The Iron Dome interceptions overhead were loud, but even louder was the laughter of a little girl curled up in my lap as we sat in the bomb shelter at shul together on Shabbat, just days before we celebrate Purim (Monday night and Tuesday for Jews everywhere and Tuesday night and Wednesday for those in Jerusalem). She was telling me all about her Purim costume.

The Haman of our times is dead. The children are celebrating. Is there a better way to go into Purim?

Every Jewish woman is the Queen Esther of her home. That is what I repeated to myself again and again, shaking away the fear and joining the dancing and laughter that filled the Shabbat morning prayers.

Yes, there is danger. But this is not a time for fear. It is a time for celebration like never before. It is a time for tapping into our personal Megillah narrative — how G‑d can do anything, and we are witnessing it. All the prophecies speak of this moment, and we get to live it.

“Do not fear, for I am with you,” says Isaiah.1 The prophet does not say that nothing is happening. He says: Do not fear, because I am with you. The evil may rage loudly, but louder still is the promise of G‑d.

This is not a time for constant news checking.

You are a child of G‑d; you create the news.

It is a time of heartfelt thanks and dancing for all the miracles that G‑d is showing us, of prayers for continued liberation, of hope, smiles and laughter. A time to open our hearts to all the good that G‑d wants to give us. A time of visualizing a new world where goodness is the only reality.

True, we are not there yet. Sadly there have been casualties in Tel Aviv and Bet Shemesh, and the Iranian people have a long road ahead of them. But we are on the road.

Breathe deep. Breathe the air of liberation. Breathe and know that it is G‑d who is creating us, carrying us, and bringing us to the Third and final Holy Temple and all the wonders that come with it.

The Talmud tells us that in this month of Adar, we increase in joy, simchah in Hebrew.2 What is joy? Simchah, שמחה, can be said to share a root with מחה, the word for erasing or dissolving, where we lose a constrained sense of self and allow the external self, our ‘masked’ version of who we are, to be wiped away in the face of something greater, to get lost in the bigger picture.

Let us allow the joy of the miracles. Allow Hashem’s miracles for His chosen nation to overflow our system with the deepest joy. Let that joy override any personal sadness or struggles. Let the joy reach all of us and wash away the pain of exile, bringing with it a new us, a new world, a new beginning for all of humanity.