A woman calls the Rabbi. “I was just notified my husband won the 250 million lottery. I am afraid he will faint when he hears the news. What to do?”
“Send him to me first,” says the rabbi.
The man comes to the Rabbi.
“Aib, what would you do if you won the lottery”?
“Ha Rabbi, me? Never! I don’t have mazal.
“But who knows maybe you will win. What would you do?”
“Rabbi, stop making jokes with me, it is not happening.”
“Aib, let’s talk theoretically. If you would win what would you do?”
Rabbi! If I won the lottery, I swear to you, I would give you half!
And the Rabbi fainted!...
The Kabbalah talks about masculinity vs. femininity in terms of solar vs. lunar energy. Men can often be more detached and hence not subjected to change and flux. Women are often more invested in life, more emotionally sensitive to their environment, and more vulnerable to internal change. In fact the feminine body follows the orbit of the moon—undergoing each month of a cycle of growth and decline.
Judaism, in its profound understanding of human nature and the process of history, challenges us to embark on the road less traveled. And it has to do with the Jewish month of Adar 1 as we are presently in.
There are two types of calendars used by most of civilization today: the Western calendar and the Muslim calendar. The Western calendar follows the solar cycle,
It is 365 days a year while the Muslim calendar follows the lunar cycle it is 354 days, 11 days shorter than a solar year of 365 days. When a new lunar year begins the solar year has not yet finished its previous year and orbit.
This is why Ramadan—the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which is the Islamic month of fasting, can fall out either in winter or summer or any other season. Why? Because the Muslim calendar, unlike the Western calendar, has nothing to do with the sun and its seasons. It completely revolves around the moon.
As long as you don't mix the two calendars, you're fine. But the Jewish calendar is unique in that it integrates these two very different cycles of time—the solar and the lunar—into a harmonious system.
The very first mitzvah given to the Jewish people—even before their Exodus from Egypt—specified the formula by which to set the cycles of Jewish calendar.
The Torah specifies that Jewish months need to be established by the lunar orbit. We love the moon.
But the Torah also instructs the Jewish people to celebrate our holidays observed on certain days of the lunar month, during specific solar seasons. For example, the holiday of Passover, beginning on the 15th day of the lunar month of Nissan, must also be the time of spring as defined by the solar cycle.
Now, if the lunar and solar year had enjoyed an identical number of days, this system would work perfectly. But since the lunar year is 354 days, and the solar year is 365 days, each passing year creates a discrepancy of 11 days between the two cycles. In the course of 10 years, the lunar year falls behind the solar year some 110 days! The result of this would be that Passover, celebrated in the lunar month of Nissan, would eventually be in the winter or fall.
The solution is that the Jewish calendar introduced the "leap year." Every three years, a 13th month consisting of 30 days is added to the lunar year. This way the “lunar year” catches up to the “solar year.”
Now, this year in the Jewish calendar, 5774, is one of those leap years. And an additional 13th month added to our lunar year. For the additional month is always added to the month of Adar, ensuring that the following month, Nissan the month is Passover, is in spring, since the lunar year has now “caught” up to the solar year.
So in summation, the Jewish people calculate their time according to both the moon and the sun. Our months are the according to the moon; our years are according to the sun. To ensure that our lunar months keep pace with the solar year, we are constantly attempting to have the moon overcome its 11-day void and catch up to the sun's year.
But why the Torah wants us to synchronize our months and years with the solar seasons? Let it establish a solar calendar to begin with!
The answer to this is that in Judaism we define time in the same way that we define our mission in life. And our mission in life is not to become either lunar or solar, but to integrate these two forces.
Yes, to synchronize two personalities is not always a smooth journey, especially when one is a sun and the other—a moon. Yet it is in this attempt to bring together two orbits in which we can fully realize our inner potential.
For in the Jewish imagination, truth can never be captured via the moon or the son on their own. Both creativity and tradition are critical components of life. And it begins with the source of all: G-d is both never changing and yet forever creating. Stability and innovation are both expressions of G-d’s undefined reality.
A story: For as long time, there was a clock mounted high up on the tallest building in the town. As people would go about their business throughout the day, they would periodically glance upwards, and then automatically check their own watches. Sometimes there would be an inconsistency, and then they would reset their watches to the correct time.
Why can't the clock be lower down, at eye level, more accessible? The clock is so high—it's a pain in the neck (quite literally!) to always have to look up at it."
"What if the clock is wrong? It's practically impossible to change it. Now, if it were installed on a lower building, it would be so much easier to fix when it will break."
The locals were vocal, and the vocals were local. A town meeting was called; a decision was made. The clock was lowered.
Then a funny thing started happening. When people noticed a discrepancy between the town clock and their watches, more often than not they would now adjust the time… on the town clock. "After all, I know that I have the right time…" Then someone else would come by and re-adjust the clock… Within a short period of time, the clock had been fiddled with so often, that when the clock said 12—you did not know if it was 12, or 1, or maybe 4. The consensus was that it was no longer relevant—and the clock was consigned to the trash heap.
Friends, we love the moon. We must be fresh, creative, passionate, and explore and actualize all of our individual resources. But the leap year teaches us, that our inner moon—our inner lunacy—must, once every few years, be synchronized with our inner sun. We need a clock on top of the tower, to tell us the right time, to define what is right and what is wrong. If not, if we take down the clock and allow every individual to adjust it according to his or her whim, we are left with a generation without any focus, direction and vision.
Be a moon, by all means. But do not be afraid to take on a new commitment, to become consistently involved in a Torah class or a new Mitzvah of your choice. For it is only in the struggle to synthesize the sun and the moon, that the full capacity and majesty of the human being can be expressed.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky