Introduction
The circle of life is just that: the circle of life. There are beautiful and joyful moments in life, moments of sorrow and mourning, and there is the routine of life. In every situation and at every stage, Judaism has instructions: how to behave, what to do and what not to do.
Why is it so? Why does God ‘interfere’ with us at every stage of our lives?
Like everything in life, it’s also a matter of perspective.
God’s great love for his children is the ‘motivation’ for him to give us guidance on how to behave in every chapter of our life. He, as the creator of man, as the programmer of the world, knows best for us, and he has ensured that we are closely accompanied at every stage.
What would you answer to the question ‘What is the date today’?
It depends where you are asked. In a bank or in a synagogue.
The calendar that determines the order of Jewish life is the Hebrew calendar. Unlike the Gregorian calendar used in Christianity (and adopted by most countries in the world) which is based on the sun’s annual cycle, and the calendar used in Islam which is based on the monthly cycle of the moon, the Hebrew calendar is based on a combination of the sun and moon: the months are determined according to the moon’s monthly cycle, while the year is determined by the sun’s annual cycle.
The most significant difference between the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars pertains to the start of a new day. While according to the Gregorian calendar, the day changes at midnight (which is always exactly 24:00), in the Hebrew calendar, the transition occurs after the stars come out. Therefore, when you remember the Gregorian date of your child’s birth and want to convert it to the Hebrew date, try to know the birth time beforehand: if the child was born, for example, on Wednesday 2.2.16 after sunset, the day in the Hebrew calendar has already changed and at the time of birth it’s already Thursday, the Hebrew date of the next day, while in the Gregorian calendar you are still on the same day and date until midnight.
Who established the Hebrew calendar?
In the past, the Hebrew calendar was not fixed. They could not know during the month when the month would end and the next month would begin. Everything depended on the sighting of the new moon, which appears initially as a small and narrow ‘banana’ that inflates until it turns into a full ball in the middle of the month, and then decreases and shrinks until it disappears at the end of the month.
The year was also not quite predictable and depended on the spring season. Would it be a year with 12 months or a leap year with 13 months? Everything depended on the reality of the sun’s warmth in the region at those times. The Sanhedrin determined this by calculating the periods of the year.
Since the days of one of the great sages of Israel, Hillel the Elder (Hillel the Third), the Hebrew calendar in use today began. We are not dependent on the physical sighting of the moon or on checking the crops in the arrival of spring, but everything is calculated and built in advance. According to the calculations that the sages of Israel built for us (in light of a true and comprehensive knowledge of the celestial bodies, of course), we can now know the beginning of the month in a few decades and whether it will be a leap year or not.
Welcome
A spiritual journey so profound that it traverses the soul from its exit from the womb into the world.
The Jewish soul originates from a very high spiritual place, being sheltered under God and enjoying the radiance of His presence. Until one dim day (so it seems to her, for now), she is called for a mission and is sent into this world.
The difficulties in her adaptation to the mission are very great. She has to undergo spiritual processes that cause her to change and become suitable for our physical and material world. She has to start getting used to hearing ‘songs’ she was not accustomed to hearing when she was in a high and lofty spiritual world.
And not only that, upon descending below, she is no longer spiritual and free, but rather connected within a physical body, with needs and desires and cravings not to her liking. She has to contend with the home (the body) in which she finds herself throughout her years here in the world.
So, why does God ‘complicate’ things for her? Why throw the soul into such a place?
The role of the spiritual and holy soul is to bring holiness and spirituality here in the physical world in which we exist. To give the person in whom she resides different perspectives, taken from the higher world from which she arrived. And as much as the person fulfills her desires here in our world, the joy and happiness of the soul within him will grow and increase. Her great, incomprehensible sorrow with her descent below, is replaced by immense joy at fulfilling her role and mission here.
Don’t worry, she eventually receives compensation, a soul that has done all the journey here below, and succeeded (at least partially) in her missions to elevate and improve the person in whom she was, receives her great reward when she returns home – to the spiritual worlds, and she reaches a spiritual place higher than where she was before she descended – and then she is already happy about the journey that has ended.
“The soul descends to this world and lives seventy-eighty years, in order to do a favor to a Jew once, in physicality and especially in spirituality.”
(Baal Shem Tov)
