Tonight is Rosh Chodesh Adar and so, naturally, our subject is הָח¿מƒׂ ̆¿ּב יןƒּב¿רַמ רָ„ֲ‡ סַנ¿כƒּנ∆ּׁ ̆ƒמ. Now, when our Sages (Taanis 29a) told us this halachah that ‘when Adar comes in we’re expected to increase our happiness’ it’s not intended merely as good advice. It’s that too of course, but it’s more than that. It means that there’s an obligation upon us during this month to find ways and means of adding joy to our lives; for thirty days we’re expected to practice up on the habit of happiness.
Not merely for this month alone. Yes, ֹוּ ̇ƒע¿ּב רָבָּ„ בֹטו הַמ, but the idea is to train ourselves in the ways of happiness, to become so habituated to patterns of thought that increase happiness, that we’ll become happy people all year long. And so when, like this year, there are two Adars it’s even better. A habit that we can practice for two months will have much more of an effect.
Good Habits
Now, I use the word ‘habit’ intentionally and I have to explain that. Because you might say, ‘Well, a habit of happiness, after a while it becomes mundane, boring.’ Like a man once said to me: ‘How can you daven with kavanah every day? After a while you get accustomed to the words and you start davening without kavanah. It becomes a bad habit.’
I told him it’s not so. ‘Just the opposite,’ I said. ‘Keep on trying to daven with kavanah every day and after a while it becomes a good habit; you get into the habit of davening with kavanah, of feeling that you’re talking to your Creator.’ It’s true that hergel, habit, can be used chalilah for great harm. If a person gets into the habit of doing good things or saying good things, like in davenen, without thinking what he’s doing, it’s a tragedy. If three times a day he’s mumbling words without thinking so he’s practicing destroying his personality. He’s ruining himself with bad habits. But like all gifts from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the gift of habit can be used for great benefit too. You can get into the habit of enjoying the davenen; every word becomes sweet, every word a treasure.
Happy Habits
And the habit of simcha is the same; if a person practices ignoring all the happiness of this world so he becomes a person of habit – the habit of sadness, of gloominess. You meet people like that. Old grouches. They practiced up all their lives and now they’re habituated belly-achers – nothing is good, everything is bad. There’s nothing to be happy about. But when it’s practiced properly – you have to go to the right places and learn the right ideas – then you develop a habit of happiness; you become habituated in simcha, in finding happiness in things that go unnoticed by others.
That’s what it means to be marbeh besimcha. You can’t just order simcha from the Kedem Wine Factory. Marbim means you have to do something to increase the dose, to develop the habit of looking at the world through rosy glasses. I say rosy glasses – the truth is you don’t need rosy glasses; creation is good without any tints. It’s very good!
And don't think it's just an idea, a ra’ayon that I'm trying to sell you. It's one of the yesodos of the Torah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu expects us to see that the world He gave us is a good world. ̇∆‡ יםƒ ֹ̃ל¡‡ ‡¿רַּיַו „ֹ‡¿מ בֹטו ה≈ּנƒה¿ו הָׂ ָ̆ﬠ ר∆ׁ ֲ̆‡ לָּכ – Hashem saw that it’s a very good world (Bereishis 1:31). Why did He tell us that? Of course it’s good – He made it. The answer is He wants us to know it. We should say it's a very good world. It means we should be happy people. And so you see that all the way from the beginning, that’s one of the primary purposes of creation, to acquire the habit of happiness.
Garden of Pleasure
You know when Adam and Chava were created they didn’t have any habits. They had excellent minds; fresh, innocent, pure minds. They had perfect seichel but they had no habits. All animals have instincts. As soon as they’re born they have built-in habits of what to do, how to react. Human beings however were created without habits, a clean slate, ready to be written on. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu did something that showed that there is a certain habit He wanted them to get right away.
What did He do? He put them in Gan Eden, a Garden of Enjoyment. Eden means the pleasure of this world; all kinds of delicious fruits.
And it’s not an accident; it’s made for that purpose. Don’t you see that when an apple grows on the tree, it doesn’t become worse and worse as it ripens. It becomes better and better. So you see it’s so! The purpose is you should enjoy it! No question about it. Hashem is interested in making this a world of happiness, of enjoyment.
Enjoying the Garden
Now, I know you tzaddikim don't believe in enjoying things but listen to me. Hakadosh Baruch Hu put them in a Gan Eden because He wanted them to learn the habit of enjoying things; He wanted them to get in the habit of saying “Oh, Ribono Shel Olam! How good this is and how good that is!”
Of course once they say that, they'll say ‘Thank You, Hashem.’ When Adam and Chava would take a delicious fruit off a tree in that garden, they’d enjoy it to no end and they’d thank Hashem. Once you enjoy, you’re reminded of the One giving you all of this happiness.
