Saturday, July 2, 2011

Rosh Chodesh TAMMUZ

B"H

Tonight and tomorrow (Sunday), we are celebrating the beginning of the new month of Tammuz (Rosh Chodesh Tammuz). As I have mentioned many times before, the beginning of a new Jewish month also stands for a new beginning in life. Or at least could stand for it when people are ready to change.

The month of Tammuz doesn't at all include the most positive events in Jewish history but Chassidut Chabad has changed this fact a bit. According to Chabad, in Tammuz, Meshiach is preparing his arrival. Furthermore, in Tammuz, Chabad is celebrating the release from jail of the sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. The Rebbe was released from Russian jail in Tammuz 1927. Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak was the father - in - law of the seventh and last Lubavitcher Rebben, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in June 1994 (on 3rd (Gimmel) Tammuz) in New York.

- The first Tammuz tragedy in the history of the Jewish people happened on 17 Tammuz. The day when Moshe came down from Mount Sinai, saw the Israelites dancing around the famous Golden Calf (Egel) and thus smashed the tablets (Luchot) due to anger.

- Many years later, on 17 Tammuz the Babylonian destroyed the outer wall of the First Temple. A few weeks later, on 9 Av, the Temple was totally destroyed.

The kabbalistic book Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation) explains that every Jewish month not only has its name but also its letter, its tribe, its humans sense, its horoscope and its body part. The letter of the month of Tammuz is the Chet ח , the horoscope is cancer, the body part is the right hand, the tribe is Reuven and the human sense is seeing (eyes).

Already Adam and Eve (Chava and Adam) in Paradise used their eyes for negative purposes. They looked at the apple and ate it; meaning their eyes desired the fruit. As a result the month of Tammuz is asking us to fix the human sense of seeing and turn it into something positive.

Chodesh Tov – A great and healthy month of Tammuz to all readers !!!


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3 comments:

  1. Apples grow on apple trees. But what fruit grows on the strangely named tree of knowledge of good and evil? For a surprise, do a search: First Scandal.

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  2. B"H

    The "Tree of Knowledge - Etz HaDa'at" stands for a symbolic language and is not necessarily to be taken literally. As a matter of fact, we don't know what it was.

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  3. B'H

    Some say it was a fig.

    But as you said, it is more a Mashal than siomething litteral. Torah means "instruction." It is not a mere book of laws and do and don't do. Every thing written in it, and more particularly in Sefer Bereshis, are practic instructions for our daily lives. Instead of arguing about the literal value of the text, ask yourself: What is the instruction, the message, our Torah wants us to understand from that story?

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