Rosh Chodesh Shvat
Energy: Inner Renewal
Area of Healing: Eating
Body: Stomach
Letter: צ Tzaddik
Mazal: D'li (The pail) דלי
Tribe: Asher
"During the month of Shevat more than all of the rest of the year, one should strive to love peace & pursue peace between each person and his fellow and between each man and his wife" (Mo-ed LeKol)
Rosh Chodesh Shevat is when Moshe said: "And in the fortieth year in the eleventh month on the first of the month Moses spoke to the children of Israel" (Devarim 1:3). The month of Shevat is therefore propitious for *Torah study and understanding as signified by the sign of דלי D'LI, a "bucket" pouring the waters of inspiration into the world.
According to the opinion of Beit Shammai, Shevat is New Year of the Trees, although in practice we follow the opinion of Beit Hillel that this is observed on Tu BiShvat, 15 Shevat (Rosh Hashanah 2a).
WHAT IS YOU CAPACITY TO DRAW WATER?
The significance of the month of shvat
The one who draws water
What is your capacity to draw water
To draw on Hashems shefa and bracha
Just as a large body of water a lake, sea or ocean seems to be infinite
Our capacity for bracha, yeshuot, is beyond what our eye can see
And beneath the surface is teaming with life, is beyond what we can see
But this is the month where we can bring these treasures to the surface
Rosh Chodesh SHEVAT
"During the month of Shevat more than all of the rest of the year, one should strive to love peace & pursue peace between each person and his fellow and between each man and his wife" (Mo-ed LeKol)
Rosh Chodesh Shevat is when Moshe said: "And in the fortieth year in the eleventh month on the first of the month Moses spoke to the children of Israel" (Devarim 1:3). The month of Shevat is therefore propitious for *Torah study and understanding as signified by the sign of דלי D'LI, a "bucket" pouring the waters of inspiration into the world.
According to the opinion of Beit Shammai, Shevat is New Year of the Trees, although in practice we follow the opinion of Beit Hillel that this is observed on Tu BiShvat, 15 Shevat (Rosh Hashanah 2a).
From Sefaria:
In Devarim 20:19, it is taught that we are forbidden to cut down a fruit tree. “For from it you will eat and do not cut it down, for man is the tree of the field.” What does this verse mean? The Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Yehuda Loewe, 1526-1609) explains that there is a magnificent connection between man and a tree. He writes that man is indeed like a tree. His body is like the tree trunk and his limbs are like the branches. But, he is an “upside down tree.” The tree has its roots in the ground while man has his roots in heaven.
רש"י על ראש השנה י״ד א:ט׳:ב׳
הואיל ויצאו רוב גשמי שנה - שכבר עבר רוב ימות הגשמים שהוא זמן רביעה ועלה השרף באילנות ונמצאו הפירות חונטין מעתה:
Rashi on Rosh Hashanah 14a:9:2
Since most of the seasonal rain has come, it is the time of flowering and the sap rises in the trees as the fruit begins to ripen.
משנה ראש השנה א׳:א׳
(א) ארבעה ראשי שנים הם.באחד בניסן ראש השנה למלכים ולרגלים.באחד באלול ראש השנה למעשר בהמה.רבי אלעזר ורבי שמעון אומרים, באחד בתשרי .באחד בתשרי ראש השנה לשנים ולשמטין וליובלות, לנטיעה ולירקות.*באחד בשבט* , ראש השנה לאילן, כדברי בית שמאי.בית הלל אומרים, בחמשה עשר בו.
Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1
(1) The four new years are: On the first of Nisan, the new year for the kings and for the festivals; On the first of Elul, the new year for the tithing of animals; Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Shimon say, in the first of Tishrei. On the first of Tishrei, the new year for years, for the Sabbatical years and for the Jubilee years and for the planting and for the vegetables. On the first of Shevat, the new year for the trees, these are the words of the House of Shammai; The House of Hillel says, on the fifteenth thereof.
Rabbi Weinburger:
Each Zaddik expresses an opinion in Halacha that is in accordance to the root of that Zaddiks neshama/soul.
That disagreement is an expression of a deeper difference between the two ways that they view reality. What is the difference of opinion? What are they really disagreeing about?
WHEN DOES CHANGE HAPPEN?
The tree goes through cycles in its life. The heavy-laden tree of summer empties itself of fruit in the autumn, and then slowly loses its leaves, one by one. By winter time, the tree stands shorn of its previous glory. For all purposes, it appears to have died.
