“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.” (Debarim 25:17-18)
By way of simcha, happiness, we’ll survive all our transgressions! By being happy, we’ll merit to have every type of healing! By way of simcha, we’ll merit to have every miracle. By way of simcha, we can wipe out Amalek. We can erase all the sins! By being happy, we can escape from all the transgressions in the world.
We need to take great care about being happy, always. Because the moment that there is even just a drop of sadness, maybe on account of a sin that we’ve done, or because we have money worries, so a person is made in such a way that he’ll then fall into an even bigger sin.
Sadness only makes the suffering worse
There are people whose greatest pleasure lies in being sad – they are wallowing in sadness all their lives. If you try to cheer them up even a little bit, you simply irritate them. They never tasted a drop of simcha, happiness, their whole long lives.
“And the rule is, that we need to make every effort, and use all our strength, to be only happy always, because the nature of man is to be drawn to bitter depression and sadness, on account of the diˀculties and circumstances of the time; and every person is full of suffering. So, we need to force ourselves, with tremendous strength, to be happy, always.” (Likutey Moharan 2:24)
We need to fight to stay happy
Rav Natan of Breslov says that in order to fight against yeoush, despair, you need mesirut nefesh. Happiness doesn’t just appear by itself. Being happy is the hardest thing of all! The biggest obstacles of all surround simcha, happiness. Everything that the Satan is fighting about, it’s just to prevent people from being happy!
This is what he’s fighting about. The whole battle is just to stop you from being happy. This is the work of the Satan, that you shouldn’t be happy, that you shouldn’t dance, that you shouldn’t rejoice.
Each and every one of us experiences insults and humiliations, each of us goes through ‘adventures’ with our body and souls. There are a million reasons why you could be unhappy. The nature of a person is to be depressed and sad. But happiness can rearrange everything.
There is no reason to be depressed
So, there is no reason to be depressed. Everyone has a sharp intellect, everyone can attain all the things that exist in the world – if only they will leave their sadness and depression behind. With simcha, you can merit to turn your ‘downs’ into ‘ups’, and to sweeten all the harsh judgments, and turn them into salvations.
Rav Natan says that the main thrust of Haman the Amalekite’s accusations and challenges was to do with happiness. He couldn’t stand when Am Yisrael was happy, when they were dancing, full of joy, and singing on their festivals and shabbats, etc.
Happiness can cure every sickness
You need a lot of mesirut nefesh to stay happy. But by way of simcha, a person can subdue all the klipot (side of evil), and can become purified from all the tumah (spiritual impurity).
A person sees that he’s stumbling, that his body is getting the better of him, that Amalek is beating him, and wants to flip him into sadness, and bitter, black depression – but even so, it’s still forbidden for him to lose his concentration!
A person needs to know that his neshama (soul) isn’t at all connected to transgressions. The neshama is always a tzaddik (a holy person), it’s always pure, it’s always holy. Whenever a person falls into sins, it’s only because he isn’t happy enough. So, it’s forbidden to lose your concentration, don’t let anything pull you down, no sin, no problem, not even if you stumbled into some transgression.
JUST MAKE TESHUVA, AND START TO BE HAPPY AGAIN!
