we all know that ז' Adar the seventh day of the month of Adar is the day that Moshe Rabbeinu was born and is also the day that Moshe Rabbeinu was מסתלק that Moshe Rabbeinu was niftar, the day he passed away. And because this is the day that is Moshe Rabbeinu's yahrzeit, that's why it says in Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim סימן תקפ that amongst those days that you have to fast, like he says there אלו הימים שאירעו בהם צרות לאבותינו, these are the days that tzarot happened to our forefathers, וראוי להתענות בהם, and it's proper to fast on those days, so he mentions one of those days is ז' Adar. From that we understand that mainly ז' Adar is accepted as the day that Moshe Rabbeinu passed away and, therefore, we fast on that day because this is a day that something bad happened. But the truth is, as we mentioned before, we know that this is also the day that Moshe Rabbeinu was born. From the fact that we fast on that day is mashma that we disregard the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu was born on that day. But lechora we shouldn't disregard that because the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu was born on that day is a reason to be b'simcha on that day, to be happy on that day instead of fasting on that day. And the truth is we even find in Gemara that because Moshe Rabbeinu was born on ז' Adar, that is the reason ז' Adar should be a יום שמחה, as the Gemara says in Nazir דף י\"ד עמוד א'. The Gemara asks the question if a person says that I will be כמשה בשבעה באדר, I will be like Moshe on the seventh day of Adar. There it speaks concerning a person who accepts upon himself the neder of being a nazir. And b'meila he will not be able to drink wine and have to let his hair grow, etc. And the din is that not only when a person says אהא, יהא, or הריני נזיר, that I will be a nazir, he becomes a nazir, but also any expression he uses that means that he accepts upon himself to be a nazir, he is a nazir. And the Gemara's question is what happens if a person says I should be כמשה בשבעה באדר, like Moshe on the seventh day of Adar. And the question is does that mean that he accepts upon himself to be a nazir or not. And Tosafot there explains, and so does the Rosh, that the reason for the question is as follows. Since ביום הולדו דהיינו בז' אדר שמחו שמחה גדולה, since the day Moshe was born, which was ז' Adar, people were very happy. On the other hand, וביום מותו, the day that he passed away, Tosafot says, רבים נדרו בנדר, people were very sad and many took upon themselves certain נדרים, ורבו נזירים בישראל, and then many nezirim became amongst the יידן, מחמת צער, because of the tzaar, the pain that Moshe Rabbeinu passed away. So, therefore, the question is, Tosafot says, והוא אמר בסתם אהא, since he said stam I will be like Moshe on ז' Adar, so it's possible that it means היינו כמו שהיה בדורו של משה בז' אדר ביום מותו, does he mean as it was in the time of משה רבינו on ז' Adar when he passed away, ונזירות קיבל עליו, and he accepted upon himself נזירות. Did he mean I will be like it happened when Moshe passed away on ז' Adar, so a lot of people became nezirim, so that's what he accepted upon himself? או כיום הולדו קאמר, ושמחה קיבל עליו, or does he mean like the day he was born and bemileh he accepted upon himself simcha? So, we see from here clearly that ז' Adar also was a day of simcha because Moshe Rabbeinu was born on that day.

And we do find that the day of the birth of a tzaddik is a yom simcha, as we find in the Midrash Tanchuma, the end of Parashat Pekudei, concerning the יום הולדת of Yitzchak, that the Yidden celebrated, and Hashem' specially celebrated even many years later after he passed away. As it says there in Tanchuma that the reason Hashem' wanted to put up the משכן on ראש חודש ניסן, even though it was finished much earlier, so it says מפני שחשב הקדוש ברוך הוא לערב שמחת המשכן בשמחת היום שנולד בו יצחק אבינו. Hashem' wanted to mix the simcha of the משכן together with the simcha of the day that Yitzchak Avinu was born, לפי שבאחד בניסן נולד יצחק, since the first day of ניסן יצחק was born. אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא, ה' said, הריני מערב שמחתכם שמחה בשמחה. I will mix your simcha with a simcha. And, therefore, he wanted that the simcha of the משכן should take place on ראש חודש ניסן, the day that is a simcha anyway because it is the יום הולדת, the day of birth of Yitzchak Avinu. And the מפרשים there, the Yafeh To'ar, etc., explain how this is not a contradiction to the כלל of אין מערבין שמחה בשמחה, that normally we do not mix two simchot. But the point we see from there is that the day that a צדיק