But then comes []Shevat! In the midst of the cold winter days, when all vegetation seems frozen or dead, the sap of the tree starts to flow beneath the surface bark. Rising slowly from roots buried in the hardened soil, the sap pushes its way up, pumping new life into outstretched branches that reach towards the heavens.
In life, we too often go through cycles of growth. Periods of renewal and growth may alternate with times of stagnation or dormancy.
Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe cites that this cycle is part of man's nature. He adds that a person must not become disillusioned when spiritual growth seems halted; the "low" period will usually be followed by a "high" period that will yield new opportunities for growth.
That is the message of Tu B'Shevat: Even when we feel lethargic, in a rut, and seem to have lost the drive to achieve, we must not despair. Just as winter is an annual hiatus in the life cycle of trees, so bouts of lethargy and unproductivity are necessary phases in the human cycle. Just as with the coming of spring, life-giving sap moves imperceptibly through the trees to branches stretching to the sky, so we too will have renewed energy from deep within our spiritual reservoirs, so long as we set our goal heavenward. - Rabbi Ephraim Nisenbaum
1. What kind of tree are you? What physical, emotional and spiritual forms of nourishment do you need to grow well?
2. Which of these are already are available in your environment? Which are you able to "take in" and which are you yet unable to absorb?
3. What is currently unavailable in your environment? How could you change that?
RABBANIT DEVORAH
On Rosh Chodesh Shvat, in Devarim,
Moshe came to clarify the Torah,
The Torah does not say when we received the Torah,
when the Red Sea was parted, but it is a date it did choose to mention.
Until now, Moses was considered a בור who receives the Shefa Eloki
And now it becomes a well that springs the Torah from it
And we all pray for the privilege of being a well
who renews and studies the Torah with love and endless listening.
'and mislead us with your Torah',
Like a small planting, a seedling that is planted in the ground and then grows to become a blessed tree planted on streams of water.
That is where we aim for Torah learning to be
It is assimilated into our being and grows out of us branches, flowers and new fruits in the Torah, like a tree that is renewed now with the coming of spring, right out of it
Following on from yesterday's barley branch
It is reassuring that we will return to the well in the names of Hashem that we dealt with in the lesson,
until the water rises by itself in our well
Chodesh Tov!
May he renew the face of the earth and man
חודש טוב ומבורך
ש יהיו ב שורות ט טובות ,
בא' בשבט 'הואיל משה לבאר את התורה ',
התורה לא מספרת מתי קבלנו את התורה מתי היה מעמד קריעת ים סוף .אבל זה תאריך שכן בחרה להזכיר .
עד עתה היה משה בחינת בור שמקבל את השפע האלוקי ,
ועתה הוא הופך ל באר שמנביעה את התורה מתוכה
וכולנו מתפללים לזכות להיות באר
שמחדשת ולומדת את התורה באהבה ובהקשבה לאין סוף שבה.
'ותטעינו בתורתך' ,
כמו נטיעה קטנה ,שתיל ששותלים.באדמה ואחכ צומח להיות עץ מבורך שתול על פלגי מים.
לשם אנו מכוונים שלימוד התורה יהיה
נטמע בהוויייתנו ומצמיח מתוכנו ענפים פרחים ופירות חדשים בתורה כמו עץ שמתחדש עכשיו עם בא האביב ,מתוכו ממש
בהמשך לסןף השעור אתמול
מרגיעה שעוד נחזור לבאר בשמות ה' שעסקנו בהם בשיעור ,עד שיעלו המים מאליהם בבאר שלנו
שיחדש את פני האדמה והאדם
🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱 🌱
MEDITATION
Based on the Teachings of Reva Emunah Seidel
Shvat / shabbat
A staff= a center pole
An image
A staff and 2 nachashim
The eitz hachaim
Imagine yourself a a tree
Stand tall
Reach out your branches
Feel The lifeforce surging up your sap
Feel it tingling
Where do you feel the sap?
Rising in us
Through our ratzon
From our body, through our emotions
Up to our moach mind
Feel it rise to ayn sof
Above knowledge
infinite potential
Ohr makif to ohr panim
Deeper to ohr hapanim
Everything we’ve been gardening
We start to see it
Do you see the ___ hayuta (Netivot shalom)?
Not just emunah anymore
The Torah
Becomes more deeply embedded
in our energy bodies
Moshe rabbienu chakika
Engraved it into our bones into our neshamas
rosh chodesh shvat
feel the malchut of shvat
He Spoke torah into us
What is YOUR Torah that needs to come out in dibbur?
