When recently have you experienced pure joy?  I had to ask myself this very question as I watched a recent episode of Oprah Winfrey’s new Lifeclass. Leave it to Oprah to get me thinking.

In this Lifeclass she showed several episodes of the Oprah Show when people experienced “joy rising,” including one I wrote about before. (This one always makes me feel great!)

I watched her show and laughed and cried. And I admitted to myself that I have had little joy in my life over the last four or five years.

Oh, I’ve received joy from watching my children grow and excel and mature. I’ve had some joy from my work. But I haven’t had the type of “joy rising” experienced by those on Oprah’s shows…or by Oprah herself in some of the situations she aired.

How many of us do experience that type of joy? What can we do to allow it in, to make it happen?  I think that’s really the question.

The answer I think comes in giving and receiving. That’s what I saw Oprah doing—giving in so many, many ways. And that created joy rising inside her—and inside the people around her. They received her gifts. They had to be willing to receive.

I read a book an participated in its challenge earlier this year. It’s called 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life. It’s an amazing way to change your energy and to focus on giving. My book, The Kabbalah of Conscious Creation, also talks about the need to give and to receive.

However, I think there’s even one more step: to feel grateful for even the smallest things.

Tonight I was grateful to laugh and to cry and to vicariously feel joy because of the joy rising I saw in other people.

Life’s too short not to enjoy at least some of it. I know we should enjoy every moment…but we can start small if we aren’t finding enjoyment now. We can enjoy the sunset, the cat purring, the smile on a child’s face, a hand holding our own, the fact that someone loves us, the tweet or email saying our work is appreciated, the yummy ice cream we treated ourselves to after dinner. Or we can enjoy giving something…anything to someone we know that brings a smile to their face.

When and how do you experience joy…and can you experience more of it? I’m surely going to try.

This morning I happened to take the time to click on Jeff Herring’s SUNDAY MORNING INSPIRATION: It’s the journey, not the destination. I was so pleased to watch this great clip from the movie “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior,” which is also one of my favorite books by Dan Millman.

I found this a great reminder not only that life–and all we do–is about the journey, not about the destination, but also that when we are trying to get somewhere…trying and trying…things are happening along the way that are worthwhile–worth noticing and enjoying.

It’s not just the goal, or the place we are striving to arrive at, that is the only thing that matters or that is worth enjoying. We tend to forget that in the course of our striving. We tend to forget to be happy and grateful along the path to where we are going–to enjoy the scenery and experiences along the way.

Sometimes we forget to enjoy arriving as well. Once we arrive at our destination–we achieve our goal, there’s always another destination, a new journey to begin. We tend to focus on that and simply start a new journey.

Life is a never ending journey with one destination after another. So we better start enjoying the trip.

I know I forget this daily. I am so focused on what I must do to get where I’m going that I don’t enjoy the tasks at hand nor their results. I also don’t “stop to smell the roses,” to do what I enjoy, to spend enough time with the people I love, to…well…live fully or enjoy life. I don’t enjoy the journey.

I noticed this yesterday while outside pulling weeds on my very large hillside. I could have sat down for a few minutes and enjoyed the beauty of the day–the sun on my face, the bees buzzing, the flowers blooming, the birds flying by, my cat hunting on the hillside. I didn’t. I just pulled with blinders on until I was about to stop. Then I got mired down pulling a huge patch of thistle that I didn’t want to go to seed before I could get back out onto the hill again. And in the midst of pulling I discovered wild iris blooming in the shadow of thistle and grass and blackberry plants. I was happy to discover them there, but I didn’t take the time to really admire the plants, rather I was frustrated by the fact that they were buried in such a huge amount of unwanted plants and couldn’t go in until I’d pulled the weeds. And I didn’t stop to admire what I’d created after I cleared away all the tall grass, wild blackberry and thistle. I could have taken a moment to simply enjoy the splendor of what nature had planted there on my hillside–beautiful blooming iris. Instead I just went inside, tired and somewhat dissatisfied that I had finished a good deal of weeding for one day but not the whole job.

That’s not the way to go through life. It’s not a way to approach work, relationships, parenting, or any aspect of what we do day to day. Instead, let’s remember that life is, indeed, a journey and not a destination. Let’s not stop being happy when we arrive or when we discover that what we find when we arrive isn’t exactly what we expected.

