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Beit Midrash
- Shabbat and Holidays
- Purim & The Month of Adar
- The Month of Adar
Adar also marks the final month of winter. It therefore becomes the harbinger of the beautiful weather of spring and summer that is the climate of the Land of Israel. Though Europe and America have experienced a truly cold, snowy and windy winter we here in Israel have escaped with our moderate and mild winter weather interspersed with the blessing of periodic days of life giving rain. In this, Adar fulfills its role of looking forward optimistically to better climes and times. Adar is so to speak the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel of winter and its inclement weather and sometimes dreary days. People are clearly affected by the weather climate where they live. The pervading darkness of the upper reaches of the northern hemisphere contributes to higher rates of suicide, depression, alcoholism and other negative behavior. People do better in sunlight and warmth than in ice and snow and penetrating cold. The dramatic and continuing population shift in the United States for example to the warmer West and South is testimony to this fact. The coming of the month of Adar, above and apart from its aspects of Purim, is therefore by itself a sign of hope and optimism. The sun will now shine more brightly and more often. As you can already fathom none of this brilliance of journalism of mine that you are reading really applies to those living south of the Equator. But since Israel is the center of the world and Israel is my home everything written here should therefore be considered valid.
Adar is also the sole month chosen by Jewish law to be leap month. In every nineteen year lunar-solar calendar cycle there are seven years in which an extra lunar month ids inserted into the Jewish calendar. This extra leap month is always the month of Adar. We can all use an extra dose of Adar every so often. The realistically difficult world that Jews constantly live in needs to be occasionally lightened by an additional dose of joy and optimism. People gladly bear the idea of two Adars wile they would be less likely to accept a doubling of any of the other eleven months of the Jewish calendar year. The Talmud advances practical and logical reasons to explain why Adar was chosen to be the potential double month. All of these reasons are naturally valid and acceptable on their own - a late rainy season, crops not ready, etc. The rabbis prevented King Chizkiyah from doubling up Nissan instead of Adar. There is an underlying value that the month of Adar possesses that no other month in the Jewish calendar can lay claim to. This idea of the joy of survival, of the ultimate downfall of the wicked, of the better tomorrow in physical, spiritual and national terms, belongs exclusively to Adar. It has therefore no substitute for it in the rest of the year’s calendar months.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
Chukat "HOW ENTEBBE STOLE THE BICENTENNIAL
The Difference Between Historic & Eternal"
As we approach America's 250th birthday, it's worth remembering her 200th Bicentennial birthday, on Jul. 4th 1976, when Israel "stole the show" by shocking the world & miraculously saving 101 hostages in a foreign continent. As Pres. As Pres. Trump decides which countries get priority in his new Middle-East, it's worth reminding him of the difference between historic events and eternally historic ones. This obviously connects with this week's parsha, as well!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 6 - The Parable of the King of India
The advantages of testimony over circumstantial evidence or philosophical speculation.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 5- "Proofs of G-d"
This may be the most important class of the entire book, where we finally get to the Jewish proof of the existence of G-d and truth of the Torah. We should follow His own direction where He tells us how to get to Him: through the Nation of Israel: Jewish history, Jewish prophets (and today, prophecies fulfilled), and national reward & punishment towards Am Yisrael.
Ein Aya One Humanity, One Creator, One Jerusalem
Rav Kook innovatively and beautifully explains this aggadeta where our sages say that after Jerusalem was destroyed her cinnamon fragrance is only found locked in a particular kingdom's treasury.
