Photo Credit: Jewish Press

In Adar, we are supposed to be more joyous than usual. How do we do that? Here is a short thought from a new book by Rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi:

“We live in a joy-challenged society. Today, joy must be learned. It is precisely joy, which everyone treats lightly, that requires serious consideration on our part.

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“Joy is sometimes perceived as superficial, while the tragic, the melancholic, is perceived as deep and serious. But that isn’t true. True joy contains great depth. It is a resolution, a decision, a choice.

“Women must choose to be joyful. Women these days expect of themselves to do everything – to work, to educate, to succeed at home and outside the home, to host, to finish everything quickly. I say: Cut yourself much slack, but never give up your joy. A messy bed can be made. A work report can be prepared. But an unhappy woman is worse than all these.

“So, yes, you didn’t tell a bed-time story. You didn’t finish the to-do list. You got angry again. But you forgot to write on your to-do-list the task of smiling and enjoying.

“So choose your tasks properly, decide what to forgo and what not to forgo, but one thing you should never forgo: joy, today, now.


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Sivan Rahav-Meir is a primetime news anchor with weekly broadcasts on television and radio. Her “Daily Thought” has a huge following on social media, with hundreds of thousands of followers, translated into 17 languages. She has a weekly podcast on Tablet, called "Sivan Says" and has published several books in English. Sivan was recognized by Globes newspaper as Israel’s most popular female media figure and by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews worldwide. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband Yedidya and their five children.