My husband and I moved to California with a great deal of excitement. We found a high cost of living that caused us to go into debt, created strain on our marriage, made our children feel they were “poor” in comparison to their friends, and generally made us feel unhappy with our decision. Plus, my husband’s job did not work out. We didn’t find what we expected, and we’ve let this whole experience become a negative one. We’ve let it “make” us unhappy. Getting to California and beginning our life here was fun and exciting–like hiking up the path in the video clip above–but arriving hasn’t been. We could change that with the change of a thought or an attitude adjustment.

How do you know that the new job you desire, the book contract you want, the relationship you crave will give you the happiness you seek? How do you know you won’t arrive at your destination only to find it isn’t what you expected and you aren’t happy?

So, you better be happy while you work towards these goals. I better learn to feel happy on my journey as well.

Remember, all aspects of life are about the journey, not the destination. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy arriving at the destination, too, but, by all means, enjoy the journey.

By the way, don’t forget Socrates’ the three rules of life:

Paradox: “Life is a mystery. Don’t waste time trying to figure it out.”

Humor: “Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure.”

Change: “Know that nothing stays the same.”

And Number four:

The Journey: “The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination.”

Torah Bright competing at the Winter Games in Vancouver.

Like many people around the world, I’ve been watching the Winter Olympics. I’ve been struck by the skaters in particular, who have had a number of falls.

It’s easy to sit back in my living room chair and criticize them for making mistakes and “blowing their big opportunity,” but I know how hard it is to compete at that level and to push through the nerves and jitters. I also empathize with them, feeling their emotional, as well as physical pain, as they hit the ice. Oh, what disappointment they must feel knowing that they haven’t performed up to their highest potential and that their moment in the spotlight has been darkened by their fall.

I wonder, thought, what makes them fall? What makes them perform so well at their home rink or at another competition? Is it just nerves? Is it that they are at the Olympics and that fact freaks them out? Or is it just that sometimes they manage to get in the zone and sometimes they don’t?

I wonder if it isn’t more likely that they weren’t having fun. I wonder if their performance that night became more about winning than about enjoying the actual performance and doing what they love–and doing it well.

Torah Bright, who had a bad fall while competing in the snowboarding competition during her first run in Vancouver at the Winter Olympics, came back to win gold. Why? She said she saw some fellow Australians watching the event and having fun. She decided to have fun, too. She went on to have a winning run.

I believe that if you can remember to perform with joy, or to do whatever you are doing from a place of joy, your nervousness will dissipate. You’ll forget that you are afraid. You can move through your fear and truly do your best. You’ll forget that big jump is coming up next, and you’ll just do the jump because you love doing the jump. And it will be perfect.

What about the rest of us? How often do we “fall” when we are focused more on winning than on simply doing our best and enjoying what we are doing? How often do we succeed when we take on the latter attitude? how often when we lose ourself in the enjoyment of doing whatever it is that we strive to do well do we find that we’ve had a “winning run” or a “star performance”? And if we have done our best and we’ve enjoyed our selves in the process, does the fall really matter so much? Probably not.

I’ve seen more skaters go away with a medal–and a gold medal at that–when they skated with sheer joy on their faces. That’s the lesson I’d take away from the 2010 Winter Olympics…at least from watching the skating and snowboarding events thus far. To truly win, do whatever you do with joy.

In my last post I talked about the Sukkot rituals of both building a sukkah and shaking the lulav, and then I promised I’d explain how and why anyone-Jew and non-Jew alike-might want to consider taking on these Sukkot rituals. Today, I’d like to make good on that promise.

You don’t have to be Jewish to purchase a lulav or to build a sukkah. You can order a lulav and etrog on line, and many synagogues take orders from members and non-members. When the pair arrive, the package usually includes instructions for performing the ritual; the words for the blessing are in the material in both English and Hebrew and transliteration. Additionally, you can find the instructions for performing the ritual on the Internet as well. (Plus, I’ve written articles about this, too.) If you want to build a sukkah, you can find exact dimensions and directions on line. (I also once wrote an article about this.) You can also purchase pre-packaged sukkah kits on the Internet.

First, why would anyone who wasn’t Jewish want to participate in the ritual of shaking the lulav? Because the time leading up to this ritual and the ritual itself offer value for anyone. That, however, means that you might also want to do a bit of preparation prior to shaking a lulav.

