Turning Sadness Into Joy on Purim: How to Create a True Inner “Venahafoch Hu”

Every year on Purim, a particularly heavy mood seems to descend on me. On what is supposed to be the happiest day of the year, I feel the deepest sadness. It is as if someone lifts me up and throws me into a dark, endless pit, a fall that feels like it will never end.

Last year, though, something shifted. Somehow, I decided to create a real venahafoch hu, a true inner reversal. It all began when my eyes rested on one verse from Tehillim: “You turned my mourning into dancing; You loosened my sackcloth and girded me with joy.” As always, I found myself sinking into the depth of those words, thinking about the first and the last: “You turned… joy.”

How does one do that? How do you transform the sadness, the complaints, the frustrations that fill your heart into genuine joy, a joy that carries patience, compassion, and understanding even as it steps through muddy puddles?

Turning the Inner World Upside Down

First, begin by turning something within yourself. What should you turn? The thoughts that shaped the beliefs you live by today. Create a true inner reversal, one that prepares your inner home for renewal, one that removes the emotional “chametz” you gathered along the way, no matter how sweet it may seem.

The sweetness of Purim, like the overflowing treats of mishloach manot, sometimes hides deeper layers beneath it. Real transformation means recognizing that after every Purim comes a time for inner cleansing, a deeper preparation for renewal.

The Secret of Transformation: Choosing New Thoughts

How can a person emerge from a long exile of the heart, from fears that threaten to silence your best qualities in a single moment?

Start from the beginning. Turn negative thoughts into positive ones. Transform everything you mourn into movement, into dance, into forgiveness. True joy is not just a word spoken lightly. It is a living energy that moves through the chambers of the heart.

To reach a joy that is real and lasting, inner work is required. It means letting go of the tempting but misleading thoughts that promise comfort yet leave emptiness behind. Real joy begins with a shift in thinking. After all, within the Hebrew word for joy, simcha, hides the word machshava, thought. Change the thought, and the feeling can change as well.

How do you begin? With the letter Bet, the letter through which the world itself was created: “In the beginning God created.” Every moment offers a new beginning. You can create a new inner world that did not exist before.

Without Change, We Remain in Disguise All Year

Life can be exhausting. We grow tired of hoping for miracles. How do you move from darkness into light? How do you silence the fearful voices that run through your mind from morning until night?

By making a firm decision to stop thinking negatively about yourself, about others, about your journey, about what you lack or what you missed. Real transformation starts with an honest shift toward ourselves. Otherwise, we remain in disguise all year long, not only on Purim.

Many of the stories we tell ourselves exist only in our imagination. Who says the pictures you draw in your mind reflect reality? Who says that challenges in relationships define your worth? Who says that what has been until now must always remain the same? Just as the world is renewed each day, you too hold the power to renew your inner world through new thoughts.

Yes, you may long for marriage, but growth and influence during times of solitude are no less meaningful. They build strength, purpose, and joy in their own way.

Choosing Joy Before the Turning Point

Last Purim, I realized that if I truly want to become a bride, someone whole and capable of holding life’s blessings, I must create my own inner reversal. I must remove the emotional “sweetness” that disguises itself as comfort while leading me nowhere. I am no longer willing to pay the price of temporary pleasure that leaves deeper wounds behind.

I have seen where negative thinking led me: to a dead end. So I made my decision. I choose to become someone who embraces insight and change in time, someone who transforms before the darkness takes hold.