On Thursday morning, I was sitting at my desk, and my attention was split between the news and my work. And while that already feels like a pretty stark contrast, let me explain just how wide the gap between those two things was. The news was Israeli television—an analysis of that morning, a morning that is just beyond words. The heartbreak of a people receiving their dead, the incredible anger of watching masked cowards use Jewish bodies as a propaganda tool.

Every raw emotion that could possibly be felt was plugged into that moment, that pain. That was the news.

And my work? My work on Thursday morning was writing this year’s Purim spiel.

I will be the first to admit that I did not plan my schedule very well this past week because it was a completely absurd experience. On my phone, news anchors were catching their voices as they broke with emotion, and on my computer, jokes about community theater and irreverent pop culture references. That was my Thursday morning.

But the more I think about it, I realize it has been much more than just my Thursday morning. I think it’s more like my last 505 days—trying to sit in this insane, dissonant space of heartbreak, sadness, anger, fear, and guilt on one side, and a functioning, responsibility-filled life on the other. A life that doesn’t stop moving even when Jewish children are kidnapped, murdered, and propagandized.

It’s absurd.

It’s illogical and crazy and absurd.

And yet, it is.

And yet, we are here, navigating each and every day while fighting an internal battle that only a fraction of people know about and even fewer comprehend.

And it breaks us down. It brings us to the lowest realms of fear, hate, and despair.

It is unquestionably Hamas’s most destructive weapon—this terrorism of trauma.

It’s their most destructive weapon, and it’s also their most effective. The evil works. The brutality, the theater, the baiting, the goading—it works. It chips away at our hearts, at our resolve, at the essence of who we are.

Which is why this morning, while our hearts, minds, and attention are so focused on the news, on our brothers and sisters, on the unknowability of what today or tomorrow might bring, it is imperative that we use the Iron Dome of our peoplehood and our tradition to shoot down the barrage of psychological rockets hurled our way.

And our Iron Dome, our Kippat Barzel, incidentally, is found within the work I was doing on Thursday morning. It’s found in Purim. It’s found in Adar.

Now, I am fully aware of my dramatic bias for our ancient rabbis. I’m a very big fan. But I’m a big fan because I think they are masters not just of Jewish law, Jewish history, and Jewish text, but most importantly, masters of the Jewish psyche. And while I think they had theological and ritualistic goals for the observance of Purim and the marking of the month of Adar, I would argue that their true intentions were so much deeper, so much more profound, and beautifully bottled within that famous phrase from Masechet Ta’anit: Mishenichnas Adar, marbin b’simcha—the one who enters into the month of Adar increases their joy.

But in order to unpack the brilliance, in order to unpack that profundity, we need a quick chazarah—a quick recap of Jewish history. Because at the time the rabbis were shaping and teaching these words, life as a Jew in Eretz Yisrael was brutal. The revolts against Rome had forcibly shut down all Jewish resistance. The Romans had destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple. They had exiled tens of thousands of Judeans, sold countless more into slavery, and slaughtered many, many more. And while Rome once tolerated some forms of Jewish autonomy, the uprisings had led to a full occupation of the Jewish people, and the expression or observance of Jewish religiosity, text, tradition, and ritual had been outlawed and criminalized.

In short, failing to assimilate—being identifiably Jewish—was punishable by death.

And yet.

And yet, our rabbis continued to meet. They learned together, taught together, shaped a new vision of a Jewish future together, and created an entire tractate of oral law on an obscure holiday celebrated by the exiled Jews of Babylon and Persia but not widely familiar to the community in Eretz Yisrael. One that feels incredibly familiar in its content but counterintuitive in its practice.

Mishenichnas Adar, marbin b’simcha. The whole idea of this holiday, the whole idea of this month, is that at the hardest times, we increase our joy.

That’s a paradox. Our rabbis teach the story of a woman named Hadassah, whose identity is suppressed by a violent royal decree, who is in danger of losing herself because of the terrorism of Haman’s trauma. So serious is this potential loss that her name itself is changed to Esther, from the Hebrew word lehastir—to hide, to conceal. And they teach that while she is losing herself, she is confronted by her uncle, who warns her that hiding won’t work, that her only real protection, her weapon against hate and violence, is her authenticity, her peoplehood, the story that flows through her bones.

Taught this way, the Megillah is not a historical document. It’s a subversive rallying cry. It is a spark of memory and inspiration to an entire people living in fear, sadness, and anger. A people who are given an edict that I’m sure the Romans found laughable—to enter into a new month and, despite the darkness and uncertainty, to find Jewish joy.

Because our rabbis knew.

Our rabbis knew that finding joy, finding purpose, finding meaning, is the only way that we will survive.

It feels crazy and insensitive to write jokes when our people are grieving for the Bebis family, for Oded.

It feels out of place to talk about Rosh Chodesh Adar, which we are marking one week from today, when we have brothers and sisters held hostage in the tunnels of Gaza, when we are assaulted daily by the rocket fire of trauma, antagonism, mockery, and such abject cruelty. It feels crazy.

But to nichnas Adar—to enter into Adar, to find Jewish joy, to find any reason whatsoever to come together and hug one another, pray together, sing together, hear Hebrew with one another, say Amen with one another, support one another, and yes, laugh together—is our Kippat Barzel. It is our Iron Dome. It is the miklat, the shelter of resistance to the relentless onslaught of words, images, and actions meant to break us down and tear us apart.

In their depravity, our enemies want us to lose ourselves.

They want us to hide who we are. They want us hidden and ashamed, broken and defeated. They want us glued to our phones, overwhelmed by the weight of all of this loss.

And it is easy to capitulate, to give in to despair. But our tradition, my friends, is made for times like these. Our texts, our history, the treasures of our Yiddishkeit—they’re not pretty pieces of art to be hung and admired. They’re resources. They’re tools. They are tools of survival, tools of resilience, defiance, and hope.

And so we write our spiels, and we bake our hamantaschen. We come together, and we laugh. Because it’s not about a holiday. It’s not about a historical commemoration or a calendared social event. We do it because it’s about us. It’s about us right now, and it’s what we need to get through this together.

Mishenichnas Adar, marbin b’simcha—a people who enters Adar increases their joy. A people who increases their joy remembers who they are. And a people who remember who they are can never be broken.

I love you all. I’m wishing you a peaceful Shabbat, a joyful, authentic, powerful Adar. And I wanted to put these words right here.