Let’s back track a moment to the period that comes prior to Sukkot: The High Holy Days. Anyone can take the time for introspection and repentance, which is done during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Repentance), thus cleansing his or her soul and doing t’shuvah-turning away from sin, turning back to God, turning towards his or her best self. This is the stuff Jews do before Sukkot. If you then took a lulav and etrog, or any plants or items that symbolized the primary parts of the body that connect you with Spirit, and put them together or put them on an altar and said a blessing of your own construction or said a prayer while bowing in the six directions or somehow acknowledging that God is everywhere all around us, you would have accomplished the same basic ritual…without the Jewish trappings. And this could be very powerful. (See my last post if you don’t understand why I suggest doing the ritual in this manner.)

Second, why would someone who wasn’t Jewish want to build a sukkah? Why would anyone want to sit, eat or sleep in a sukkah if they weren’t Jewish? Right now, much of the world is still struggling with economic issues that have left people jobless and even homeless. Here in the United States, although some say we are seeing some indication that things are taking a turn for the better, many people are still foreclosing on their homes and are losing jobs. By its very nature, a sukkah is a temporary structure. As such, it reminds us of the impermanence of life….and all aspects of life. It reminds us that we have to be okay with letting parts of our life go…jobs, homes, people. Things end. People die. Change is forced upon us. We have to move, travel, be willing to pack up what we have and take it with us, like the Israelites in the dessert for those 40 years. So, spending time in a sukkah gives us a chance to meditate on the impermanent nature of life and to become okay with it. It allows us to be in the moment, in the now, and to enjoy that.

If you are an advocate for the homeless, try building a sukkah and living in it for a week. Contemplate what it would be like to have no permanent home…to be homeless…or to have a box as your home…or this sukkah as your traveling home. Also, use the experience to get to a place of gratitude for what you do have. If you do have a roof over your head on most days and food on your table, be grateful…voice that gratitude. You know, actually tell Spirit or God, I am grateful for my home, the paycheck that allows me to pay the rent or mortgage and buy groceries. In fact, a prayer of gratitude is the most powerful prayer of all. It will manifest more of the same in your life. God hears it and says, “You think that’s good? What till you see what else I can give you!” So, sit in a sukkah and imagine life in a sukkah all the time, and then look around at your normal life and feel grateful for all the wonderful things you have.

Then, go back inside your home and see what you don’t need, what you wouldn’t take with you if you had to travel with your sukkah, for instance, or give up your home. Or maybe just figure out what you have in excess and give it away. Give it to those who need it more than you do.

At this time of year, Jews prepare nice meals-feasts of sorts-in the sukkah. We decorate the sukkah with harvest items like gourds and apples and flowers. We eat the items that represent the local “bounty” from the harvests, the things our local growers provide for us (mostly from the stores). However, during the Jewish New Year, traditionally synagogues hold a food drive as well. So, after sitting in your sukkah, you can go home and find some canned goods to give to the hungry or make a trip to the grocery store or to your garden and give some food to those in need-all the while feeling grateful that you have enough to give.

Think of the sukkah as your tabernacle, the place where you pray to God, connect with spirit, invite the Divine presence into your life. Maybe there,stripped of the protection of your home, you can really become vulnerable and get close to God in a new way. Invite God in. Dine with God. Talk with God. Spend time with God.

Some Jewish sages have argued that the original “huts” used during the time after the Israelites left Egypt were actually Gods Clouds of Glory, which he spread over Israel as protection and Divine grace. Whether or not this is true, those Clouds of Glory described in the Bible or Torah symbolize God’s constant and enveloping presence. Maybe by sitting in a sukkah with your eyes closed and visualizing being surrounded by God’s protection and grace, you can feel that. Maybe by praying for protection in your “tabernacle,” you can summon Spirit to envelop you so you can have a true experience of being surrounded by God. Maybe you need an act of grace right now…ask for it there in the sukkah.

For those people who like the Native American or African traditions of honoring ancestors, the sukkah is a great place to practice these rituals. In fact, in the Jewish tradition, on each night of Sukkot we invite both physical friends to dine with us in the sukkah and the spirits of different biblical personalities as well. This custom, called Ushpizin, is based on the Jewish mystical tradition and allows us to remember and honor our Jewish ancestors, to recall their teachings, and to ask their spirits to be with us and to help and guide us. You can call on your ancestors, invite them into your sukkah and honor them there…or ask them to whisper wisdom into your ears.

I think anyone can find some of these more secular rituals and practices appropriate ways to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot or to put it’s principles to use in their life this month in a really meaning-full and spirit-full way. Sukkot is a lovely holiday worth celebrating.

