I have been in the hospital many times over the last few months to visit my father-in-law, Rabbi Singer (Shlomo Zalman ben Leah). There is a heart monitor connected to him which displays his heart rate. The display looks like waves, with a high and a low. The Jewish year also has its highs and lows. For some, the high peak is Purim and for others it’s Pesach. For still others, it’s the Yomim Noraim or Sukkos. This week starts the month of Av and many feel we’re at the low point of the year as we edge towards Tisha B’Av.
There is a fascinating perspective presented by the Bnei Yissaschar which teaches us how to utilize the momentum of our drop to the lowest point to propel ourselves back upwards.
The Tur quotes his brother, Reb Yehuda, who says that each month corresponds to a different shevet (tribe). In the desert, our encampment had four quadrants (platoons)—each one holding three shevatim. The Sefer Shaarei Orah aligns each quadrant with a different quarter of the year. Yehuda, Yisachar and Zevulun were the first quadrant and match up to the months of Nissan, Iyar and Sivan. The second quadrant consisted of Reuven, Shimon and Gad. Reuven aligns with the month of Tammuz and Shimon with Av.
The Sefer Yetzira assigns a different bodily sense to each month. He assigns the sense of sight to Tammuz and the sense of hearing to Av. The name Reuven means to see (a son), designating the sense for the month of Tammuz as sight. The name Shimon means to be heard, designating hearing as the sense for the month of Av.The Bnei Yissaschar notes how these two senses were misused during these two months. The meraglim spent 40 days scouting the land of Eretz Yisrael. The majority of the time was spent during the month of Tammuz, since they left on their mission the day before Rosh Chodesh Tammuz and returned on the ninth of Av. The sense of sight was thus used incorrectly in the month of Tammuz, since they misinterpreted what they were seeing. The nation’s sense of hearing was improperly used in the month of Av, since the Jews accepted the bad report of the meraglim on the ninth of Av. Hashem then decreed that day to be a day of calamity.
The first letters of the names Reuven and Shimon spell the Hebrew word “rash” which means poor. The corresponding months of Tammuz and Av are thus “poor” months—as they are months in which the Jewish nation suffered destruction and defeat.
In the Shacharis prayer right before Shemoneh Esrei, we refer to Hashem as “Ozer dalim”—He who helps the poor. This refers to these two “poor” months in particular when Hashem gives divine help to us.
While the word “dal” means poor, it also means to lift up, as is illustrated in the words in Tehillim, “Aromimcha Hashem ki dilisani”—I praise you Hashem because you lifted me up. In these “poor” months, many calamities happened to the Jewish nation. Our prayer to Hashem is to transform these months from being poor to to ones in which we are “lifted up!”
In our Selichos prayers preceding the Yomim Noaraim, we say “k’dalim uchroshim dafaknu d’laseicha’’—like the dal and rosh (poor) we knock on Your door. This refers to the months of Tammuz and Av which are the dal—low/poor months. The last letter of the word “delet”—door— is “tav.” When you add the tav to the letters Dalet and Lamed (which spell dal-—poor), it spells delet—a door. Therefore, we implore Hashem to help us in these two poor months to transform them from being dal—poor—to becoming a “delet”—a door— a portal to connect to Hashem. Tammuz and Av lead into the month of Elul, when we knock on Hashem’s door.
During the months of Tammuz and Av, we need to make sure that we’re using our senses of sight and hearing properly. During the three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, we refrain from listening to music. We clear our sense of hearing to train it to listen to only good and positive things.
Each day when we say Shema—(which means to) listen—we are focusing our sense of hearing. We should also have the ability to read and listen to words of Torah, which revitalize these senses of sight and hearing. Of course, these months are also a time to look and listen for opportunities to help our fellow Jews repair these senses. With these efforts, when we will knock on Hashem’s door in Elul, Hashem will open His door wide for us and accept our prayers.
Rabbi Baruch Bodenheim is the associate rosh yeshiva of Passaic Torah Institute (PTI)/Yeshiva Ner Boruch. Rabbi Bodenheim can be reached at [email protected]. For more info about PTI and its Torah classes, visit www.pti.shulcloud.com
