Orchids

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

I read an obituary last week which greatly inspired me. No, it was not in the Yated, it was way too short and besides it wasn’t about the type of person we normally write about.

The article was about an old man who lived to 95. The father of three, “grandfather of three and great-grandfather of three, died February 17 at his home in Carmel, NY.”

That was the first sentence. The second sentence reads: “He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, was a master gardener and raised orchids, and was president of several companies.”

And that’s it. That’s all there is to write about the man from Carmel who lived to 95. One could be excused for thinking that his greatest accomplishment was to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.

Interestingly, the article doesn’t say if he stood out in his fighting ability or earned any medals for his valor under fire.

We can be excused for thinking that he was a simple soldier. He enlisted, or more likely was drafted into the army. Went through training, learned how to shoot, and was sent to the battlefield. Thankfully he survived, though that was not as great an accomplishment as fighting.

Surviving that particular battle was no simple matter, it was the second-most lethal battle for Americans in the Second World War, killing 19,276 American men and boys in a six-week period. Ultimately, the allies won and defeated the Germans, bringing the end of WWII much closer.

The man from Carmel fought in that war. Very impressive. And that’s about it for him. He had three children, which is also an impressive accomplishment. And that’s really basically all there is to say about him. How sad. So many decades spent in this world and so little to say for all that time.

Now, he also gardened, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is quite a nice activity. It provides exercise, is calming, and usually is productive, helping the earth to give forth fine produce and flowers. This man apparently took a special interest in growing orchids, something his biographer finds quite important to mention.

Don’t get me wrong, orchids are difficult to grow. In fact, I read somewhere that even professional growers can not keep many of them alive.

The statement that he was president of several companies, seems to indicate that he did okay for himself financially, but we can’t be sure because it is added like an afterthought. His life was about gardening and the Battle of the Bulge.

I hope nobody sues me and I have no hideous intention to libeling this man, but the obituary got me thinking.

There is so much we can accomplish here, but life is so fleeting, and if we don’t set ourselves to it, we may wake up one day and have accomplished little more than gardening and toying with orchids.

Why think such morbid thoughts at the outset of Adar Beis, just a couple weeks ahead of Purim and the most festive time of the Jewish calendar.

Firstly, because everything that happens and everything we read and see should prompt us to learn a lesson and become a better person. Chancing on the obituary was for a purpose, for in our lives there is no chance, everything is for a reason.

This week we read parshas Vayakheil, its name referring to the morning after Yom Kippur when Moshe gathered together the Jewish people as he returned from Har Sinai with the second set of luchos. He spoke to them about constructing the mishkon and the need for their donations of the material necessary for the mishkon and its keilim; and the clothing of the kohanim.

The people rushed to bring of their possessions and craftsmen lined up to assist in the construction effort under the direction of Bezalel.

Donating and working in unison, the job was completed.

This Shabbos we “bentch rosh chodesh” proclaiming the arrival of Adar Beis, the month in which the nes purim took place as the Jews came together as one unit, fasting, praying and doing teshuvah.

This week is also Parshas Shekolim, as we read the first six pesukim of parshas Ki Sisa which speak of the commandment to count the Jewish people. Every man over the age of twenty contributed a half-shekel coin (to the avodah of the mishkon and korbanos tzibur) and those coins were counted. The poor could not give a smaller denomination coin and the rich could not give one that was more valuable. Everyone was obligated to give a half-shekel coin.

Many commentators discuss why the Torah favored a half-shekel, as opposed to each person giving a complete shekel. The oft-quoted explanation was provided by Rav Shlomo Alkabetz, Tzefas mystic and most famously the author of Lecha Dodi, who said that this is to show that each person on his own is only a part, he only becomes a whole, when he joins with the rest of the community.

Rabbeinu Bachya takes it a step deeper and says that since these coins also brought about forgiveness - the posuk refers to their contribution as kofer nefesh ­– that is caused when a person donates for the greater community. Just as the coins join together and are used for the greater communal good, so too the merits of each individual are joined together with the others and each participant is accredited with the communal accomplishment.

Such achdus ­has a tremendous power, giving the individual the strength of everyone together. No person can stand up to the microscope of the mishpot of the Beis Din Shel Maaloh, but when the people are united then they all rise together and every individual’s zechuyos are combined into one large communal zechus which belongs to each participant.