Additionally, the holiday is a joyous one. It’s a time to remember to feel and express joy and to feel happy to be alive. To read more about this, please see my Examiner.com Sukkot column.

Feeling joyous on Shabbat constitutes a great mitzvah (commandment or good deed) in Judaism. No matter your circumstances, you must be joyous on Shabbat. Plus, according to Rebbe Nachman, it’s impossible to feel a connection to God unless you can experience joy. Indeed, mitzvot, or commandments, are supposed to connect us to the Divine, and, we are told that we should perform them joyously.

If you want to prepare for Shabbat by moving towards joy, begin by smiling…then laughing. If you are having trouble finding something about which to smile or laugh about, read this post I wrote for my San Jose Jewish Examiner column. It will provide the fodder you need.

(Hint: You’ll find some old Jews telling some old…some new…jokes. No joking.)

May you be blessed withShabbat shalom, sabbat peace and connection, and Shabbat simchah, Sabbath joy!

Not everyone knows that Sukkot is known as the “Season of our Joy.” This year, given the unstable economic situation in the United States, as well as around the world, however, I think many people are experiencing it as the season of our fear. However, the fact that this Jewish holiday is characterized by joyous expression actually offers us a way out of our fear and an opportunity to allow in and to create something better than the current volatile economic situation both on a personal, national and global level.

First, let me say that I, too, am finding this a bit of a fear-filled season. My husband has a job, although he is involved in the process of helping sell it. While he stands to gain financially from that sale, his success will land him without a job eventually. No one these days wants to be without a job. And I can tell you that living here in Northern California, the thought of my husband being without a job – for the third time in seven years – sends waves of fear through my body.  We possess a mortgage of a size no one would desire. We also have debt for the first time in our 20 years of marriage. We have two children whose “activities,” which represent their passions and their pre-college training/education (one is a dance and the other an artist and swimmer), are eating our disposable income alive. And then there are the normal and abnormal expenses – utilities, gas (ever rising in price), the new well pump, property taxes, bills for two hospital stays, yearbooks for the kids, doctor visits, a tux and a formal dress for homecoming, insurance, etc. And, my income as a freelance writer and nonfiction book editor is sporadic at best; at the moment I have only one slow-working client and only one prospect.

At this moment, if you asked me where my level of fear about finances lies on a scale of 1-10, I’d have to say at least 8 if not 9.

I have other fears as well. My marriage is having a few problems. That scares me.

My husband has an enlarged heart from stress at work and in general, and he does nothing at all to take care of himself or to reduce his stress level. That scares me.

My blood pressure has risen over the last few years, and I have no time to exercise or meditate or care for myself in a way that would help myself lower my blood pressure or generally become healthier. That scares me.

My son was sick this summer, and his spleen has not gone back to a normal size. That scares me.

I could go on, but I won’t, and here’s why: I firmly believe that focusing on our fears simply causes them to manifest and creates more things to fear. And that’s where Sukkot comes in. Sukkot provides an antidote to our fears and to manifesting not only the things we fear but more things to worry about.

When we feel good – happy or joyous – we stop feeling afraid. We also stop feeling any other negative emotions that go with fear, such as anxiety, depression, sadness, or anger. Instead we simply feel good. And when we feel good, when we feel joyous, we allow in good things.  We shift our energy from being negative and fear based to being positive and joy based, and from this place we can attract things with similar energy – things we want rather than things we fear and don’t want.

We also allow ourselves to focus upon something other than our fears, which allows us to create, or manifest, something other than our fears. It allows us to combine our feelings of joy with our thoughts of the things we desire, which results in us manifesting more of what we want and less of what we don’t.

For those of you who have heard about deliberate creation, or what I call conscious creation, Sukkot represents a chance to practice this principle, also called the Law of Attraction. However, this principle, often though of as secular, exists within Judaism. I teach it as the Kabbalah of Conscious Creation. 

Beyond my own teachings, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught that fear can only be elevated through joy (Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom).  He also taught, “A person walks in life on a very narrow bridge. The most important thing is not to be afraid.” (The Empty Chair, Finding Hope and Joy) A more accurate translation, however is, ”The most important thing is not to makeyourself afraid.” Don’t focus on your fear; don’t allow yourself to dwell on your anxious thoughts and to develop negative feelings to go with them. Rebbe Nachman was known to say that we are where our thoughts are…

The easiest way to not make yourself afraidis to make yourself joyous instead. In the words of another mystic, Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t worry, be happy.” And that’s the message of Sukkot 2008. Go into the sukkah, that flimsy little booth and look up at the stars, “shake, shake, shake, shake your lulav,” (sung to the melody of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake Your Booty”). And, while you are there, as my friend Rabbi Jack Gabriel likes to sing, “Do a little dance, sing a little song…up with joy!”

