The month of Iyar. The month of Iyar is the month in which we count the Omer. So, I decided that we should discuss the significance of the month of Iyar, because we know that every month has its special significance. And not always do we discuss the significance of that month, but this time we will discuss what is the specialty of the month of Iyar. On one hand, it doesn't seem to be special at all. Out of all months, why would we think the month of Iyar is so special? Iyar is the second month. No special holidays in Iyar. It's not like Nisan where you have Pesach, Tishrei where you have all the holidays, even Kislev where you have Chanukah, אדר where you have Purim, you have so many. But Iyar? Iyar seems to be one of the most the simplest months of the year. But in truth, when we look into the sources, we see that Iyar is not so simple. There's a lot to it. And we'll try to bring out some of the things that we find about the month of Iyar in the regular sefarim and including in the קבלה ספרים concerning the month of Iyar. Number one, as I said before, the month of Iyar is the month in which we count sefirah, counting of the Omer. And it's referred to the month of the counting because that's the only month of the year, the only month of the year that every day there is a special mitzvah that we're supposed to do on that day. And that is counting of the Omer. Every day of this month, we do that special mitzvah. The truth is the counting of the Omer we also have in the month of Nisan, but not every day of the month. We know that the counting of the Omer starts the second night of Pesach, which means on the 16th day of the month. That means the second half of the month has a mitzvah every day, but not the first half, so it's not the complete month. We know that the month of Sivan, which comes after Iyar, also has a few days in which we count the Omer because we count up to Shavuos. Shavuos is the sixth of Sivan. So, we have five days in the month of Sivan that we count the Omer, but it's only five days, not the whole month. The month of Iyar has every single day this mitzvah of counting the Omer. Which, since it has a special mitzvah every day of the month, that itself shows how special the month is, that Hashem gave us a specific special mitzvah every day of the month. This mitzvah that we do every day of the month in the month of Iyar, which is the counting of the Omer, has a special connection to the day of the month, to the day to that specific day, unlike, in other words, much more than any other mitzvah that we do in any special time. And I'll explain what I mean. For instance, Pesach we have a special mitzvah to eat matzah or all other mitzvot we do on Pesach. So, we could say that day has a special mitzvah for that day. Rosh Hashanah, that day we have to blow the shofar. Sukkos, those days we have to eat in the sukkah or shake the lulav. True. But the mitzvah is a mitzvah that's done on that specific day. That's all it is. The mitzvah has nothing to do with the day. It's just a mitzvah that we do on that day. The mitzvah of counting the Omer is actually counting the day. So the mitzvah is the day itself. The counting of this day, this is the mitzvah. So, connection between the mitzvah of counting the Omer to the day in which the mitzvah is performed is much closer than the mitzvah that we do any other time of the year which has a special connection to a special day. So that all shows how every single day of the month of Iyar has a special mitzvah which is connected to that specific day. Furthermore, the mitzvah that we do every day of the month is not only important for that day, but it's connected to every single other day too. Because we know that if we skip one day of counting, it doesn't only affect that day that we didn't count, but it affects every other day. From then on, we cannot count with a berachah, because we missed one, so we ruined already the whole system, the whole the whole unit. So every day is connected to every other day, and it's a mitzvah that we do on that specific day. And this is something that is equal every single day. We can't we don't say that one of the days of the month of Iyar has the mitzvah more than the other day. Every single day of the month has the obligation of this mitzvah the same as any other day. So this is something special, as I will explain a little later, the fact that there is a special mitzvah every day and in a way that every day is equal, not one day more than the other or one day less than the other. This is one thing in the month of Iyar. And we'll get back to it soon. There's another thing concerning the month of Iyar. The name Iyar, which is the name of the month, is like all other names of the Hebrew months, which are not Hebrew. The emet is, they're not even Jewish. The Gemara says that the names of the months עלו עמם מבבל. The Jews picked them up in Bavel. When the Jews went to exile to Bavel, they picked up these names, and they started using these names, which is Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, going on Nisan, Iyar, etc., etc. So the name Iyar that we always use was picked up by the Jews. It was put into our our life, but it's not really the original name. Most most months don't even have a name in Hebrew originally. In the Chumash, they are referred to as חודש הראשון, חודש השני, the first month, the second month, the third month, but doesn't have a name.