The Alter of Kelm doesn’t quote Rabbeinu Bachya, but he takes it a step further, and explains that something that one person does by himself can’t accomplish the same thing as when two people together perform the same act. If one middle class person seeks to invest his money he cannot expect a handsome gain, however if a group of people pool together their money they can create a larger business and profit much more than each person would have on his own with a small business.

The same applies with charity, one person on his own cannot provide all the support the poor need. However, if many people join together and each gives what he can, the poor will have been provided for, and each individual is rewarded as if he had provided for all the poor people the group’s contributions supported.

The mishkon as well could not have been built had everyone not responded to Moshe’s appeal for material and labor; it was only because each person contributed, therefore the credit for construction of the holy edifice was accrued to each person.

It is for this reason that the Torah states than no man can give more than another for the count, to show that since each person did what they can for the greater good, it is considered as if each person built the mishkon.

One person cannot move a heavy rock, but if a large people join together, their efforts receive added strength and they can accomplish what they want.

Our days are numbered, but the more we join with others, the more we come together as a group, the more we can accomplish and the more zechuyos we earn for ourselves. The actions which we can perform in our limited years take on much more effectiveness and eternity when we don’t stand off alone, unaccompanied, but as part of a shul, a community, Am Yisroel.

If you look at a beautifully landscaped field, it is each blade of grass which contributes to the beauty. One blade on its own is barely perceptible, but when you combine one perfect blade with another and another and another, you begin to have something to marvel over.

The same is with a field of flowers, orchids for example. Each orchid by itself needs to be nourished and cared for to survive and stand out for its beauty and colorization. But what is even more beautiful is when you observe a field of orchids.

Every member of Klal Yisroel is like an orchid, with proper care, nourishment and light, it is something beautiful. But the beauty of our people is so much greater if all the orchids join together and provide a display of gorgeous exquisiteness way off into the horizon.

This week we have three achdus markers: Vayakheil, Shekolim and Chodesh Adar.

Let us have had enough of squabbling, of finding fault, of speaking negatively about and to other people.

Let us resolve to join together, to help each other grow, to nurture one another and to see the beauty in each other.

Like one who raises orchids.

How To Tell Right From Wrong When the Wrong Seems So Right

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

The left is celebrating. Retail giant Amazon was coming to New York City. The mammoth operation was going to open a new headquarters in Long Island City, a formerly run-down area of warehouses and factories. Amazon was bringing 25,000 high-paying jobs to the city. Not only would the headquarters be spending billions of dollars in the city, but its well-paid staff would help pick up local real estate and commerce on all levels.

Last week, Amazon announced that it had enough of the many blockades the leftists had put up to hinder its arrival to New York. It was staying home. Sorry, New Yorkers, the golden opportunity so many other cities fought over was ending. Amazon wouldn’t be building a new headquarters after all.

The left is thrilled. Their hatred for large corporations and rich people, such as the owner of Amazon, exposed their lie that they care about workers and the poor. They chased out the best opportunity for workers and the poor that has been presented in a long time. The more that people are earning and spending money, the more money there is going around, and the more income there is for builders, plumbers, electricians, bodega owners, craftsmen, repairmen and domestic help.

The progressives who have taken over the Democrat Party destroyed a prime opportunity to enhance the economy, while mainstream Democrats sat on their hands and permitted it to happen.

Such is the pattern of socialists around the world. They promise a panacea, a worker’s paradise, yet in the name of fairness, they destroy any chance at economic growth. Wherever they go, ruin follows. Fine oratory and promises of free stuff and guaranteed incomes never come through. Instead, they bring corruption, destruction, bankruptcy, hunger and starvation.

Such is the way of the Soton.

In this week’s parsha of Ki Sisa, we read of the tragic downfall of the Bnei Yisroel as they sinned with the Eigel. Moshe Rabbeinu went up to Har Sinai to receive the Torah, and when he failed to return at the expected time, the people began worshiping a golden calf that had been crafted from their jewelry.

How could the most knowledgeable generation of all, who are referred to as the “dor dei’ah” and who stood at Har Sinai and declared the angelic words, “Na’aseh venishma,” accepting upon themselves all that Hashem would command, surrender their loyalty to Moshe for a small golden image pulled out of a fire?

What caused this exalted people, for whom Hashem performed so many miracles, to fail? What caused them to be led astray from the leadership of Moshe and Aharon and consider an inanimate object to be G-d’s emissary? It seems irrational and incomprehensible.