is born is a day of simcha. And, therefore, the day that Moshe Rabbeinu was born was also a יום שמחה. And, therefore, the Gemara has a question when a person takes upon himself כמשה בשבעה באדר, I will be like Moshe on שבעה באדר, does he mean that he takes upon himself to be a נזיר like people did on the day that Moshe passed away as a tza'ar for for his passing away, or did he mean I accept upon myself to be b'simcha because this is the day that Moshe Rabbeinu was born? So we see from here clearly that because Moshe Rabbeinu was born on ז׳ אדר, that's why it is also a יום שמחה. But from the fact that in Shulchan Aruch it says that ז׳ אדר is a day that you fast, it seems to be saying that we disregard the fact that he was born, and we just look at the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu passed away. It is considered as one of those days that a צרה happened to Klal Yisrael. Now we cannot answer that the peshat in the Gemara there is not that ז׳ אדר is also a יום שמחה because Moshe Rabbeinu was born, but the Gemara's question is that when a person says \"I will be like Moshe on ז׳ אדר\", the question is did he mean \"I will be like Moshe on ז׳ אדר as it was at that time before Moshe Rabbeinu passed away, and at that time ז׳ אדר certainly was only a יום שמחה, because Moshe Rabbeinu was still alive\"? So does he mean \"I will be like it was in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu's lifetime, and then it's a יום שמחה\", or does he mean \"I will be like Moshe on ז׳ אדר after he passed away, which is a day of fast, or a day that people took upon themselves נזירות\"? So according to this peshat, after Moshe passed away we have no ראיה that it is a יום שמחה because Moshe Rabbeinu was born. But it's very hard to say that this is the peshat, because we know the כלל, the רוב by נדרים is, and the same is with נזירות because it's part of נדרים, that הלך אחר לשון בני אדם. There we follow the לשון of the way people use it. We don't follow the לשון the way it should really mean, but if it's an expression that this is the way people use, that's the way we follow by נדרים. And it's certainly that when a person nowadays would say, \"I am like ז׳ אדר\", he definitely does not mean \"I will be like ז׳ אדר was in the lifetime of Moshe\". So bifshat he means \"I will be like ז׳ אדר is now\". And nevertheless the question in the Gemara is does he mean to be a נזיר, or does he mean that he's מקבל upon himself שמחה? So we see that even now ז׳ אדר is a יום שמחה, which seems to contradict the din in Shulchan Aruch that ז׳ אדר is a יום תענית. באמת

the question is even stronger, because the Gemara says in Maseches Megillah that when Haman wanted to make his decree against the Yidden to kill all the Yidden, and he was looking for a day, so first he threw the lots to see which month it will come out. So it says there: כיוון שנפל פור בחודש אדר, since the lot came out to the month of אדר, שמח שמחה גדולה. He was very happy. אמר, he said: נפל לי פור בירח שמת בו משה. The lots came out, the גורל came out to the month that Moshe Rabbeinu died, so he was happy. This obviously shows that this is a bad month for the Yidden. So it'll be bad luck for them, so he will be able to do what he wants to do successfully. But the גמרא says: ולא היה יודע, but he didn't know, שבשבעה באדר מת, that משה רבינו passed away, died on the 7th day of אדר, ובשבעה באדר נולד, but also on the 7th day of Adar he was born. And Rashi explains there that כדאי הוא יום הלידה שיכפר על המיתה, that it's כדאי, it's worth, the day that משה רבינו was born should be mechaper on the מיתה, should be mechaper, should forgive for the fact that he died on that day. Which means that the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu was born on ז׳ אדר overpowers the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu passed away on that day. And that's why, even though Haman thought that it's a day of bad luck to the Yidden, and therefore a month of bad luck to the Yidden, because Moshe Rabbeinu passed away, the truth was just the opposite. It was a month of good luck for the Yidden because Moshe Rabbeinu was born in that month. So we see clearly that the day of ז׳ אדר is a יום שמחה, עד כדי כך, it had the power of changing the gezeirah of Haman. That this is the reason why the gezeirah was overturned, because it was a month of good luck for the Yidden because Moshe Rabbeinu was born. So definitely it is a time of simcha. So how does this fit to what it says in the Shulchan Aruch that ז׳ Adar is a day that we fast, because it is the yahrzeit of Moshe, so obviously it is only a day of sadness and not a day of simcha?

