#3 Toxic Positivity vs. Real Happiness

We talked last recording about the directive to amp up our joy in the month of adar. And we talked about how this implies that we all have a baseline of happiness to be able to do this. We also asked whether a person can be commanded to feel a certain way. And if so, are those feelings really authentic? These questions got me thinking about something else: Is “mishenichnas Adar Marbim B’simcha” in a sense our version, the Jewish version of the platitudes and cliches we see all over about being happy.