Rashi (32:1) explains that at the root of the sin with the Golden Calf was that Moshe had told the Bnei Yisroel that he was scaling the mountain and would return in forty days. The people erred in their calculation and feared that Moshe would not return to lead them. Rashi quotes the Gemara (Shabbos 89a) which states that the Soton contributed to the fear that Moshe would not return. He created a mirage of Moshe’s body being carried in heaven in a casket. When they saw that, they believed that he had died and feared for their future without him leading them in the desert.

If so, why is the sin of the Eigel one of the most catastrophic to befall Klal Yisroel? Why were the people faulted for believing that Moshe would never return to lead them? How can we fault them for not believing what they saw with their very own eyes? How were they to know that it was a mirage set up by the Soton to fool them?

Their mistake, it appears, was their failure to question those images. They should have probed for the truth behind the mirage. They should have contemplated the possibility that their calculations were in error.

Despite seeing Moshe in a way in which he clearly appeared to be no longer alive, they should have still trusted his promise that he would return to lead them. They should have restrained the impulse to rush to a conclusion and immediately seek to find a substitute.

One of the ways in which the Soton causes us to err and sin is by inducing us with the urge of a quick response. Jumping to conclusions based on immediate assumptions and without a clear dissection of what has transpired leads people to serious errors. It is folly to act without seeing the whole picture and figuring out what happened by examining the circumstances from all angles.

Often, it requires much thought and consultation with people who are older and smarter. They have better analytical skills. They have also learned much from experience.

Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky was heard giving advice to a young man. “Listen to what that person is telling you. Ehr iz mit ah dor nenter. He is a generation closer to brias ha’olam. He understands better.”

When the people thought that Moshe was delayed and the Soton caused the Bnei Yisroel to fear that he would not be able to lead them anymore, they turned to Aharon Hakohein and said to him, “Come and make for us a god who can show us the way.”

Meforshim offer many explanations of this request. Some say that the Jews sought for themselves a leader with a Divine connection. Although they didn’t necessarily intend to perform avodah zorah, nevertheless, since they attached godliness to an inert object, they had committed the cardinal sin.

Others see the Eigel as a blatant sin of avodah zorah committed by a minority of the people. The others were also blamed for what happened because they did not protest what the minority was doing.

When approached, Aharon sought to delay the Bnei Yisroel from finding a replacement for Moshe until the next day. He told them to bring forward their wives’ golden jewelry. When thrown into a large fire, the image of a calf was formed. Aharon promised, “We will celebrate before Hashem tomorrow.”

The next morning, the people awoke early and began partying and engaging in promiscuous conduct. Aharon’s plan went up in smoke as the group sank to a depraved level. They quickly slid from holiness to depravity, and within a short time, they had gone from the apex of spiritual achievement to Hashem wanting to destroy the Jewish people.

Moshe pleaded that the people be saved. He came down from the mountain and called for those who were loyal to Hashem to join him. Only the tribe of Levi rallied to him. The shevet that dedicated itself to the study of Torah and was free from Egyptian enslavement was the only one that grasped that the need of the hour was to cast their lot with Moshe. The others were too far gone. They left the fold because they were convinced that Moshe wouldn’t return. And when he did return, they failed to heed his call.

Life often throws challenges of this sort our way. Things appeal to our senses, tempting us against our better judgment. We find ourselves being seduced by outward appearances and scenes that the Soton paints for us. We disobey our teachings, traditions and common sense, because we are dazzled or enraptured by something we can’t resist pursuing. We convince ourselves that there is nothing remiss with our behavior. We resort to all kinds of excuses and rationales to justify our actions.

A person of high standards can work hard and construct an edifice of Torah and gedulah. Unexpectedly, the Soton appears in various guises in an effort to bring the building crashing down. It may be through machlokes or perhaps the temptations of kinah, taavah and kavod. With his vast arsenal of tools, the Soton attempts to destroy what took decades of painstaking effort to build.

We have to see through his attempts to sow mayhem and remain loyal to the cause. Dare not be led astray. If the message leads to diminished respect for Torah or manhigim, that is a clue that something is amiss.

