This learning is l'ilui nishmat our dear friend Albert Naggar, Avraham ben Latifa z”l, whose impact continues to echo through our lives.
Rosh Chodesh Iyar Part I: Echo of the Future
Like many people this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about time. Time is weird when you’re living through a pandemic. To me it seems to have lost a bit of its structure and become both fast and slow simultaneously. I feel as if I’m continuously looking for ways to anchor myself, and for this reason Rav Shorr’s insightful comments on the nature of time in general, and Rosh Chodesh Iyar in specific, seemed particularly fascinating to me.
Our normal experience of time is linear. We live each moment in succession, letting go of one moment in order to experience the next. But this is not the full picture of reality. Time was the first and most fundamental creation, but it only exists for us, created beings. At the highest level of spiritual reality, all moments are unified. And that unity has an effect on us. Because of that unity, there are aspects of time that echo both forwards and backwards.
One way that time echoes forwards is through the holidays. Rav Shorr explains that the shalosh regalim are connected spiritually to the avot. Through their covenant, brit, with Hashem they carved spiritual impressions into certain aspects of time that echo into the future, opening gates for us to walk through, year after year. Avraham opened the gate to Pesach, Yitzchak to Shavout and Yaacov to Sukkot. They created gates wide enough and strong enough to be eternal. The spiritual outpouring is strong, and if we open ourselves up to it, very available. We walk into Pesach, and we feel it.
There was a moment in time when the same was true about Rosh Chodesh, but it was a very short moment in time. The gates of Rosh Chodesh that allow us to access spirituality were opened originally by the shevatim, and by the brit they made with Hashem (see Rashi to Vayikra 26:45). Each month reflected the unique spiritual path of a different shevet. But with the sin of chet haegel, there was a veil placed between us and the opening for Rosh Chodesh. Although it was originally meant to be a holiday celebrated nationally in the Beit Hamikdash, that aspect of Rosh Chodesh was reserved for the future, and its spirituality was handed over to the women, who did not sin in chet haegel.
At the moment Rosh Chodesh is a national holiday of the future. However, that does not mean it is completely lost to us. While it is true that we live with a separation between past and future, Rav Schorr tells us that just as the past echoes into our lives, the future spiritual purpose of the world is engraved on our soul. It leaves an imprint on our lives.
As we mentioned in the essays on Pesach, time, zman, is a creation that is connected to the Hebrew word hazmanah. It is an invitation into a meaningful future. When we live in a state of preparing for a purpose, we consecrate our time for that purpose. This has an immediate effect. Halacha tells us that at the moment we designate something for a specific purpose, it takes on the spiritual reality of that purpose. When we are reaching towards a spiritual goal, the process of living in the world takes on a new flavor. The present time that we designate to reach future spiritual heights takes on the immediate impression of that future reality, even before we reach our goal. We get to experience some part of the end game, even in the midst of the process.
This is what Rosh Chodesh is all about. We say Hallel on Rosh Chodesh, but we say it “b’dilug, skipping.” Generally, we understand this to mean that because Rosh Chodesh is not currently a full-fledged holiday, we don’t say the full Hallel. We skip part of it. Rav Schorr adds another dimension. On Rosh Chodesh we skip forward in time, pulling part of the kedusha of the future holiday into our lives, and experiencing the impression it makes on us now.
Rosh Chodesh Iyar Part II: Absorbing the Details
Rav Schorr describes the general landscape of this time of the year, spanning from Pesach to Shavout, as following the halachic principle of Klal, U’Prat, U’Klal. It begins with the general, continues with the specific, and then wraps up in the general again, but in a new place and with a new understanding.
The Chachamim tell us that Nissan is the month of chesed, spiritual outpouring, as well as the month of seeing. In Nissan the veil was lifted for a moment, and we got a glimpse of spiritual reality. Seeing is both extremely powerful and somewhat external. We can see so much at once, much more than we can absorb. Seeing is also something we can experience in a group. In Nissan we were born as a nation. We experienced an unprecedented level of spiritual influence together. We offered our first national korban. We walked together out of Egypt and became free. We had a national experience of prophecy at the splitting of the sea.
This was the vision. The Klal. But this level of spiritual revelation is not sustainable long term. Hashem guides us spiritually through chesed. He gives us visions of what we are able to become even though we haven’t quite grown into it yet. However, that chesed has to be defined by us, so that it can be realized and sustainable in reality. And so Nissan is followed by Iyar.
Iyar is the month of Din, which means not judgement but definition. In Iyar we deal with the specifics. It is the month of listening, not looking, and we can only really listen to one thing at a time (see Rosh Hashana 27a). The mission of Iyar is to respond to what we experienced in Nissan. We cannot allow the moment to leave us unchanged. The way we respond to something too big to absorb is to take the time to listen to all the details.
The work of the sefirah is the work of the details. The work of preparation. It is a personal time. The Torah tells us, “count for yourselves.” This is the time to notice, to detail, and to treasure all the different spiritual pieces that make up who we are. Each person counts themselves, for themselves, clarifying all the pieces of themselves, and then joining them back together to make a new whole.
The letter of the month of Iyar is the letter “vav,” the letter that means “and,” the letter of connection. In Iyar we connect the revelations of Nissan to the revelations of Matan Torah. This is something we have to do personally. In Iyar we have Pesach Sheni, when we revisit Pesach but from the perspective of personal needs. The Korban Pesach Sheni is an individual korban, a piece of Torah which was brought into existence through individuals who took their own spiritual needs and desires seriously.
In Iyar, we began to eat Manna, which prepared our bodies to receive the Torah. We arrived in Refidim, our place of weakness, and from there we were forced to fight against Amalek. In Iyar we came out victorious in that fight, and we traveled from Refidim towards Sinai and into the month of Sivan.
The month of Sivan is the month of the twins. It is when we bring these two aspects, of personal and universal, of klal and prat, back together into a unified whole. With full knowledge of self we can find our place in the whole. In Sivan we stood at the foot of Har Sinai, “as one man with one heart (Rashi Shemot 19:2),” external and internal unified. And when we heard the revelation at Har Sinai, we were able to see the voices. We were able to connect in a unified way, personally and nationally.
This is our month to lay the groundwork for spiritual success, and I want to wish everyone tremendous success in all their endeavors!