Our teachers explain the verse “He will call to Me, and I will answer; I am with him in his distress—I will rescue him” as follows: one usually calls from a distance. When a Jew turns to the Creator with the feeling that He is “far away,” He will only “answer him.”
But if his perception is “I am with him in his distress,” “you are children of the L-rd,” then “I will rescue him and glorify him.”
This is the essence of Hanukkah and Purim, in which the Sages instilled the power of trust to bring light to the Jews' bitter exile, so that they would feel that the Almighty is with them despite their dire circumstances and impurity, for His love for the Jewish soul is unchanging.
This is the meaning of the rule: “When Adar begins, we increase our joy.”
The greatness of a Jew's joy in his lot lies in his contentment with the way the Almighty guides him, in his belief that everything the Merciful One does is for the good. He is “a blessed man who trusts in the L-rd,” for the sense that “I am with him in his distress” nourishes the confidence in his heart that “the L-rd will be his support.”
This is the role of the month of Adar and of Purim—to instill trust in the Creator in Jewish hearts, for even when the dreadful sentence had been signed, He annulled the evil decree through the power of Mordechai's trust, and “it was reversed, so that the Jews ruled over those who hated them.”
When Adar begins, we increase the joy that comes from faith that everything the Creator does is only for the good.
No other holiday has such an effect on the entire month in which it falls. Thus it is said in the name of the holy rabbi of Ruzhin that Purim is even higher than Yom HaKippurim, which is “ke-Purim, like Purim”—and the lesser is compared to the greater, not the reverse. And just as Yom Kippur is preceded by the Ten Days of Repentance, all the more so there should be ten days of preparation before Purim.
That is why we increase our joy from the beginning of the month, for the light of Purim is already revealed on 11 Adar, the first day on which the Megillah was read in Talmudic times.
And the author of “Avodat Yisrael” concludes from this that on this day the light of Purim already descends, and the Megillah is read in the higher worlds. And before that day there are ten days of joy, of preparation to receive the great light of Purim.
Translation – Rabbi Sh. Skarzhinsky; material selected by Rabbi I. D. Falik.