Adina Roth – Head of Jewish Life

Adar and the Dance that Changes Everything

I am a great fan of children’s stories. One of my best is called, I love it when you smile, by Sam McBratney, which tells the story of a little joey who wakes up in a bad mood. His mama tries to cheer him up by doing all sorts of happy making things, but to no avail. Eventually, he and his mum run down a hill and fall into a muddy pool. The inversion from being upright to lying in a pool of mud catalyses his mood and he ends up laughing. I’ve always loved this story because although I am a psychologist and certainly believe in the concept of putting in years of work to assist with mental health, I also have seen how bad moods and feelings of darkness can sometimes shift in an instant.

Today, Friday marks the beginning of Chodesh Adar. Adar is the happiest month in the Jewish year, the month of Purim! Tractate Ta’anit teaches us, Mi’shenichnas Adar Marbin Be’simcha, when we enter the month of Adar, we increase our joy. What’s more, we are in a Jewish leap year. Unsurprisingly, the Rabbis chose Adar as the month to double up. This year, Adar extends for a glorious eight weeks and we will celebrate Purim in the second month of Adar.

On the one hand, we all love to feel joy! But on the other hand, what happens when Adar comes around and we just aren’t feeling the vibes!? The Breslover Rebbe, Rabbi Nachman lived in the eighteenth century and had his own very insightful conceptions about sadness and joy. He called sadness the marah shechorah, the dark bitterness. Relying on pre-modern modes of healing, he wrote: “Regarding happiness…sometimes people are happy and dancing in a circle and they grab a person who is on the outside and is sad and filled with the dark bitterness and then enfold him into the circle and dance with them and engage them in the dancing, they too will also become filled with happiness”.

Mr Watt and I celebrate Adar at High School assembly

In our modern world, we tend to think of and treat sadness on an individual level, but Rabbi Nachman understood that mood is at least in part linked to our social wellbeing. Here he articulates that the circle of community can enfold a person and bring healing. These last few months it hasn’t been easy to be happy. But one of the greatest sources of comforts has been the supportive communities in Sydney, and, at Emanuel School, circles of people who hold each other through these very hard times.

However, Rabbi Nachman is not only referring to the power of being invited ‘in’ to the circle of community. It seems his preferred form of therapy is quite simply the power of dance. On many shabbats in the late afternoon I walk from Bondi to Bronte. I love seeing a group of dancers who assemble on the promenade at Tamarama beach and sashay as the sun sets. Rabbi Nachman understood what many of us know; dancing is linked to wellbeing.

Many students cite ‘ruach’ as one of their favourite times at Emanuel and this past week, in an Adar skit, Mr Watt expressed some sadness that, as Principal, he had not been given an opportunity to participate in the ‘circle’ of ru’ach dancing. Very bravely, with Mr Majsay, he performed a ru’ach dance on stage (taught by yours truly.) Not only did the dance fill him with much needed smiles but everyone in the MPH was kvelling by the end of his dance.

Rabbi Nachman seemed to understand that sometimes moving the body with music and some rhythm can dispel the clouds of a dark mood. I like to think that the slip, trip and messiness of the little joey was almost a forced dance, a shift in movement!

As we enter this eight week period of Adar, in the midst of a time that has been and continues to be very hard for our community and our people, let us give ourselves permission to find joy, to return to joy. I am taking this on as a personal challenge. So, see you on the dance floor!

Chodesh Tov and Shabbat Shalom