But the month of Iyar has a name. The month of Iyar in Tanach, it has a name, it's called חודש זיו. The word Ziv means shine, light. It's the month of light. The reason it's called the month of light, it says, because the great luminaries of the world were born in this month: Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, the Avot were born in the month of Iyar. That's why this month has this name, light. So the whole month, and again, every single day of the month equally, is called חודש זיו, the month of light. Which means, as it says in קבלה ספרים, that during this month of Iyar, we are able to see the light faster than we are able to do it other times of the year. And seeing the light means seeing the truth. Light means, when you have a room full of light, you could see what's there. The difference between light and darkness, as I explained many times, is not that light creates anything, or light makes a change. The difference between light and darkness is that when it's dark, you do not see what's there, and when it's light, you could see. When it's dark, you don't know what it is. You see a door, and you don't know whether the door opens to a treasure, or the door opens to a pit that you could fall in and hurt yourself. But when it's light, you see the truth, you see what it is, you see what's good and you see what's bad. During the month of Iyar, and every single day of the month, we have this ability of seeing the light, that when it comes to do a mitzvah, the light of the mitzvah, says the Kabbalah, shines stronger during this month of Iyar, that you're able to see a little bit beneath the surface what the mitzvah means. And not only concerning mitzvot, it says, concerning everything that we do. We know that whatever we do, we're supposed to serve Hashem, as the pasuk says, בכל דרכיך דעהו, in everything, in all your ways you shall know Him. Says in פרקי אבות, כל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים, all your actions should be for the sake of Hashem. So whatever we do, whether it's eating or drinking or business, has a purpose, but normally we do not see it. We learn about it, we think about it, we believe it, it's hard to see. When you go to business, it's hard to see how this is a form of serving Hashem. To us it's just a natural thing that every human being does. When you eat, when you drink, when you sleep, everything that we do. In truth, what should be there is this should be a form of serving Hashem. We should do it for the right reasons in order to be able to be healthy and to be able to serve Hashem, etc., etc. During the month of Iyar, it shines. That means that we are able to see the truth. When it comes to behaving, when it comes to doing what we're supposed to do, we are able to see it faster than we are able to see it throughout the whole year. That's the specialty of the month of Iyar and it's called Ziv. This is the name of the month and this is a more important name to the month than the word Iyar, because that's the Hebrew name. And this is what the name shows us. And here again, every day is the same. Not one day is different than the other. The reason why this month is so special, why is the month of Iyar so special that we have this special qualities, is because it comes after Nisan, and it's so, because it comes after the month of redemption. As I mentioned before, in the Torah, the Hebrew months are referred to the first month, the second month, the third month, etc. What show what that shows is that each month takes a השפעה from the previous month. The fact that this is called the second, obviously what we're trying to indicate is that it comes after the first. So there was something that the first had done to this that this is now the second. So being that it's the second, it has the השפעה, the influence from the month of Nisan. And we see that that every month influences the next month from the fact that we have שבת מברכים. We have a Shabbos in which we bless the next month, and it always is that when do we bless the month? The Shabbos before. Which means it's still a day in the previous month. Even if ראש חודש is on Shabbos, and we would think in that case we should bless the month on that day. If ראש חודש is weekdays, you could say, well, we want to do it on Shabbos, so we have to do it the Shabbos before. But if ראש חודש is Shabbos itself, so then it would make sense to bless the month on that day. We don't. We bless the month the Shabbos before. And the reason is because the blessing for a month has to come from the previous month. So the blessing to the month of Iyar comes from the month of Nisan. The month of Nisan is referred to as the חודש הגאולה, the month of redemption. That's the month when Hashem took us out of Egypt, redeemed us in a form of גילוי אלוקות, godly revelation. We say in the Haggadah that נגלה עליהם מלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא וגאלם, השם redeemed, revealed Himself to them. So when we have that great revelation in the month of Nisan, it carries over to the month of Iyar. The month of Nisan, that's when it's just the beginning. That's why then we have this revelation, but it didn't internalize yet. It didn't become part of us yet, so therefore we can't utilize it yet. But when two weeks passed or three weeks passed, two weeks from יציאת מצרים, and after the whole month of Nisan, and we enter the second month where the influence of Nisan already has, it has been internalized into us, so then the second month already is when we were able to utilize all the great influences that we got from the month of Nisan. And therefore, what it does to a Yid, it gives a Yid this ability of seeing the truth, because he internalized within himself the great godly revelation that was given in the month of Nisan. And even though it happened 3,000 years ago, but every year when the month of Nisan comes and we relive and we go through יציאת מצרים, the redemption of מצרים again, and we again have this great godly revelation during the month of Nisan, so what happens? It takes time till it's internalized, and by the time it gets to the month of Iyar, we already internalized this great godly revelation. And therefore, we are now able to have a special mitzvah every single day of the month. That's something for the whole month. When we are able already to see the light when it comes to doing mitzvot, or when it comes to behaving in anything or anything else that we do, we see the light because we already got it from the month of Nisan. And what it really does to the person is, it makes the person have the right, proper קבלת עול מלכות שמים. קבלת עול מלכות שמים is acceptance of the yoke of Hashem. Because we have this great godly revelation in the month of Nisan, so by the time the month of Iyar comes around, we already internalize it, and now we accept the yoke of Hashem, no matter what, because it became part of our life. That is why there is another thing in the month of Iyar. In Hebrew, we said before, the month is called Ziv. But then the common name for this month is Iyar. Even though, as I said, it came from Bavel, but that became the Jewish name for this month.

