When Adar comes in we are told to increase our joy. Why is that?
ANSWER:Because it's a season that requires a certain frame of mind. Purim requires joy, Pesach requires joy. In order, however, to be prepared, you must start at the beginning of Adar. You can't be glum and sad, and suddenly when Purim comes, you jump up and down and you celebrate. No! You're doing it with a heavy heart.
When Adar comes in you begin looking for ways and means of generating happiness, and you look at the world. The world is full of happiness. The sunshine causes happiness. The fact that you're able to see. One of the greatest pleasures in the world is the ability to see. It's fun to see. You have two movie cameras taking pictures constantly wherever you look, color pictures. Isn't it fun to see? Oh, close your eyes, a dark sad world. Open your eyes. Oh!! Moving pictures! And they function in synchronization, together. And the pictures are recorded in your mind. You know the pictures that you are taking right now will never be forgotten? I could prove to you that the pictures are recorded forever in your mind. Forty years later somebody will say, “You remember sitting in Rabbi Miller's shul years ago? He was talking about the wonders of creation.”
“Oh yes I remember now,” and the pictures suddenly flashes out from the filing cabinets of your mind and you see everything once more.
Where was the picture for forty years? It was there, because the pictures you are taking are never erased from your mind. You might forget, because it goes back in the depths of the cabinets, but the pictures are there. Someday you might take them out and see them again, and reminisce about your youth. You remember even the voices; that's because you have a sound recording in your head.
So you start in the beginning of Adar, piling up Simcha. It's fun to see, (Rabbi Miller takes a big breath) it's fun to breathe. Rabosai, let's all practice the Simcha of filling our lungs with this wonderful air in this little place here. (And everyone takes a deep breath) AHH, that's joy. It's fun to be alive! Baruch Hashem, it's fun to live. It's fun as the heart causes the blood to course through your vessels; it's fun. Everything in life is fun. How silly people are! You know when they realize life is fun? When they are on the verge of dying. Oh, oh, oh, it's all over. Now is the time, enjoy life right now.
It's fun everywhere. When you sit down tomorrow morning at breakfast, it's fun to use those teeth to chew food, teeth are fun. False teeth are also fun. Life is fun, life is happiness, and we thank Hakdosh Baruch Hu for it.
This email is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Important Numbers
