Seven times within a 19 year cycle, we have a leap year in the Hebrew calendar; this is one of those years. As opposed to adding a day as is done in the Gregorian calendar, we add an entire month before the month of Adar, or Pisces. Therefore, we call it Adar I, and the month after it Adar II.
There is quite a lot to share concerning Adar, but there is one idea which all of the kabbalists speak of throughout their writings. It says in the Talmud - Mishenichnas Adar, marbim b'simchah, which means, “When Adar begins, we increase in joy." Therefore, when this month of Pisces begins, we have the ability to awaken a tremendous amount of joy. So much so that almost all of the joy, happiness, and fulfillment that we feel throughout the whole rest of the year is drawn from this month. As such, to the degree that we are able to connect to this month is the degree to which we can strengthen and grow our joy, happiness, and fulfillment throughout this year. And in order to connect to it, we need to not only have a deeper understanding of what it means to have happiness and fulfillment, but also - and probably more importantly - we need to understand what we can do proactively to make sure that we are pushing ourselves towards a process of bringing more of that joy and happiness into our lives.
In a few of the letters from Rav Brandwein to Rav Berg, he goes into a lengthy discussion of this concept of happiness. In one of them he says that the concept of joy, the concept of happiness, is one of the most supernal and elevated concepts, and he shared a section from the writing of the Ari, Rav Isaac Luria, which he told the Rav to read over and over again until it literally became second nature to him.
In this section, the Ari points out that many times throughout the writings of the kabbalists and the Zohar it says that if you make certain connections, you'll be able to draw certain types of blessings into your life. But the Ari asks, why then do we find that there are people who make these connections and yet still do not manifest the Light and the blessings they are meant to draw from those connections… why does that happen?
The answer, the Ari tells us, is that a person should be able to awaken as much joy in the action of his spiritual connection as he can imagine. The type of excitement and joy that he should have, the Ari says, is as if he was gathering up millions of dollars’ worth of gold; that's the level of joy that a person needs to have or at least begin acquiring in order to manifest the gifts that are meant to come into his life through the spiritual connections. This awakening of joy, this awakening of great desire has to be in his actions. And then he says if a person in his spiritual connections is able to awaken this level of joy, then he's guaranteed that through his spiritual connections and spiritual work, he will awaken Supernal Light and all the blessings.
He says it is exactly equal, meaning a person could do five actions of connections, five actions that are meant to bring Light into his life, but the amount of joy and inner happiness that he has in doing that action is the exact amount of Light that he will receive from it. For example, one person can read the Zohar for five minutes, but if he truly does it with an excitement and joy, he draws boundless blessings and Light into his life, while another person can read the Zohar for five hours without joy, and as such, there is a very limited amount of Light that he can draw into his life.
It's always exciting when I can share something that my father, the Rav, received from his teacher, and this is the beginning of one of those understandings: That without a constant awakening and growing level of joy, excitement, and happiness in our spiritual work, we greatly limit the amount of Light that we can draw. This is an important concept to not only understand, but also to live, especially as we enter into the month(s) of Adar.