Today is the day
Encode it with the next level of consciousness
Here we are…
By in the NOW
Nochechut
Reb Osher
Nochechut its YUD key vav key
Tikkun achila
Fixing our relationship with food
Imagine the letter Tzadik as we are eating
Connecting with the Tzadik, not the tzaaadik (Yiddish)
Coming out of the darkness
of tevet
The goodness is more accessible to us
We can see it
Imagine your self blossoming
Connect to the pleasure of seeing your beautiful flowers
Sprouting from you
What colors are they
What do they smell like
Oneg
Connect to it, expance like the pedals of the flower
Asher Shevat according to the AriZl
Part of me is aligned with hashem
Hashevurat ha tzura
But there are still parts of me
My natural self
That needs refinement
What parts of my tree struction
Needs some attention in or to grow
Where are the remnants my fears and doubt
Breath in
And breath out the fear
Breath in
Breath out the doubt.
Are you feeling a bit more lighter?
Clearer?
open to the eitz hachayim
withought your inner turmoil blocking from experiencing pleasure
of connection / dveikut
this is our
Avodat habirurim
As we clarifying ourselves
Asher = osher
Connect to Asher
Your inner wealth
That pure inner place of simcha
True simcha doesn’t come from external circumstances
Only from withing
Open to the Abundance
Receive it for the sake of giving
Baruch Ata hashem elokeinu ASHER
The work of shvat
Who in goodness
In Presence
He Wants connection with us
He wants me to ENJOY bliss joy happiness
He is offering me light right now
breath
feel a Ruach acheret enting you
visualize the tzadi
see the bent over nun, holding up the yud
you are
Breaking through, nachshon ben aminadav
Going through transitions
Sap of the trees
Turn direction
It has been been going down till now
You are the tree.
Its rising
If you want to know about life look at a tree
Since tishrei our energy has been going down
into the earth adama
Tevet through the liver
Holds all the toxins
Is the light growing
Shamai is The strongest light is today
Feel the sap again
this is happening within you
now
whats the message
do you feel A potential
happening inside of you?
According to shamai
It’s the Rosh hashana lilananot
the amount of produce we will bear in EY
And the depth of how deep our torah will be
Your life story
Is being written with this new sap rising
In your blood
In your veins
In your pulse
We are doing this work
with lightness
with a renewed koach
your beauty is being restored
Chanuka was pnimius light
The ohr haganuz
Today you see beauty on a physical plane
Real beauty
Its simple
be in harmony with what is
your insides and outsides are aligned
Your inside light and your vessel are one
Feel the yichud of kudsha brich hu and shekinte
Within
Yud hey merging with vav key
Feel the chius
Hashems lifeforce
breath
Is being breathed into us
Feel that place in the 2nd third of
Tiferet
In you chest
Place you right hand in that place
Hashem please
Light up that path for me
Let yourself feel what your body is saying
To you
You are creating reality through our speech
Your malchut
This bodily knowing
Surging rising
into kedusha
what is our body teaching us?
What is the new song
My portion of the Torah chadasha
What song am I singing
A birth is happening this day of rosh chodesh
Of hitchadshut
A Shira hadasha
We are singing a new song
As we connect
To our bodies
Balancing
Harmonizing
Flowing as the sap rises
How do I or do I not nourish myself
How do I water myself?
How do I get my light?
Moshe rabbeinu looked around
And paused to meditate on the sneh
Shavt energy
Doesn’t have to be a struggle
Set your intention this first day of shevat
How to you receive
Not in a selfish way
But like a tree
Do the birur
With humility
I need to more toward what helps me grow
Nourishing my self
Gives me the energy to give to others
Your tree is growing
To a tzadi sofit
No longer bent
But tall and straight
_______
Rabbi Trugman:
Shevat and the Democratization of Righteousness (From Sefaria)
a tzadik knows best of all how to enjoy life to the fullest and get full satisfaction from his efforts.
This month we are all invited to follow in the footsteps of tzadikim by revealing our own inner point of tzidkut, because the month of Shevat was created with the letter tzadik (צ),
Let’s delve a little deeper into the form of the letter tzadik (צ),
that corresponds to the month of Shevat. is a bent-over nun (נ) with a yud (י) above it to the right. yud turns to the back of the nun (נ) “looking” at it from above
The letters yud and nun correspond respectively to the soul (neshama)
and the body (yud)
the letter yud is the opening letter of the Essential Name, Havayah,
and its form is like a concentrated point,
which represents the light of the soul before it enters the vessel of the body.