And the truth is that we find even more that the inyan of Moshe Rabbeinu's birth brings a simcha rather than sadness. And this is because the Gemara says: משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה. When Adar comes in, you have to add simcha, which means that from the beginning of the month of Adar, you already have to add in simcha. Which means that the whole month is a month of simcha, not only on the day of Purim when the miracle happened, but the whole month of Adar is a month of simcha. And that's why the Gemara says that הלכך בר ישראל דאית ליה דינא בהדי נכרי, if a Yid has a din Torah, has a court case with a goy, then לישתמיט מיניה באב, he should try it shouldn't happen on אב, ולימצי נפשיה באדר. And let him try to put it push it away push it off to Adar. Why? דברי מזליה, because in the month of Adar the mazal of the Yid is great. So here we see that not only on Purim is the mazal of a Yid great because Purim is a special happy day for the Yidden, but the whole month of Adar is. But the question is that the nes only happened on the 13th day of Adar, so why should the simcha start from the beginning of the month of Adar, עד כדי כך that the whole month month of Adar is considered a month, a month of good mazal for the Yidden. We cannot answer that even though the nes happened on the 13th day of Adar, but the ביטול הגזירה came before, the fact that the gezeirah was nullified happened before, but if we're gonna follow the fact that the gezeirah was nullified, then it has nothing to do with the month of Adar. Because the pasuk in the Megillah says בחודש השלישי הוא חודש סיון בשלושה ועשרים בו, that on the third month, which is Sivan, the 23rd day of the month ויכתב בשם המלך אחשורוש ויחתם בטבעת המלך, that's when they wrote the letters in the name of the מלך אחשורוש and they sealed it with the טבעת המלך, that אשר נתן המלך ליהודים, that that's when the king gave the right to the Jews להקהל ולעמוד על נפשם, to stand up and fight against their enemies. So if we're gonna talk about those letters that are mevatel the gezeirah that happened before the 13th day of Adar, they didn't even happen in the beginning of Adar. That happened on the 23rd day of the month of Sivan. So if we're gonna look at that, then it has nothing to do with Adar. And the truth is that even though he wrote those letters, it still wasn't enough to say that the gezeirah is batel, because they still had to fight, and as the pasuk in the Megillah says, they had to להקהל ולעמוד על נפשם, to gather together and stand up for their life. And the pasuk later says נקהלו היהודים בעריהם, and the pasuk continues לשלוח יד במבקשי רעתם, so they had to fight back those that were looking to do evil to them, so there were still people who were looking to do evil to them. And as he takeh says in the ספר Manot HaLevi, he brings from many mefarshim that these letters that אחשורוש sent was not really the bitul hagezeirah. And therefore we cannot look at that as the bitul hagezeirah. So really the gezeirah was batel on the day that the miracle happened, which is the 13th day of Adar. So why is it that the whole month of Adar is considered a month of simchah? And be'emet the Megillah says that. The Megillah says that it was החודש אשר נהפך להם מיגון לשמחה, the whole month was a month that was changed from yagon to simchah. But the question is why? And in the Yerushalmi it even says, in Yerushalmi Megillah פרק א' הלכה א' it says, if somebody cannot wait with reading the Megillah till Purim, he's able to read the Megillah from the beginning of the month. כל החודש כשר לקריאת המגילה, the whole month is כשר to read the Megillah. And the Rema in Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim סימן תרפ\"ח סעיף ז' says והכי נהוג, that's the מנהג. But the question is, where do we find something special in the month of Adar other than what happened on the 13th day of Adar? The only thing we do find that makes the whole month different, where do we find an expression in the Gemara that it has an effect on the whole month, is the birth of Moshe Rabbeinu. Because there as we said it before, the לשון of the Gemara is that Haman was happy because he saw that the lots fell on חודש אדר. It doesn't speak about the day of the month, it speaks about the whole month of Adar. When it fell to the month of Adar, he was happy that it fell on the month of Adar, and he said נפל לי פור בירח שמת בו משה. The גורל came out to the month that Moshe died. ולא היה יודע שבשבעה באדר מת ובשבעה באדר נולד, he didn't know that Moshe was born also. And therefore it was a good month. So from there we see that we look at the whole month of Adar as a good month because Moshe Rabbeinu was born in the month of Adar. So we see here even more that not only is ז' Adar itself a day of simcha, but because of Moshe Rabbeinu's birth in ז' Adar, the whole month is considered a month of simcha. Why that is done is a separate question, but לפועל from the לשון of the Gemara we see that this is connected to the whole ירח, to the whole month. So this also shows that really ז' Adar should be a day of simcha.