And therefore we see that the plan of Hashem was at the very beginning to train Adam and Chava in being marbeh besimcha by learning the habit of enjoying Olam Hazeh. And it was such an important principle, that He put them into Gan Eden. Otherwise He could have put them in a place that's not Gan Eden; He could have made for them a place with all kinds of interesting things. A Gan Chochma, a Garden of Wisdom, where they could see wonderful things in nature, all types of niflaos haBorei that would show them the chochmas Hashem in the world. No, He didn’t do that. He put them in a Gan Eden, a place of enjoyment, because He wanted them to learn how to be happy in this world.
And now they were ready for the great career of life, the career of enjoying this world. Because the greatest hatzlacha in Olam Hazeh is ‘ ֹ̇ו„ֹה¿ל בֹטו הַל. The best of all things is to learn how to say thank you to Hashem. That's the highest form of avodas Hashem, to serve Him with gratitude.
His Happy Handiwork
What are you grateful for? What are you thanking Him for?
ָך∆ל√ﬠָפ¿ּב 'ה יƒנַּ ̇¿חַּמƒׂ ̆ יƒּכ – You made me happy with Your work (Tehillim 92:5). Dovid said, “I look around at Your world and I say thank You Hashem for such a world. ן≈ּנַרֲ‡ָיך∆„ָי י≈ׂ ֲ̆ﬠַמ¿ּב – I sing at the works of Your Hands (ibid.).
It means all the ‘work of Your Hands’. Everything in the world is made for happiness. The sun is a happiness. The clouds are a happiness. The rain is happiness. The fact that you can swallow; swallowing is happiness! A heartbeat is happiness. The ocean is for happiness. It’s full of good things to eat. Hundreds of thousands of tons of fish are taken out of the ocean every day.
The soil is for happiness! Every tablespoon of soil has more living things inside of it, bacteria and fungi, more than people in Greater New York. Every tablespoon full of soil! And it’s intended to make you happy. Soil causes all good things to grow.
That was the intention of the briah, that we should enjoy all the details of life and thus sing to Hashem; and sing more and more and more and more until it becomes a habit to sing all your life. And if that's the purpose of life then we have to understand how important, how essential, how urgent it is to cause ourselves to be happy!
Because without simcha we're not going to do this big job that's waiting for us; that's ָך¿ר∆ּמַז¿י ןַﬠַמ¿לָּך∆„ֹו‡ םָלֹעו¿ל יַ ֹ̃ל¡‡ 'ה םֹּ„ƒי ‡ֹל¿ו „ֹבוָכ – to sing to and praise Hashem always and forever (ibid. 32:13). And in order to do that, you know, you have to have a happy personality.
The Biology of Happiness
Not only for thanking; if you want to make progress in avodas Hashem, progress in davening or progress in good character and middos tovos, progress in emunah, progress in mitzvos, a man must have certain ingredients and one of the most important ingredients is simcha. You must gain the habit of happiness in your daily regimen, otherwise you cannot succeed. That’s why there’s such a big emphasis in the Torah on happiness. That’s why Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires that we should be not only Orthodox Jews, not only frum Jews, but happy Jews.
I can prove it scientifically. It’s easy to prove scientifically, from biology, that our Creator wants us to be happy because the body functions better when we’re happy. The Creator made the body and He made it so that a person lives a healthier life, a longer life, when He’s happy.
You know we have in our body glands that give forth secretions, hormones, that help control very many functions in the body. You have the pituitary gland. You have the thyroid gland. The parathyroid, the adrenals, the pancreas, other glands; and they give forth secretions and hormones.
Now, these secretions are tremendously complicated and the scientists have spent lifetimes in the laboratories studying their secrets. And it’s been discovered that when a person is disturbed, when he's angry or jealous or worried, when he's unhappy, something happens to these secretions and they don't come out right. And when somebody is happy, when he’s in a good mood, certain chemical reactions take place that make the secretions come out exactly right. It's a well known fact.
It’s Old News By Us
Now you're hearing something not what I said. It's not said by tzaddikim. It's said by the scientists. In order for your body to function most efficiently, it's important to be in a good mood, a mood of happiness. But we understand that the scientists are only discovering the plan of Hashem, that He wants happy people. They’re finally figuring out what we knew all along; that ה∆נָּבƒי „∆ס∆ח םָלֹעו, that the entire briah, your own body included, is made for the purpose of seeing the good of the world!
And so הָח¿מƒׂ ̆¿ּב יןƒּב¿רַמ רָ„ֲ‡ סַנ¿כƒּנ∆ּׁ ̆ƒמ means not only that we should be happy when we see Haman hanging; that we’ll be delirious with happiness when the time comes and we see all of our enemies hanging. It’s that too but it’s much much more than that. Marbin besimcha means we have to start changing our attitude and understand that it's the ratzon Hashem that we should try to gain this middah of sameach, the habit of happiness, all year long.
