Rosh Chodesh Adar

Dear friends,

IT’S ROSH CHODESH ADAR!

As you can easily imagine, the students have Adar’ed up BA and Neve. Neve is decorated like something that is either a jungle or a zoo, with lots of green crepe paper and stuffed animals, while Bnos Avigail is a farm with similar décor but straw on the floor and brown as the predominant color. None of the adults find this particularly amusing, but we all act as though we do (excluding Rabbi Kass who is far too honest to try to pull off delight and amusement via crepe paper).

I love Adar. It’s so wonderful to be in a space where simchah is the thing to do and be. Each month has its own mazal (which as you know literally means flow – the means that Hashem uses to bring something of His plan for us). The astral sign for the month is a way of seeing something of what the month’s essential character is.

Fish?

I never really gave them much thought (not that there aren’t enough fish themed posters and mishloach manos packages this time of year). Fish seem rather boring creatures, and it seems to me that many people are of two minds as to how well they like them as food. Often you read a recipe that tells you to use lemon to avoid that “fishy taste”. Take note! There are no recipes that tell you what to do to avoid a chocolate taste. My mind changed with regard to fish when I visited the Jerusalem aquarium. It was surreal. There are fish that you could swear are rocks until they move. Others are completely transparent – you see their skeletons and organs. There was even one that was born male, becomes female, and reverts to being male. You may very reasonably wonder why I am taking you on a virtual trip to NatuRama. The reason is that the world of fish is almost completely concealed from us.  The deepest part of the ocean, which is called Challenger Deep relatively near the island of Guam is 32.876 feet deep. Untold worlds hide there, including innumerable species that are only known to the One who made them.

The flow of Hashem’s will, and wisdom comes down in Adar in ways that are similarly hidden from the human eye.
Hashem began the process of creating the world Tishrei, the highest and most significant creation being the creation of humans. Nissan, the month when the Jewish people became a nation is when His plan finally reached its predestined and concrete actualization with the emergence of the Jewish people as a nation. 

Adar is the last month of the year, the furthest from Nissan.

It’s the month of concealment.

Concealment and simchah? How does that work?

When Haman cast lots to see which month would be best for Genocide Month, he picked Adar out of the bowl. This seemed very fortuitous to him because it was the month that Moshe died. He didn’t know that it was also the month that Moshe was born.

He saw only concealment, when in fact it was preceded by a plan for the greatest revelation humankind (how’s that for PC?) will ever know.
What do we really know about Moshe?

The Torah only tells three stories about him – all the rest of what we know is of what he told us, and what Hashem told him. The first is when he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Jew. The second was when he separated two Jews (our anti-heroes Dasan and Aviram) who were fighting with each other, and the final one was when he rescued Yisro’s daughters from the shepherds who were abusing them. Notice how far his reach was, His love of justice extended to situations in which he faced non-Jew against Jew, two Jews against each other, and finally two non-Jews. His vision of what justice means – the fulfillment of Hashem’s will – took him to places that most of us would not choose to go. It takes a great deal of humility to pierce through the concealment of seeming injustice.
Hashem’s justice is sometimes hidden form us.

It must have been hidden from the Jews in Shushan. It must have been hidden to the Jew in Egypt in the months before the redemption. It must have been for Rubashkin when he heard his absurd anti-Semitic sentence. It may be hidden from to you.

Concealment is the dare that Hashem offers you to be the person you know you can be.  He acts against your will to let you actualize the person you want to take into eternity. The Jews in Shushan passed the test. They could have avoided the threat of extermination by “converting” to the Persian belief system. They made choices and did teshuva. They ended up with light, simchah, joy and honor.  The Jews in Egypt could have sealed their own fate by not having more children when it seemed that their children were doomed to live meaningless painful lives if they survived at all. It was in the midst of this that Moshe was born. Shalom Rubashkin could have retreated into the never never land of despair and depression instead of bringing his message of faith and hope to thousands of people whose lives were touched by his encouragement to learn the Gate of Trust in Hashem from Chovos HaLevavos.

You have your life.

The simchah comes when you realize that Hashem is on your side, loves you and challenges you. Cares about you and judges you only by what you have the ability to do.

Do some singing, dancing, nonsense and feel the gratitude for being a member of His people.

Enjoy every moment of Adar.

Moo moo.

Love,
Tziporah