So we come back to the question from the Shulchan Aruch where it says that ז' Adar is a fast day. It seems that we disregard the fact that ז' Adar really should be a יום שמחה because of the birth of Moshe Rabbeinu. But the answer to this is very simple. When it's said in Shulchan Aruch that אלו הימים שאירעו בהם צרות לאבותינו וראוי להתענות בהם, that these are the days that צרות happened to our forefathers and you should fast in those days, and amongst those days is ז' אדר, there are two ways we're able to explain the pshat. One reason we could say why you have to fast is being that צרות happened לאבותינו on those days, automatically these are days which are not days of simcha. They become ימים חייבים. They have a certain segulah, a certain mazal of being bad days. ובמילא ראוי להתענות בהם, that's why you should fast, that through the fasting you will make sure that nothing bad again will happen. And even though the Gemara says in שבת דף קנ\"ו עמוד א' that אין מזל לישראל, the Yidden don't depend on mazalos, so what do we care if it's a day of bad mazal? But as Rashi says that the reason is because על ידי תפילה וזכות משתנה מזלו לטוב, because through davening and through zechuyos the mazal will change. And that is the reason takeh why we fast, because since it's a day of bad mazal, we have to fast and daven to Hashem and do teshuvah, so our mazal will change and we will not have a bad day again. That's one reason we could say. Another reason is that because these are days that things, bad things happened, so it's a day when החי יתן אל לבו, that a person has to do teshuvah. When you remember the bad things that happened in the past on that day, that day should be me'orer, awaken a person to do teshuvah, not because we're afraid something is gonna happen on this day. It's just a reason to be me'orer to teshuvah. As the Rambam says in the beginning of the fifth perek of Hilchos Taaniyos, that the reason is כדי לעורר הלבבות לפתוח דרכי התשובה, to be me'orer the hearts, and open the ways of teshuvah. So when you look at a day that something bad happened, or a day that a tzaddik passed away, so והחי יתן אל לבו. So the live person has to start reminding himself that he is alive, and it's time for him to do teshuvah, because this is a day that something bad happened, but not that we're afraid that something bad else will happen. The difference between these two explanations is, let's say a day that you have both, that you have simcha on that day, it's a special day of simcha, and at the same time it's a special day of the opposite of simcha. According to the first reason, that the reason we fast is because it is be'emet a יום חייב, the fact that something bad happened shows that it's a bad day, a day with a bad mazal. But if something good happened on that day, this itself shows that it's not a day of bad mazal. V'ha raya, something good happened, then we wouldn't have to fast. On the other hand, according to the other reason, that being something bad happened, that is a reason to do teshuvah, then it makes no difference if something good also happened and it's a day of simcha. But because of the bad thing that happened, it's a good enough reason for us to do teshuvah. Ai, at the same time something good happened, and that's why it's a יום שמחה, the fact that you have to be b'simcha is no contradiction to the fact that you have to do teshuvah, because when you do teshuvah, you also have to be b'simcha. You have to serve Hashem b'simcha, all the mitzvot have to be done b'simcha, teshuvah is also a mitzvah, you also have to do it b'simcha. And as we actually find in the Gemara concerning שמחת בית השואבה, the Gemara says in Sukkah דף נ״א עמוד א׳ that even though the simcha was so great, that מי שלא ראה שמחת בית השואבה לא ראה שמחה בימיו, that whoever didn't see that simcha doesn't know what simcha is. Nevertheless, what did they sing there? מי שחטא ישוב וימחול לו, as the Gemara says there on נ״ג עמוד א׳, that whoever did an aveirah should do teshuvah, because simcha and teshuvah is no contradiction. And the same thing is concerning ז׳ אדר. ז׳ אדר is a day that Moshe Rabbeinu passed away, so it's a day we have to do teshuvah. On the other hand, it is a יום שמחה. But it is no contradiction to the din in Shulchan Aruch that you have to fast and do teshuvah on that day, because this ענין, כדי לעורר הלבבות לפתוח דרכי תשובה, to have to do teshuvah because it's the yahrtzeit of Moshe Rabbeinu, exists even though it's a יום שמחה, and there's no contradiction. On the contrary, the fact that it's also a יום שמחה could help out to the teshuvah, that you will also do teshuvah b'simcha. Because teshuvah, as we said, is a mitzvah, and you have to do the mitzvah also b'simcha. You have to feel in your mind that Hashem is so good to you, that even if you did an aveirah, you're able to do teshuva, so you have to be happy from the fact that you're able to do teshuva. So you have to be b'simcha, and therefore the fact that this is a יום שמחה because of the birth of Moshe Rabbeinu, only helps out this din in Shulchan Aruch that you have to fast on that day and do teshuva, because then your teshuva will be תשובה בשמחה.