Talmud says, מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה -- "When Adar enters, joy increases." (Ta'anit 21a) Or maybe, "When Adar arrives, we increase our joy."

This may be easier said than done.

In recent years I've struggled with the injunction to rejoice during Adar. My mother died six years ago during Adar I. My father died three years ago during Adar II. (This year isn't a leap year, so we just have one Adar, which means their two yahrzeits are in even closer proximity.) "When Adar enters, joy increases" --? The last few years it's been more like, when Adar enters, stock up on yahrzeit candles.

I'm no longer actively grieving my parents' absence. The loss has become familiar, its edges softening over time. But there are less-personal, more-global reasons to feel like "joy increases" might be facile and tone-deaf. Purim's tale of an evil advisor intent on destroying the Jews for Mordechai's refusal to compromise his values lands differently in a time when many of us feel increasingly unsafe. 

For those of us who are trans or gender-nonconforming, for those of us who work as public servants, for those of us whose lives are connected with any of the many agencies that have already been slashed to ribbons, for those of us worrying about Ukraine, for those of us who are anxious about the apparent dismantling of the American government, this does not feel like a time for rejoicing.

And yet.

"Talmud doesn’t say to be joyful in Adar only in good years, because then we probably would never do it." So teaches R. Irwin Keller in his recent post Telling Purim. Talmud says, this is the time of year to grow in joy, period. Because our souls need it. Because we need to remember that redemption is possible. Because we need to learn to find hope even in a story where God's name doesn't appear.

Because February felt endless -- a terrible month of watching diversity programs, international aid, cancer research, staffing at national parks, Medicare and Medicaid, the Department of Education, and so much more decimated by a guy brandishing a chainsaw and boasting about what he's demolishing -- and it is time to turn away from marinating in grief and claim some agency to lift up our hearts.

Because Purim leads us toward Pesach, as one full moon leads to the next. And Pesach is our annual reminder that freedom from constriction is possible even if we can't begin to imagine how we'll get from here to there. I cannot begin to imagine how we'll get from here to there. But at Pesach as a people we take the spiritual leap into the unknown, and Adar is our spiritual onramp to that journey.

Maybe part of the way we reach freedom lies in Purim's reminder that like Esther, we have to speak out for the freedom and safety of others. Like Mordechai, we have to stand up for what's right, and refuse to bow to those who claim power unjustly. Our freedom and safety are always inextricably bound up with each others'... and this is far from the first time we've faced injustice as a people.

There can be joy in actively embracing our values. There can be joy in standing up for justice, and for the needs of those who are vulnerable, and for what we know is right. It is a defiant kind of joy. It is joy as an act of resistance. Joy that reminds us that no one can take away our humanity, our values, our capacity to care for each other. This is a kind of joy that can coexist with anger and sorrow.

"When Adar enters, joy increases." I'll admit that feels more than a little bit implausible this year. But I remind myself that this isn't the first time in Jewish history that we have struggled to access joy in the face of injustice: not even close. Claiming the capacity for joy and hope even in terrible times is one of our tradition's spiritual tools for surviving those times with our hearts and souls intact. 

"We are facing a watershed moment where healing from trauma is a generational call. How will we answer it? Will we reproduce old patterns of divide-and-conquer, especially in the face of rising tides of mental health crises and climate change? Or will we re-member and reenvision our interdependence and flow toward collective transformation? The answers, and new questions, are up to us."

-- Jen Soriano, Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing

A friend recommended Soriano's book to me as I began to grapple with the trauma I carry as the daughter of someone who fled the Holocaust. The book is excellent; I recommend it highly. (I'm not finished with it yet, but it's already given me valuable new lenses for understanding not only my own history and its implications, but also the histories of many whom I serve.) This quote jumped out at me this morning -- as we all continue to marinate in what's happening in Gaza and in Israel and in us.

My mother the refugee would have rejected the word trauma. She was lucky, she would have said. Lucky to have escaped Hitler, lucky to have made it here, lucky to live in a country that welcomed Jews (and to witness the birth of Israel) and so are her children, period. And her story still isn't mine to tell -- even though she's been gone for five years. Enough to say simply that she would have rejected this frame altogether. I rejected it for a while, too. I kept saying, "but this is normal."

Of course I used to lie in bed and list what I would take with me if the Nazis returned and we needed to flee. Of course my diary was inspired by Anne Frank's, so someday when somebody tried to wipe out the Jews again, maybe my diary would be a testament to how we tried to persist, just like hers is. Of course when I peel a potato and throw the skin away, I think of family in the concentration camps who would have done anything for a potato peel to add nutrition to the watery soup that was all they had.

(Dear anyone who is about to tell me there are innocents in Gaza who would do anything for a potato peel -- I know. That's heavy on my heart too. It is my very next thought, after remembering my ancestors. And... the readiness to make my words about what I carry in my own body into an opportunity to yell at me about Gaza is part of why this moment is so hard.) Why am I writing about this? Because I know others are struggling with it too. I can't fix it, but I can say: you're not alone. 

We're not alone in those constantly-running trains of thought. Most of us who grew up in the shadow of that horror have them. And not all of us would call it traumatic. (Mom certainly didn't.) And yet -- "I lost another friend over Israel and Gaza," someone said to me recently. "I guess I know who I can't ask to hide me, if it comes to that, again." I felt my heart clench as anxiety tried to surge. The internal monologue says, When people hate Jews, it's not safe. Look how much people hate us right now.

A personal essay about coexistence and war, written by an Israeli translator, was retracted this week by literary journal Guernica. Its author translates Arabic poetry into Hebrew and into English. Before the war began she drove Palestinians in Gaza to hospitals in Israel. She seems like the kind of person I would like to know. And yet the hatred and loathing and vitriol directed at her are staggering in their stridency. Like most American progressive Jews, I feel unmoored by the recognition of this loathing.

A week ago I wrote about my hopes for Israel and Gaza. Predictably, what I said made some people angry. I am too hawkish for some, too dovish for others. I keep thinking about a quote from a recent article by Rabbi Jay Michaelson (about what Glazer said at the Oscars): "Admittedly, to many standing in solidarity with Palestine, this can all seem rather milquetoast. // On the other hand, to many in AIPAC and the pro-Israel community, it can seem like a betrayal of the Jewish people."  Yep.

If you only take one thing away from this post let it be this: the tears, the nausea, the death-grip of anxiety, the feeling that nothing and nowhere is safe -- these are trauma reactions. And anecdotally, most of us are living with them. Which means it's no small wonder that my whole town has been metaphorically ablaze with feelings of rancor and betrayal over proposed ceasefire resolutions. We're all inflamed like damaged nerves in the body of our community, and pain is spiking everywhere.

Which takes me back to Jen Soriano's book. Soriano writes beautifully about the effects of therapy and somatic work on her trauma and chronic pain. What's the equivalent of that work for a whole people? We keep lashing out: how could any Jew want a ceasefire when [insert reason]? How could any Jew not want a ceasefire when [insert reason]? Our ancestors fled genocide, how can you say that? I want to ask: how often are our responses shaped by unconscious trauma, and what can we do to heal?

Addendum: I was literally finishing this post draft when I got the latest from Jay Michaelson: Israel/Palestine and the Politics of Trauma. Well: as my mother would've said, "great minds run in the same direction." Anyway, go read Jay's post, it's excellent.