Rebbe Nachman stresses the importance of this task: “Finding true joy is the hardest of all spiritual tasks. If the only way to make yourself happy is by doing something silly, do it.” Yes, Rabbi Jack says the same thing, “Act a little silly…up with joy! Iv du et HaShem b’simcha!” Serve God with joy. Or as Rabbi Jack says, “Serve your Inner Spirit with Joy.”

Yes, that’s the ticket into the “booth” this Sukkot. Joy. Leave your fear by the entrance (a sukkah has no door), and enter with joy. Leave with your Inner Spirit filled with joy, so you go into the world to create more joy – and less fear. Then Sukkot – and the year to come – truly becomes the Season of Our Joy. And, oh, how we need joy to create a transformation to world-wide joy now.

Last night as I sat in temple and watched a parade of different costume-clad people read and chant in a variety of unique, creative and humorous way from the Megillat Esther, I realized an important reason why on Purim we are supposed to in some way blur the difference between evil Haman and the good Mordechai in the story. My husband had just asked me on the way to the holiday service, why people drink alcohol on Purim, and I had explained that it was for just that reason, but he wanted a deeper explanation. I’d given him one that was too philosophical for both our tastes, but by the end of the service, I had one that related directly to life and to my own belief system.

(If you don’t know the history behind the holiday of Purim, Google it and you’ll find a good synopsis. Basically, Haman wanted to kill the Jews. Mordechai, a Jew, tells Queen Esther, also a Jew, to tell the King, who doesn’t know he married a Jew. She does. The Jews are saved. On Purim, Jews dress up in costumes to remember the “hidden” aspects of this story and they read aloud the historical account.)

Every day we struggle with the evil in our lives. We may see evil as yucky neighbors, debt, a terrible boss, an abusive spouse, ill health, loneliness, war, politicians, bills we can’t pay… Each of us has our own Haman — or Hamans. What happens, however, as the line blurs between evil and good, between Haman and Mordechai? We can no longer tell what is good and what is evil. If we can’t tell, then it could be either good or evil, right? However, what we realize is that it all comes from one Source. As we read in Devarim (4:35), “Ein ode milvado.” Which means, “There is nothing but God.” It’s all God. Haman and Mordechai, good and evil. All God.

We are taught in Kabbalah that nothing is a coincidence. So, it was no coincidence that Esther ended up in that palace as queen at that particular time. It was no coincidence that previously her uncle Mordechai had overheard a plot to kill the king and had told Esther, so the kings life had been saved. It was no coincidence that all these things led up to the events that we now celebrate on Purim — Esther’s saving of the Jewish people.

Kabbalah also teaches us that at this time, goodness is concealed. It’s masked just like the masks we wear on Purim. Everything we go through in our lives, including our experience of what we call evil, leads us to spiritual transformation. Thus, evil shows up in our lives for a reason. Haman knocks at the door not by coincidence but on purpose.

What should we do when we open the door and find him there instead of Mordechai? Laugh. That’s when the transformation occurs. That’s when the line between good and evil begins to blur, and we realize there is no good and no evil. There is only God. And then we can laugh with joy.

I sat in the sanctuary laughing for two hours last night as the megillah was read. I saw friends in hilarious costumes cracking jokes and offering sacrilegious commentaries on the text. I sang funny songs. I heard Hebrew chanting done to melodies from to old peace songs. And we yelled and booed at Haman and cheered for Mordechai and even acknowledged the Esther and Vashti when there names were read. We had fun. We laughed and laughed and laughed. And as we laughed, it became hard for me to see the difference between my personal Hamans and my Mordechais. My worries about money disappeared, and I felt abundant. The tension between my husband and I dissipated for that amount of time, and I enjoyed his presence next to me and his shoulder pressing against mine. The stress I have felt about work left my body and my mind, and I felt peace and joy come over me in its place. The laughter was more healing than any bowl of chicken soup could ever be.

