The Month of Adar
An Auspicious Month
for Drawing God’s Light into the World
“וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה
אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל .../And you will command the children of
Israel…” (Shmos 27:20) In the
first pasuk of this week’s parsha, God instructs Moshe Rabbeinu to command the
children of Israel regarding the mitzvah of lighting the menorah. Usually when God instructs Moshe to tell the
people a commandment, He says, “... דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל/… speak to the
children of Israel.” Why does God say
here, “וְאַתּה תְּצַוֶּה
.../And you will command …” when instructing Moshe about this particular
mitzvah?
The Sfas Emes teaches us that the lamps of the menorah allude
to the mitzvos. In Mishlei (6:23)
we find, “... נֵר מִצְוָה
וְתוֹרָה אוֹר .../… a commandment is a lamp and Torah is light …” Just as light needs a lamp to hold it, so
too, the light of the Torah needs a vessel to contain it. As physical light, so too, the light of the
Torah is ephemeral. It needs a mechanism
for being drawn into and influencing the physical world. That mechanism is the mitzvos. The vessel that holds the light of the Torah
in this world is the mitzvos.
When we perform mitzvos we bring the light of the Torah into
the world. In fact, the Zohar says that
our 248 limbs parallel the 248 positive commandments.[1] Our very limbs become the conduits through
which the light of the Torah is drawn down into this world. When we understand that we are merely
conduits, that there is nothing inherent in our actions or in us that brings
spiritual light into the world, that it is the will of God that the specific
actions of the mitzvos have this effect, we accomplish the will of God. That is why this specific mitzvah of
preparing the menorah starts with, “וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה .../And you will command …” Only because God commanded us to do the
specific activities that are called mitzvos do they have this quality of
drawing the Torah’s light into the physical world.
The Midrash[2],
explaining the first few words of this week’s parsha says that the poor of
Israel are equal to Eliyahu HaNavi and Daniel.
How does the Midrash arrive at this conclusion from, “וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה .../And you will
command…”? According to the Sfas Emes,
however, it is clear. A Jew, regardless
of his spiritual level, who performs a mitzvah with the understanding that the
light of that mitzvah comes through him from God, is on the level of our
greatest prophets. This is because when
a person does a mitzvah he connects to God.
In fact, the root of the word mitzvah is the same as that of the Aramaic
“צַוְותָּא/connection”. It is encouraging to know that regardless of
our backgrounds and spiritual state, each of us can do the will of God and
bring the Torah’s light into this world by being aware of this when performing
the mitzvos.
The Chiddushei HaRim understands this concept from the
brachah we make before doing a mitzvah.
We say “... אֲשֶּׁר קִדְּשָנוּ
בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ .../… that He made us holy with His
mitzvos and commanded us …” We are able
to do the will of God and bring the light of the Torah into the world through
the mitzvos, only because this is the way God structured the world. He commanded us to do the mitzvos. Therefore, we are able to be His conduits to
bring His light into the world.
The Chiddushei HaRim explains that this is the intent of
Chazal[3]
when they taught that a person who wants to protect his assets should plant a
maple/אֶדֶר
tree as we find in Tehillim (93:4), “אַדִּיר בַּמָרוֹם ה'/God is strong on
high.” A play on the similarity between
the words for maple – אדר
– and on high – אדיר,
planting a maple/אֶדֶר
tree is a metaphor for knowing that our assets and strength, everything really,
comes from God. Chazal are teaching us
that the awareness itself is protective and strengthening. This concept and metaphor applies to the
month of Adar as well. The word Adar in
Hebrew – אדר – is also similar to the Hebrew words for maple
and on high. The month of Adar, then, is
an especially appropriate time to work on our awareness that when we perform
the mitzvos we are conduits for drawing God’s light, the light of the Torah
into the physical world.
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