The nun is the initial letter of the word “fall.” nafila
Like a body without life-force flowing through it from the soul, the nun is constantly falling.
Each of us has a body and a soul, and we need to put our soul in control over our body.
The tzadik is the one who successfully completes this task,
like Joseph who overcame his strong physical inclination and listened to his soul.
To be sure, this is the symbolic meaning of the letter tzadik in which the letter yud “rides” upon the letter nun and directs it.
The initials of “mind” (מֹחַ), “heart” (לֵב), “liver” (כָּבֵד) allude to the word “king” (מֶלֶךְ), meaning that when the mind, the seat of the soul, controls the heart and the liver, the individual becomes a melech
The word “king” (מֶלֶךְ) has a numerical value of 90, which is also the value of the letter tzadik (צ).
This teaches that within herself, the soul of the tzadik / tzadekes is like a king/ queeen who rules over her physical body
the tzadik is exempt from the dual-personality complex that accompanies the standard relationship between body and soul.
“Know Him in all your ways.”[13]
Even as I carry out the most trivial tasks,
I am aware of God and perform His will at that moment.
This level is alluded to in the letter tzadik when the letter yud turns towards the letter nun―the soul compassionately looks towards the body, taking care of all its needs. Since the body in itself is lifeless “dust of the earth,”[14] Every time the soul feeds the body, it literally revives it like resuscitating a dead body.
The tzadik hunts down the holy spark and elevates it.
In this way, every time we consume food in the correct way, the bond between body and soul is reinforced:
the soul is kind to the body and the body nourishes the soul, and from the bond that is created in this way, the letter tzadik is formed.
Note that the letters of the word “hunt” (צָד) are the initial letters of the word “tzadik” (צַדִיק).
We are following in the ways of
Our higher self
Tzidkus ,
“But the way of the righteous
is like the light of dawn;
shining ever brighter until the day is perfect.”
Tu Bshvat, the 15th day of the 11th month alludes to the secret of God's essential Name, Havayah (י־הוה).
The value of the first two letters of Havayah, (the yud and hei, which represent the higher, concealed level of unification) is 15.
Its last two letters (vav and hei, which represent the lower, revealed level of unification), equal 11. the full secret of the Havayah is the secret of the "Tree of Life," the tree of the month of Shevat.
Letter: Tzadik – צ
The very form of the letter tzadik (especially its final form, ץ, which represents the true manifestation of the tzadik in the future) resembles a tree. In the Torah, man is called "the tree of the field" (עֵץ הַשָׂדֶה), which equals 474. 474 is also the gematria of "knowledge" (דַעַת), the unique property of man in general and of the tzadik in particular. The word "daas" in Hebrew implies the power of "connection."
Thus, the month of Shevat is the month for connecting to the true tzadik of the generation, the Tree of Life of the generation.
The New Year of Trees of the month of Shevat is the time that the rain waters of the winter months begin to ascend in the veins of the tree and bring it new life.
The name "Asher" (אַשֵׁר) means "pleasure" and "happiness."
Yakov avinu blessed his son Asher: "from Asher comes delicious [lit. fat] bread, and he shall provide the delicacies of the king" (Genesis 49:20). From this it is evident that Asher represents the sense of taste and eating.
Sense: eating, taste
The rectified sense of eating is the special sense of the tzadik, as is said: "The tzadik eats to satisfy his soul" (Proverbs 13:25). This verse continues: "but the stomach of the wicked is always lacking." The soul-oriented tzadik feels "full" and happy with a little; the body-oriented wicked person never feels content.
Eating from the Tree of Life, the tzadik derives great pleasure ("life" in Torah means "pleasure") from the Divine sparks of light and lifeforce present within the food he eats. In his rectified state of consciousness he is continuously aware that "not on the [physical dimension of] bread alone does man live, but on each utterance of the mouth of God does man live."
The time of greatest pleasure in partaking of food is on the day of Shabbat. The word for "to satisfy [his soul]" (שֹׂבַע) is cognate to the word for "seven" (שֶׁבַע), alluding to the seventh day of Shabbat. A true tzadik experiences the pleasure of Shabbat the entire week (in the Zohar, the tzadik is called Shabbat). The word Shevat itself transforms to Shabbat (since the two letters tet and tav, both letters of the tongue, are phonetically interchangeable).
Wishing us all a good month in which we merit “to eat of its fruit and to be satisfied by its goodness.” (The blessing after eating fruit of the seven species (בְּרָכָה מֵעֵין שָׁלוֹשׁ).)