In every generation, there are people blessed with grace and charisma who feed opium to the masses. No matter how many are smitten by the charm, we must remember that our eyes fool us. We must resist the deceptions of people with self-serving agendas who tempt others to follow paths that they pave for them and demonstrate to be proper and necessary. Time after time, people are misled led down a path to destruction. The urge to enjoy life is so great that people ignore what their mind dictates and instead follow their emotions. Charlatans play on the innate urge for enjoyment and easily mislead people.

Instead of offering real solutions to the problems that confound their countries, politicians and leaders engage in demagoguery. Resolutions to disputes are only arrived at through calm, rational discussions, but they don’t even bother to try. Instead, they play groups against each other, alternately calming and inciting the masses as necessary to maintain their popularity. They create one crisis after another, never solving them, utilizing the mess for political opportunism.

Instead of the opposition encouraging investment and providing businesses with incentives to hire, they give speeches vilifying successful segments of the population. That makes the unsuccessful feel good, but it does nothing to contribute to a healthy economy, which would help people in a sustainable, honorable fashion.

It is simpler to demagogue and manipulate people’s thought processes, spreading fear and anxiety while polarizing groups that don’t support you. Instead of negotiating a solution to the country’s illegal immigration problem, one party erects a wall, promising to block the president’s plans.

The opposition is happier with every new investigation, though even as they mount, they accomplish little more than stymieing good governance and providing fodder for demagogues.

A political party that supports every deviant lifestyle and fights to grant rights to criminal trespassers in this country also supports the murder of living babies. A party that views a governor’s high school pranks with more seriousness and consequences than professional infanticide has corrupted any moral standards it ever had. The first steps on the path off the plantation were taken by people who claimed to be motivated by life and freedom. The path grew increasingly slippery and angled downhill as leaders bent the compass pointer further away from the earth’s magnetic field. Anti-Semitic newbies are placed on sensitive congressional committees and their transgressions are allowed to disappear. Still, almost half of this country supports the party that acts more irrationally every day.

Early Maskilim of the nineteenth century were religious people who sought to tweak some minhagim and halachos in order to perfect their religion and make it conform to the mores of the day. Haskalah was a Golden Calf that entrapped so many of our brethren, uprooting their beliefs and estranging untold thousands from their heritage.

Secular Zionism was another Eigel. On paper, it had a compelling logic. How many more pogroms could a beleaguered people endure? Those who bought into the ideology became ensnared in apostasy and ended up rejecting Torah.

In each instance, it fell upon the bnei Levi to rally around the Moshe of the generation and attempt to minimize the casualties.

The Soton works in other ways as well. He portrays death and desolation, planting seeds of despondency and despair among the Jewish people. The bnei Levi must not be deterred. They must remain steadfast in their devotion to Torah and its causes despite the apparent bleakness of the situation.

The rov of Ponovezh, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, lost almost everything during the Second World War. Most of his family, talmidim and townspeople, and virtually his entire world, were destroyed. He arrived in Bnei Brak after the war and set about rebuilding what the Nazis had annihilated. People thought that his war experiences had robbed him of his sanity. All they saw was death and destruction. It seemed obvious that the world of Torah could never be rebuilt. European Jewish civilization was gone and could never be replicated, they argued.

That’s what smaller people believed and said. Smaller people gave up. They considered the Ponovezher Rov out of touch with reality.

Smaller people see the confusion and falsehood spawned by evil forces in this world to confound people and destroy their confidence. The bnei Levi must resist the urge to view reality through despairing lenses, instead remaining purposefully committed to the greater truth.

The Lithuanian yeshivos and Chassidic communities, destroyed in the old country and rebuilt by determined penniless Holocaust refugees, are a testament to the fortitude and persistence of those lofty souls who are the Moshes of the generation and the bnei Levi who gather around them. Try as he might, the Soton could not conquer them and lead them down the path of the Golden Calf.

Millions of Jews fled to this country during the first half of the last century, victims of anti-Semitic persecution. Tragically, they and their children became lost to our glorious chain and heritage. It is not for us to judge them, but, apparently, they fell prey to the Soton’s lie that the new country demanded a new lifestyle and that those who clung to the ways of the Torah would never succeed.

The meraglim also failed, because they permitted their eyes to fool them. As a consequence of their refusal to accept the exhortations of Yehoshua and Kaleiv, they ended up revolting against Moshe, Aharon and even Hashem. They met the same fate as those who danced around the Eigel.

