Prayer Skills-Adar Joy-Laughing In Success

Another principle through which a person can know if his prayers have been answered is this. If he is happy after praying, he will be answered. The opposite is true if he is depressed.

Based on this, the Ball Shem Tov, gave the following explanation:

The Talmud tells us that, “One day Rav Bruna said the blessing of redemption immediately before the Amidah and did not stop laughing all day (Berachot 9b).” The difficulty here is obvious. It is certain that Rav Bruna said the blessing of redemption before the Amidah every day, since this is the regular order of prayer. Since this is so, what was the special occasion that caused him to rejoice and laugh all day?

The Talmud means that he never knew if he had accomplished anything on hide by doing this. On that particular day, however, he said the blessing of redemption before the Amidah, and did not stop laughing all day. He therefore knew that he had accomplished a unification on high, and this is why his heart was happy. (Toledot Yaakov Yosef, Eikev)

A person who achieves joy during the month of Adar can celebrate that his prayers are being accepted.

A person should also focus on finding joy in his prayer so as to fulfill the Rabbinic charge that one should increase his joy during the month of Adar.