We know that the word Iyar is an abbreviation: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rachel. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the three Avot, and Rachel, which is one of the Imahot, of the mothers, and she basically represents all the mothers. So basically, the name Iyar represents the Avot and the Imahot, our fathers, our forefathers and our mothers. What's the connection? Why does it represent the Avot and the Imahot? Why the month of Iyar? What's the connection? Actually, in halacha we find that if you want to remember how to write the word Iyar, whether it's alef yud reish with one yud or with two yudin, so it says remember: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Rachel, so you have two yudin. What's the connection between Iyar and Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Rachel? In Kabbalah we find, taken from the Midrash, and it says האבות הן הן המרכבה. The Avos are the chariot. What does that mean, the Avos are the chariot? So the simple pshat in this Midrash is that we all learn in Tanach, in Kabbalah, in Yechezkel that there is a chariot, famous merkavah in the high heavens by Hashem. In Yechezkel he describes, Navi Yechezkel describes the merkavah, and that chapter in Yechezkel happens to be the source to all Kabbalah, because in the written Torah we don't find much about what goes on in the higher worlds. This is one chapter that actually describes spiritual matters that go on in the higher world. That's called the merkavah. And we say האבות הן הן המרכבה, it means that on the chariot of Hashem we have pictures of the Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Rachel, they are the merkavah. In Tanya it says another pshat in what it means the Avos are the merkavah. They are like a chariot. If you want to describe that somebody is completely batel, self-nullified to Hashem, the description would be using the term merkavah, chariot. Why? So it says there just Just like a chariot, it goes places, it takes you places, it does things, but it does not do anything on its own, only what the driver wants it to do. That means that a chariot is completely, completely batel to the driver. A person who is completely, completely batel to Hashem is referred to as a chariot. That's how in Chassidut and Kabbalah is referred to as the chariot. When we say האבות הן הן המרכבה, it says in Tanya, what it means is that the Avos were so much batel to Hashem, they felt Hashem so much that they were like a chariot. If we would write this modern times, we probably would use the term car, that the Avot are like a car. A car drives, a car takes you, it has a motor, all kinds of things. The car cannot go, does not go anywhere but where the driver wants it to go, that's all. It doesn't have its own will at all, it's completely batel to the driver. The Avot were a chariot, they were completely batel to Hashem, a hundred percent. When it comes to the month of Iyar, and this is when the גילוי אלקות, the great Godly revelation of the month of Nisan is internalized by a Yid, and that brings a Yid to a higher level, to have this light that shines in that month and is able to have the special mitzvot of that month, a Yid becomes like a chariot, a Yid becomes like the Avot. At least there is the potential that you're able to become completely nullified to Hashem. And that's why Iyar is an abbreviation of Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Rachel, which represent the מרכבה to show that in the month of Iyar, a Yid is able to reach a level of קבלת עול מלכות שמים, the complete acceptance of the yoke of Hashem. And for that reason, every day of the month as said before is the same. It's not like other months where you have special days in the month, and say the month is special because certain days are special. Well, certain days are special, certain days are not so special. The specialty of the month of Iyar, every single day is the same. Whether it's because the the the זיו, the fact that it shines, the fact that we do a mitzvah, every day we have the same thing, not one day is more than the other. And the reason is, and this will get a little bit kabbalistic, it says in Kabbalah, that when you deal, first I'll give the terms, then I'll explain it, when you deal with גילויים, which means a revelation, then there is a difference between one and the other. When you deal with עצם, with essence, then it's all the same. The essence of something is the same in every aspect, in every part of the thing. When you say this is the the עצם, essence of this thing, but you can't say, well, it's more essence here and there. Essence cannot be measured by saying more or less. If it's the essence, then this is the essence of everything. The revelation, which means the other aspect and the superficial parts, you could say, well, this is more important than that, this is greater than that, this has this aspect, this has this aspect, but this is not what it is essentially. But the moment we're talking about essence, it has to be all the same. During the month of Iyar, this great Godly revelation that came in the month of Nisan and internalized, and in the month of Iyar that's when we take advantage of it, we're able to utilize it, it touches our essence. And therefore, all the days are the same. When we would deal with different levels of revelations, so to speak, you call it in Kabbalah, then one has a greater revelation than the other. Just like, let's use a