Rav Dessler (3) writes that when the Rabbis tell us that we need to increase our joy from the beginning of Adar, they are talking about building successive levels of joy. It would appear that this is, in fact, the message of the morning star, the Ayelet haShachar; that things occur in gradual processes. Just as the morning star is the first sign of the process that takes us from night to day, so too Adar is a process that takes us from Winter to Spring. As the natural world increasingly unfolds its colors, we can increasingly appreciate God’s presence in the world and dismiss the problem of theodicy.
Purim sets up a spiritual paradigm for our days more generally, and, even of the end of days. The Rabbis point out that this is the way of the ultimate redemption. It is a process that begins slowly (4) – a process that allows us to gradually become receptive to the spiritual grandeur of the days of Meshiach. Those who expect Meshiach to simply show up out of the blue are mistaken. Rather, it is up to us to start the process, even after – and maybe specifically after – the spiritual decimation of the last two centuries. After all, it has been said that the Ayelet haShachar only comes out when the sky is the darkest.
1 Yoma 29 – While several other possibilities are offered by the Babylonian Talmud, the Yerushalmi in Berachot 1:1 seems to indicate such a comparison. See also Anaf Yosef in Ein Yaakov on R. Asi’s position in Yoma.
2 Berachot 60.
3 Michtav MeEliyahu vol.2, p.123.
4 Yerushalmi, Berachot 1:1.