How do we save ourselves from drowning in a sea of illusion? How do we remain upright in a world turned upside down? How can we tell apart right from wrong, when the wrong seems so right? How do we discern truth from fiction in a world where the fiction is so seductive? We are driven to be successful and well-liked. How can we be expected to jeopardize that and battle our friends?

We must deepen our study of Torah and mussar, ignoring the flatteries that seek to derail us from the righteous path.

If we remain well grounded, our eyes won’t mislead us and we will remain uncorrupted, earning the brachos of Hashem.

Heart

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Napoleon wrote that an army of rats can win a battle. How, you ask, is this possible? They can win if they are led by a lion. Conversely, an army of lions can go to battle and suffer a crushing defeat if they are led by a rat.

A single person can lead many much smaller people on a successful path if he is honest, courageous and moral. If he is a man of spirit and goodness, he can bring about virtue, superiority and wholesomeness.

Every week, we read one parsha of the Torah, and each week until this one, the portion dealt with the creation of the world and the formation and development of Am Yisroel, culminating with the giving of the Torah on Har Sinai.

This week, with Parshas Terumah, we move on to the parshiyos that discuss the Mishkon Hashem and the various avodos performed there.

To construct the Mishkon, it was necessary to solicit the Jewish people to bring forth gold, silver, copper and other materials. The success of the first Jewish building project was the same as the many others that would follow for millennia. It was dependent on the donations of the most philanthropic people the world has known.

Who to take from? Is every donation accepted or are there qualifications and limitations? The posuk states, “Veyikchu li terumah mei’eis kol ish asher yidvenu libo... Accept donations from all those whose hearts motivate them.”

Moshe Rabbeinu was commanded to accept contributions only from people who possessed “nedivus halev.”

What is “nedivus halev” and why was Moshe limited to taking donations for the Mishkon from people who possessed this attribute?

Rashi explains that asher yidvenu libo is a depiction of good intentions - “preshnit belaz,” a clean heart.

In Parshas Shemos (4:13-14), we find that when Moshe was in Midyon, Hashem appeared to him and asked him to return to Mitzrayim and speak on His behalf to the Jewish people. Moshe deferred and asked that his older brother, Aharon, be appointed to the leadership position.

Hashem was upset with Moshe and told him that he should continue to Mitzrayim and Aharon would joyfully come to welcome him, overcome with joy at Moshe’s selection.

The posuk states, “Vero’acha vesomach belibo.” Rashi explains that Hashem was telling Moshe that he was wrong to assume that Aharon would feel upstaged by his brother’s appointment as leader of the Jewish people. In fact, Aharon would be happy for him. “Vesomach belibo. He will see you, and in his heart he will be happy for you.”

Rashi states that in reward for his heartfelt happiness over the promotion of his younger brother, Aharon later merited to serve as the kohein gadol in the Mishkon and wear the Choshen over his heart.

What made him worthy of serving in the Holy of Holies was that he experienced selfless joy over his brother’s accomplishments.

Because his heart was pure, he was an “oheiv shalom verodeif shalom,” able to pursue peace between other people. His selflessness allowed him to see the good in other people, relate to them, and bring them together when they became estranged.

He brought peace to warring partners and incompatible spouses. He brought people closer to Torah. He wore the Choshen and performed Hashem’s holy service in the Mishkon because he was the one about whom the Torah testified, “Vero’acha vesomach belibo.”

He was a selfless giant, unencumbered by jealousy. He was a lion.

Such are the types of people who are the foundations of Klal Yisroel – Moshe, who would rather forgo Hashem’s appointment than hurt his brother’s feelings, and Aharon, who was overjoyed by his brother’s position. When seeking people with whom to construct edifices of holiness, such as the Mishkon, we look to people “asher yidvenu libo.”

A Mishkon is constructed with the help of people who possess pure and clean hearts, thus donating with the fullest measure of good intentions.

To build a Mishkon, bringing holiness to this world and carrying out major accomplishments, you must only involve people who possess good hearts. They must give without conditions and be motivated to contribute in order to enhance the public welfare.

If you want to accomplish and build, it is incumbent to keep a distance from those who are not able to rejoice in another’s happiness and contribute out of selfish interests. To be a builder of kedusha, you have to be able to distinguish between those who are giving because they want to give and those who give because they want something in return.

For a full, happy life of accomplishments, mold your heart in the pattern of Aharon Hakohein. Study Torah and mussar so that your middos become perfected and you are selfless, non-judgmental and unburdened by jealousy.

