(I hope someone gets this posting title)
Gut Chodesh. I usually have to remind myself that happiness should be a given. Adar just happens to be a month when it’s easier to receive the natural simcha that is available to me all the time.
Rabbi Akiva Tatz defines happiness as the natural expression of your neshama doing what its’ created to do. I don’t let myself have fun enough. I often let most aspects of my life become way too serious. I hope to work on this during Chodesh Adar and loosen up a bit.
Here’s a small list off the top of my head of things that happened during the past 36 hours that made me happy:
My kids being themselves and showing their personality
My wife laughing
My 4 yr old uberdaughter who lastnight started singing along to Hafachta
My 7 yr old uberson wanting to share something he learned on the parsha
My wife being happy soley because I am happy
When I read that Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt’l, the Alter of Slabodka, would say that “he did not have a Yeshiva-one unit of hundreds of students, but rather he had hundreds of individuals.”
Being around good friends
Seeing our 4 month old smile for no reason what so ever
Eating my wife’s grilled chicken Caesar salad
Rav Hirsch writes in THE NINETEEN LETTERS that, “Happiness decreeded in accordance with compulsory, external standards ceases to be happiness.” (Second Letter)
What make you happy?
Modern Uberdox
“I write not because I have the strength to write, but because I do not have the strength to remain silent.” -Rav Avraham Yitzchok Kook zt’l
that chicken ceaser salad sounds good!! my 5 year old son started telling me a story yesterday morning about how we have to go outside to get the bread for breakfast that Hashem outs on the ground. He said we woud see if we were tzadikim if the bread is close to the house or if we have to go far away to get it. he made it into a whole story. Spontaneously. It was pretty exciting.
That is great, Rafi. I’m constantly amazed by what my kids retain from school.
Great post! Spread the cheer! You are right, we all have so much to be happy about. We need to stop and smell the roses in our lives every now and then.