Coming to Temple: Good for Your Soul AND Your Body

As you are reading this blog, you have most likely just flipped the page on your calendar. Many of us are back into the school routine of packing lunches, checking homework, setting up carpools, etc. Perhaps on your smartphone you sought out one of the many apps that are designed to insure that we are organized, informed, motivated, coupon-savvy, physically fit, environment-friendly, positive-thinking, family-focused, vocabulary-enriched, and performing at our very best.  There must be an app for monitoring every single task or goal conceivably possible. Now that we have programmed our calendars and portable electronic devices to remind us of all the details to which we must attend, let us remember to also take some time to “download an app” to enhance our spiritual side. In just days we will observe Selichot, the late evening service which helps us to perform a scan” of our souls in preparation for the upcoming High Holy Days. What will your scan reveal? Is there any “malware” that you would like to delete? Are there regrets of harsh words, neglected relationships, broken promises? How can we “eliminate these harmful threats” to our soul’s “operating system”? Judaism “has an app for that” known as t’shuvah. T’shuvah, from the Hebrew meaning “to return,” is our opportunity to turn back from the regrets of the past year and “perform a hard reset” so that we are once again on the path of goodness, wholeness, and truth. Maybe you will find that the “T’shuvah app” will awaken your awareness of the Divine in your life.

In her book The Superstressed Solution, Dr. Roberta Lee dedicates an entire section to the effects of spirituality and religion upon our health. She cites a study of some 126,000 people that concluded that those who regularly attend worship services increased their odds of living longer by 29 percent! Lee explains that these individuals have a greater capacity for coping with stress as well as for recovering from illness. Spirituality and communal worship “connects [us] to the world, which enables [us] to stop trying to control things all by [ourselves].” Being a part of a sacred community provides a support network, and when we participate in helping others, our health, too, benefits from those positive feelings. Bonding with others of common beliefs and practices is also beneficial to our well-being as is the hope that a faith can offer to us. Who knew that coming to services could help us live longer!?

I wish you and your family a Shanah Tovah—a year of peace, blessing and worshipping together.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

I remember my mother teaching me a calendar poem when I was a child to help me remember the months of the year and how many days each had. In researching the poem I found that there are numerous versions of this old mnemonic, but the one I learned (and still rely on) went like this:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February all alone.
For it has twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

A simple little rhyme, yet very helpful.  The only thing one has to keep straight is when the leap years fall. Every four years we add an extra day to February to make our 365-day solar calendar match up with the Earth’s actual orbit around the sun (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds). Were we not to adjust the calendar, the seasons and the events we associate with them would drift from their regular times. Eventually, the Fourth of July would be spent bundled up in front of the fireplace and hockey would be a summer sport. 

In Judaism we follow not a solar calendar, but a lunar one, based on the cycles of the moon. Our months begin when the moon appears as a tiny sliver of a crescent. When the moon is full our month is half over. Our calendar also has leap years, but rather than adding one day to the calendar, we add one whole month! Adding this month technically makes the Hebrew calendar a “lunisolar” calendar, meaning that there are adjustments made to it in order to keep our festivals and holy days in sync with their intended seasons as dictated by the Earth’s orbit around the sun.  A 13^th month is added seven times every 19 years. This is called the “Metonic Cycle” after the Greek astronomer Meton of Athens.

We make these adjustments to our calendar for several reasons. The Torah mandates that Pesach must be observed in the springtime of the year.  If adjustments were not made to the calendar, the dates for Pesach would end up in different seasons. Other corrections are made to prevent Yom Kippur from coming adjacent to the Shabbat.

So this extra month that we add...What is it and where does it fall? To our calendar we add a second month of Adar, giving us Adar Alef (Adar I) and Adar Bet (Adar II). The Torah calls the month of Pesach, Nisan, the first month of the year.  Since Adar is preceding month, it would be considered the last month of the year, so it would make sense to make the adjustment in the calendar there.

Of all months to be duplicated, Adar is definitely an excellent choice.  In the Gemara, Tractate 29a we are taught:

    משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמהח    Mishenichnas Adar marbin b’simcha.     .

When the month of Adar enters, our joy increases.

Tradition even refers to Adar as the “pregnant” month. Why? Adar is the month in which Purim falls. (In a leap year, Purim is observed in the month of Adar II and a mini-Purim known as Purim Katan is celebrated in Adar I.)  Purim is that delightful holiday on which we celebrate the victory of the Jewish people over the ultimate evil – envy, pride and tyranny as embodied in the character Haman. We dress up in costumes, wear masks, spoof the story of Queen Esther, sing silly songs, and, yes, imbibe until we can no longer tell the difference between Mordechai and Haman.  Purim is a happy holiday, most definitely, but if it is considered to be only a minor festival in our liturgical calendar, why is its month rated as the most joyous? There are so many fascinating answers that we could explore, but our space, of course, is limited.  Let’s look at just a few. 

Being a modern woman, I find joy in the fact that the Purim story is found in the Book of Esther, one of only two books in the entire TaNaKh named for a woman (the other being the Book of Ruth). In Megillat Esther, it is the female characters that are portrayed the most favorably, except for Mordechai, of course. Vashti and Esther are women who are not only beautiful, but courageous – strong of both will and character.  Both play key roles in bringing about the redemption of the Jewish people.

Rashi, the famous medieval French commentator, takes up this theme of redemption, connecting Purim with Pesach because of the miracles of deliverance that occur on each of these festivals. According to Rashi, the miracle that we celebrate on Purim ushers in an entire period of redemption for us that continues through Pesach, when we celebrate our exodus from Egyptian slavery. In a leap year this era of redemption becomes even longer!

The most logical place to look for the answer to our question is Megillat Esther itself, which tells us that upon the reversal of Haman’s murderous decree the Jews “enjoyed light and gladness, happiness and honor.” Mordechai incites them to “observe the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar, every year... the same month which had been transformed for them from one of grief and mourning to one of festive joy.”  Throughout the entire TaNaKh we are commanded to come into God’s presence with joy, singing, and gladness.  In the Book of I Chronicles we learn that “Glory and majesty are before [God]; strength and joy are in [God’s] place.” Therefore, where there is God, there is joy, and where there is joy, there is God. Our joy brings God into our lives, and having God in our lives brings more joy to our existence. The joy that Adar brings to us is, thus, multiplied exponentially.

May your lives all be blessed with the joy of Adar!