B"H

THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH OF CHESHVAN

      We are entering a period of darkness.
      Summer is over and the days are getting shorter. As if to underscore that change, daylight savings time has ended in the United States and Israel. Somehow, when night falls around 4:30 pm, it suddenly SEEMS like winter.
      Not only that. Our holidays have ended and we are beginning the month of Cheshvan, which is often called "Mar" Cheshvan, "mar" meaning bitter. Why "mar"? Some say because the month has no holidays, and there may be a feeling of letdown after Tishrai, the most holiday-filled month of the year. Cheshvan is also the month in which the world was inundated by the Great Flood in the time of Noah (this week's Parsha). During this month in recent history many dislocations and upheavals have occurred, especially in the economic world. This is the month of the Great Crashes of 1929 and 1987. Cheshvan is a difficult month.
      I read in the commentary of the Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, who lived some eight hundred years ago), about the account of the Creation of the world, the subject of Parshas Bereishis, which we read last week. The Ramban asks why G-d created the sun and the moon on the fourth day when he had already created light on the first day.
      The answer is amazing. On the second day, G-d created the "rekia," a "firmament" which we call "the heavens," what we see when we look upwards. The rekia made a separation between the upper spheres and the earth, so that the original light created on the first day could no longer reach the earth. In order that the earth and its inhabitants could have light, G-d had to create new "luminaries," the sun and the moon, which He placed in the rekia, to provide earth with light. G-d apparently took some of the original light of creation and with that light illuminated the sun and moon.
      The original light of creation is too refined for this world, and is reserved for those who merit to ascend to the spiritual world after their stay on earth.
      I thought about our darkening world. It's not just the season; it's also the times we live in. It does so often appear to be a darkening world.
      I wanted to find light in the darkness, and I realized that we have only to open the Torah to find the light, to understand that darkness is only darkness to those who are content to remain on an earthly level. We, who are so fortunate to be among the Children of Israel, have the ability to rise toward the very realm of G-d through studying and living the Torah and increasing unity and love among our people. We have the ability to rise past the realm of subdued light to the realm of the great light. There is no reason to remain in darkness. Every morning we say the words "He renews every day the work of creation." We need not be bound by the darkness of this world. By resolving that this year shall be a year of Torah and unity among us, we can make this a year – in the words of Megilas Esther – of "light, gladness, joy and honor."
      With blessings, 
                                                                                                 Roy S.Neuberger