A Ma’amar for the Month of Adar

By the gaon haTzaddik, The Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a

The month of Adar is bound up with the secret of Reisha D’lo Ityada—the “Unknowable Head,” as is brought in the name of the Gaon of Vilna in Mayim Adirim (72b): from it all lights are differentiated and drawn forth. This is the inner meaning of the verses: “They are satisfied from the abundance of Your House, and You give them to drink from the river of Your delights,” and “For with You is the source of life; in Your light we see light.” These are the three lights—the secret of chammah, shemesh, cheres.

For the sun is the secret of: “The beginning of Your word is truth, and forever are all the judgments of Your righteousness.” From it comes the beginning—the root—for the three Avos. Avraham is called “sun,” in the secret of: “Hashem Tzevakos is a sun and a shield.” Yitzchak, who embodies Gevuros, is called chammah (the burning sun). And Yaakov, who embodies Tiferes, is called cheres, in the secret of: “Who says to the sun (cheres), ‘Do not shine,’” because his thigh was dislocated until the sun came.

This is the secret of the month of Adar: its initials allude to Reisha D’lo Ityada. Then the “enemy of the Jews” is overturned—through the supernal Eden, hidden above all hiddenness: the secret of supernal Chochmah from the Fiftieth Gate, which is revealed on Purim in Adar II. Then one merits: “May the soul of my master be bound in the bond of life,” in the secret of “the river of Your delights.”

The Gaon of Vilna says that the initials also allude to “revealed—sun—moon,” for “the bond of life” is the secret of the Fiftieth Gate. Haman wanted to strengthen the fifty gates of impurity against the fifty gates of holiness—against the secret of “the bond of life.” This is also the secret of the permutation of the awesome Name ההי"ו, which emerges from the verse: “Binding to the vine his donkey, and to the choice vine the colt of his donkey.” This is the permutation ההי"ו, which transforms אָתוֹן (donkey) into the letter נ׳—the secret of the letter נ׳: miracles and wonders, drawn from the hidden mind of Atika, which is above the Chesed of Atika.

To that place Mordechai the Tzaddik ascended through the awesome decrees of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. Through those terrible decrees, Mordechai rose to the Fiftieth Gate, and through this he subdued Haman by means of “the bond of life.” He transformed “the enemy of the Jews” into “the bond of life.”

For with the holy Name ההו"י of Adar, one must have intention during the Musaf prayer of Rosh Chodesh, as brought in Bnei Yissaschar. Then one is transformed from the “donkey-shell” of Bilam that exists within every single Jew—the secret of the “fleeing serpent” and the “twisting serpent,” for Bilam’s very bones were turned into serpents—into “the colt of his donkey” of Moshiach ben David, “poor and riding on a donkey.” This is the donkey that Avraham rode at the Akeidah; it is the donkey upon which Moshe placed Tzipporah and his sons. In her merit he merited to be “the man Moshe, exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth,” as the Arizal writes regarding the juxtaposition of “a Cushite woman” to “the man Moshe was humble.” Through this he merited to make all of Am Yisrael hear the Aseres HaDibros with voices and lightning—flames and lightning that went from one end of the world to the other.

Therefore the weekly parashah is: “And the tablets were the work of G-d, and the writing was the writing of G-d, engraved upon the tablets.” For in the merit of Am Yisrael guarding their eyes—as it says in Midrash HaGadol, “each man came with his household,” meaning that not one person recognized anyone outside his own home—his wife—no sister and no other relative; and so Am Yisrael guarded their purity and holiness for the entire two hundred and ten years. Had they continued in holiness and purity, they would have heard the second Aseres HaDibros as well—when they entered the Land the second time—with voices and lightning, flames and lightning.

But after everything was overturned for them into the sin of the Golden Calf—as the first Tanna says (in Midrash Rabbah), “They turned quickly from the way”—the moment Moshe disappeared from them, they began thinking how to make a calf. For when a person becomes separated from the Tzaddik, even for a brief moment, thoughts immediately come upon him against his will—how to make a “calf.” For they were still in the frenzy of idolatry, until the Men of the Great Assembly came, and with the power of the Shemoneh Esrei they completely nullified this terrible craving.

For the month of Adar—as Michtav Eliyahu explains—is the month in which we return to believing in the true Tzaddik, even though he provokes Haman and does not follow the statement that it is forbidden to provoke a wicked person. He lifts his foot and his sole and shows Haman that he is still his servant—and not only that he is his servant, but that he is a Jew. For the power of the Tzaddik is to transform even the “Haman” within each and every person into a Jew, as Rashi says in Megillah 15a, and Rashi on Esther 5:13. The Chatam Sofer explains that Haman and all his sons were Jews, and were obligated in mitzvos like a woman. And all of this is through the power of Mordechai HaYehudi, who can transform even Haman the enemy (496) of the Jews into the bond (496) of life, and obligate him in mitzvos—through the Tzaddik who is called “Livyatan” [Zohar, Ki Teitzei 279]. This is the secret of the feast of Livyatan (496), which one merits after transforming the enemy of the Jews into the bond of life.

All of this is accomplished through the power of the true Tzaddik in every generation, who nullifies all decrees and turns them into the aspect of: “And it was turned around, that the Jews ruled over their enemies.” Then the verse will be fulfilled: “On that day Hashem will punish with His harsh and great and strong sword the Livyatan, the fleeing serpent, and the Livyatan, the twisting serpent, and He will slay the dragon that is in the sea” [Isaiah 27].