And maybe that’s the important reason why we dress up in costumes and do silly things on Purim. The story of Esther commemorates a time when things looked dire for the Jews, but it turned out just fine. Often our lives look dire in one way or another. When we celebrate Purim with vast amounts of joy and laughter, we realize that things can be fine. In fact, they are more than fine in that moment. In that moment, they are joyous. We are joyous. All the evil is transformed into good, and we get to feel the wondrous healing that brings into our lives.

No wonder so many rabbis and sages have spoken about the importance of Purim. God’s hand in the story may be hidden. It may seem like a story about man’s hand in events, but it’s really both. And by taking hold of our ability to act — to choose to be happy and joyous — we allow ourselves to experience transformation and to connect with the concealed part of what goes on in our own lives — God.

So, give me a bowl of laughter over chicken soup any day of the week.

Two days ago I helped lead a Rosh Chodesh group to welcome in the Jewish month of Adar. Actually, Adar 2. We sometimes get to celebrate the month twice as a way to catch up since our days get a bit off after a while. I don’t feel like explaining how that works right now… My mind is too filled with worry, and I know that now, during Adar, I’m supposed to be happy. In fact, during Adar, happiness is supposed to increase.

But my mind says, “NO! It’s time to be worried and depressed.” Well, I look at my husband, who has been without a job for three months and is worried and depressed, and it’s hard for me to be otherwise. I just paid bills when we have no income, and it’s hard for me to be otherwise. I look at all the work on my desk and realize how little of what I do brings in any money, and it’s hard for me to be otherwise.

“It’s Adar,” I remind myself. “Don’t worry. Be happy.” (And the reggae melody begins to play in my head.) So, how can we be happy when life seems to give us good, solid reason to be worried and depressed, disturbed and sad, distressed and melancholy? I try to remember the wisdom of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslov, my Jewish life coach, my human potential teacher, my spiritual mentor.

He said, “Depression does tremendous damage. Use every ploy you can think of to bring yourself joy.” He even said to be silly if need be, but I’m not a very silly person. I can, however, focus on the good things that happened to me today. Like the fact that I got another great dancer to sign on to my dance book project. And I was told that I am a maggid, something I didn’t know about myself. And that I made contact with someone I want to interview for an article I’d like to write. Focusing on those positive things instead of the negative things in my life make me happy.

Rebbe Nachman also said, “Never despair! Never! It is forbidden to give up hope.” I love this morsel of wisdom. Any why should we never give up hope? Because, he said, we must remember: “Things can go from the very worst to the very best…in just the blink of an eye.” I always keep that in mind — or try to. (I didn’t do such a good job today.) When I do, I know that tomorrow, my husband could get that call that leads to a new job. The next time I check my e-mail, I could find that I’ve been contacted by a new editing client. The phone could ring this minute and I could be told that I’m about to receive an advance on a book. You just never know what goodness God is going to flow your way at any given moment.

“You have free will,” Rebbe Nachman also taught. “You have the power to escape from the painful discussions and worries of your life and to trust in God, to abandon the struggles of this world and focus instead on spiritual study.” It’s easy to understand that we have free will, and I’m a big believer in our ability to choose where we focus our thoughts. We can certainly shift our focus from our worries and pain to something more positive by simply choosing to study spiritual texts or to read books that are spiritually uplifting. This places our focus on God. In so doing, we regain our faith in God. We remember that God’s hand is in everything. Ein ode milvado. (There is nothing but God.) It’s all God — the good and the bad. Gam zu l’tovah. (This too is for the good.) Even what we perceive as bad is also for the good. We may not know why, but we know it is of God. Focusing on God brings us back to center, gives us our equilibrium once again, allows us to find joy and happiness within our faith.

This brings us full circle to another of Rebbe Nachman wonderful quotes. “Always remember,” he said, “Joy is not merely incidental to your spiritual quest. It is vital.” Why? Because when we are sad or depressed, we often lose sight of God. My husband loses sight of God — has lost sight. He has no faith that things will get better at any moment, that God’s hand is in the events of his life. He feels lost and alone, and the more depressed he becomes the less of God he sees. When we are joyful, it’s so much easier to see God, to feel God, to appreciate God.

So, when Adar comes we must take advantage of the energy of the month…and the second month, too. We are given the opportunity for increased joy, and we must take it even when our lives seem to be giving us good reason to feel quite the opposite. It’s hard sometimes; believe, me, I know. But, as the Rebbe would say, “If you don’t feel happy, pretend to be. Even if you are downright depressed, put on a smile. Act happy. Genuine joy will follow.” That’s right. Fake it ’till you make it. I’m sure gonna give it a try.