionally we all need to limber up. We can't truly feel free until we can fully feel again. That's why it's such a great mitzvah to inhabit Purim's joy, humor, puns, costumes and silliness. It may seem pediatric, but it's for a spiritual cause: to bust us out of winter doldrums and our emotional straitjackets, so we can deeply and fully feel the liberation that's to come.
After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, our ancestors recorded that just as we'd forever let ourselves feel at that time (i.e. the late summer month of Av) the grief that can tear down our own walls in preparation for Rosh Hashanah, so too we must lean into Purim joy when the Purim month of Adar begins (ּB.T. Ta'anit 29a):
| כְּשֵׁם שֶׁמִּשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אָב מְמַעֲטִין בְּשִׂמְחָה כָּךְ מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה | Just as when Av begins one decreases joy, so too when Adar begins one increases joy. |
Put another way, it's time to turn up the joy dial!
Y'mean it's Jewishly right to force ourselves into joy? Yep. The Western liberal idea of feeling what we feel when we feel it, without "right" or "wrong" emotions, is wise and right. We must be emotionally authentic. Yet also wise and right is the ancient Jewish wisdom that there are moments for us to force ourselves to inhabit emotions that maybe feel alien, distant, unlike us or just plain difficult. Sometimes, taught Nahman of Breslov, we force depression to dance. Sometimes, we must mock what we fear.
Purim is one of those times. Frankly, now is one of those times. It's easy to despair of national and global forces shaking so much that we hold dear. The Mideast, Ukraine, hate, climate change, political upheaval – we have plenty of reason to lock down into our own winters of despair. Yet our ancestors learned long ago that an antidote to despair – one of Judaism's superpowers – is a hope borne of abiding joy. That's why our ancestors set Purim as a holiday: "To give you a future and hope" (B.T. Ta'anit 29b, quoting Jeremiah 29:11).
Fiddling On the Roof
So along comes Purim's call to make merry amidst trouble, worry and malaise. It's one of Judaism's great resilience secrets. Purim is like the "Fiddler on the Roof" making joyful music, perched at the edge, keenly aware of the risk of falling yet refusing to shrink in fear or woe. After all, levity lifts the soul: jesters and jokers have a special claim on heaven because they lift the heart (B.T. Ta'anit 22a).
As Tevye and Lazar Wolf sang in "Fiddler," we claim joy for life's sake:
Y'mean it's Jewishly right to force ourselves into joy? Yep. The Western liberal idea of feeling what we feel when we feel it, without "right" or "wrong" emotions, is wise and right. We must be emotionally authentic. Yet also wise and right is the ancient Jewish wisdom that there are moments for us to force ourselves to inhabit emotions that maybe feel alien, distant, unlike us or just plain difficult. Sometimes, taught Nahman of Breslov, we force depression to dance. Sometimes, we must mock what we fear.
Purim is one of those times. Frankly, now is one of those times. It's easy to despair of national and global forces shaking so much that we hold dear. The Mideast, Ukraine, hate, climate change, political upheaval – we have plenty of reason to lock down into our own winters of despair. Yet our ancestors learned long ago that an antidote to despair – one of Judaism's superpowers – is a hope borne of abiding joy. That's why our ancestors set Purim as a holiday: "To give you a future and hope" (B.T. Ta'anit 29b, quoting Jeremiah 29:11).
Fiddling On the Roof
So along comes Purim's call to make merry amidst trouble, worry and malaise. It's one of Judaism's great resilience secrets. Purim is like the "Fiddler on the Roof" making joyful music, perched at the edge, keenly aware of the risk of falling yet refusing to shrink in fear or woe. After all, levity lifts the soul: jesters and jokers have a special claim on heaven because they lift the heart (B.T. Ta'anit 22a).
As Tevye and Lazar Wolf sang in "Fiddler," we claim joy for life's sake:
| To life, to life, l'hayyim! L'hayyim, l'hayyim, to life. Life has a way of confusing us, blessing and bruising us. Drink, l'hayyim, to life! God would like us to be joyful, Even if our hearts lie panting on the floor. How much more can we be joyful If there's really something to be joyful for? To life, to life, l'hayyim! L'hayyim, l'hayyim, to life. May all your futures be pleasant ones, Not like our present ones! Drink, l'hayyim, to life! To us and our good fortune. Be happy! Be healthy! Long life! And if our good fortune never comes, Here's to whatever comes. Drink, l'hayyim, to life! | |
Same with Purim. It's why Purim spiels poke fun. It's why Jewish comics are, well, Jewish comics. Purim isn't about denial, shallowness, permanent hedonism or being pediatric, but about empowering and rousing ourselves to our own resilience. Liberation starts there.
It's spring. The world is a mess, and we turn up the joy dial all the same. Happy Purim!
It's spring. The world is a mess, and we turn up the joy dial all the same. Happy Purim!
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