Nedivei lev are positive-minded people who seek to help others and spread brotherhood, G-dliness and goodness in this world. Their lives become a chain of goodness, happiness and greatness. They exist to help and support others, thus meriting positions of leadership in the Mishkan Hashem.

They are the lions who influence others to rise and excel.

They inspire others and the ripples of their contributions create waves of righteousness.

Speaking at the levayah of the Ponovezher Rov, Rav Elozor Menachem Man Shach expounded upon the Medrash (Eicha Rabosi 1:37) which derives that the passing of tzaddikim is more difficult for Hashem than the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh.

Rav Shach combined this teaching with the lesson Chazal derive from the posuk in this week’s parsha which describes the commandment of constructing the Mishkon. The Torah says (25:8), “Ve’asu li Mikdosh veshochanti besocham. And they shall build for Me a Mikdosh and I will dwell among them.”

He explained that when Hashem sought a home for the Shechinah, the intention was not to limit it to the four walls of the Mikdosh. The Shechinah was brought down to this world so that every Jewish person could create within himself a home for the Shechinah.This objective is realized most often by tzaddikim, those righteous ones who dedicate all their energies and abilities to Torah and maasim tovim, enabling them to form within themselves a place where the Shechinah can, kevayachol, feel comfortable. Thus, the passing of a tzaddik is more severe than the churban of the Bais Hamikdosh.

It is the tzaddikim in every generation who form within themselves a home for holiness, and it is the tzaddikim who step forward to enable the formation of central places of holiness for the benefit of the rest of Am Yisroel.

This week rang in Adar, the month of happiness. As Chazal say, “Mishenichnas Adar marbim b’simcha. Joy increases as Adar begins.”

Many wonder how to achieve happiness. People are sad. They feel unfulfilled. They are frustrated. Life isn’t turning out the way they intended. Everyone prospers, it seems, but them.

What are they to do? What can they do to bring a smile to their faces?

The last halacha in Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim indicates how this can be done. It states there that in a year in which there are two months of Adar, such as this year, there is no obligation to celebrate the fourteenth day of the first Adar with a festive meal or with increased joy.

The Rama concurs and says that even though some argue with the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch and hold that there is an obligation for feasting and jubilance on the 14th day of the first Adar as well, our custom does not follow that ruling.

Nevertheless, the Rama posits that in deference to the ruling of those who are more stringent and require mishteh and simcha, it is proper to add something special to our meals on the 14th day of the first Adar.

To complete his ruling and to round out his discussion of the halacha and the entirety of Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim, the Rama quotes a posuk that seems to sum it all up: “Vetov lev mishteh somid. The person who is goodhearted is always happy.”

The lev tov delights in the happiness of others. A lev tov is not a negative cynic who criticizes those who dedicate their lives to building, doing and helping. A lev tov recognizes a good cause and volunteers his assistance. A lev tov seeks to use his life to increase G-dliness and happiness in the world.

Significantly, Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim opens with the posuk of “Shivisi Hashem lenegdi somid” and ends with “Vetov lev mishteh somid.” The connection between the two statements is obvious: A person who always views Hashem before him is one who can be in a perpetual state of happiness. He who realizes that all that transpires in this world is only by Hashem’s will is a person who is constantly at peace with himself and in harmony with others.

People who refuse to admit that Hashem runs the world fall prey to negativity, pettiness and jealousy. They are therefore frequently upset and sad.

A person who observes the posuk of “Shivisi Hashem lenegdi somid” is one who is happy with his lot because he realizes that such is the will of Hashem. Such a person is a “tov lev” and is “mishteh somid.”

The Rama cites the posuk about a lev tov always being happy in reference to a year with two months of Adar, indicating that both months are auspicious times to work on inculcating in ourselves the ability to increase joy in our lives.

Last week sported historically cold weather in the Northeast, but this week, Rosh Chodesh Adar brought a warming trend. Last week we froze, while this week we come to life. Let us thaw out our souls and hearts from the intense frost of golus and seek good causes in which to involve ourselves. In the spirit of Adar, let us rid our hearts of disease, evil thoughts and malice towards others. It will make us all happier and healthier.

Let us bring ourselves to the level at which the Shechinah would feel comfortable within us, and let us use our abilities to help create places for kedusha to grow. May we all merit healthy, good hearts, bursting with happiness and joy during Adar and all year round.