physical example, when we, let's say, do things based on our seichel, on our logic, then it depends. Certain things I understand more, so that will have a closer feeling to me. Certain things I don't understand so much, I will have less. It'll depend on the level of how far the the the seichel goes. If we do something because of our feeling, then the feeling could be to one thing more, to one thing less. One thing higher level, to a lower level. But when it touches our essence, then it has to be it has to affect everywhere. We always know that when a person is happy, if his level of joy is not so essential, then it'll come out, he'll smile, he'll sing. When the joy touches touches his essence, then it'll come out in everything. He'll start dancing. It'll affect his mouth, his eyes, his hands, his feet. Every part of the body will be part of this joy. If it's not an essential thing, then it's limited. It's limited to whatever. Sometimes it's limited to your seichel, something that you understand in your mind and that's as far as it goes. It won't affect your feet. But if it's essence, it has to be all over. In the month of Iyar, being that we internalize this great revelation, all the days are the same in this inyan, in this aspect, because it's an essential thing, it affects our essence, which means it comes from the essence of Hashem affecting our essence, and therefore every day is the same. So the mitzvah, the special mitzvah that we have in the month of Iyar, every day is the same mitzvah. We count the same Omer every day, it's the next day, but you can't say one day has more than the other, not like Nisan itself where some days are more holy than other. Other months, some days are more holy than the other. Here, every day has the same holiness. When we say the month of Iyar has the special quality of זיו, it's called in Hebrew the month of Ziv, of shining, every day is the same because it's an essential thing, which is unlike other months. Other months, we know that, besides the months which have special holidays and we said that those days are special, usually, the beginning of the month is more special than the end of the month. The first half of the month has more quality, greater quality, than the second half of the month. As we see it also the fact that in the beginning, first half of the month, the moon gets bigger and bigger, shines more and more. Second half of the month, it gets smaller and smaller, shines less and less. So we know that the first part of the month is more important. That's why there is a custom, nowadays they don't really keep that custom so much because it's very hard, but there is a custom that when you get married, you shouldn't get married in most most months the second half of the month. You should get married the first half up to the 15th day of the month, not to get married after the 15th day of the month. Now, when there are so many weddings and so many, not so many halls, so they don't really follow this custom because not everyone agrees to it, but the Rema says we should do that, except certain months: not the month of Kislev, not the month of Adar, not the month of Elul. There are certain months that we don't, but most months, the original custom was, and we still try to keep it, is that the chatanah should be in the first half of the month, not the second, because the first half of the month is more important. We see this in another way also. We know it says in the Pardes, Pardes from the RamK, famous Rabbi' Moshe Cordovero, the big מקובל, in the Pardes it says that every month has its own צירוף of שם הוי\"ה. I'll explain what that means. We know that the name of Hashem is הוי\"ה, י-ק-ו-ק. There are 12 ways we could write these letters of הוי\"ה: you could write י, then a, like in regular way, a ה, then a ו and a ה; you could write ה, י, ו, ה; you could write ו, י, different צירופים called, different combination of the letters. And it says every month a different form of combination of Hashem name, Hashem's name, shines in that month, that's what it says in the Pardes. And it says also that always the first letter of the name is the strongest. So when the letter of Hashem that's in that month is י-ק-ו-ק, then that month the י is strong. At the beginning of the month, since there are four letters, there are four weeks, so the first week is the week of the י, that's the strongest. The next week is not so, it's the ה. If it starts with a ה and then there is a י, then the first one is the ה, the ה is stronger. It depends on the צירופים of שם הוי\"ה. So there are differences in the spiritual light of Hashem, because these combinations of Hashem, of Hashem's name, bring out, according to Kabbalah, different godly spiritual light that shines into the world. So every month there are different letters that shine at different times of the month, and that therefore there are differences in which day is, which belongs to which צירוף, and therefore different things happen. And if somebody would be well versed with these צירופים, would be able to figure out certain things that might happen this week, because this week is connected to the י, and the י means so and so, and that's why this happened. And you would be careful to do things in this day of the month, because this this month according to the צירופים, etc., etc. But that's how it is. So different days have different kedushah, different godliness, because of the different צירופים. And that's all because we're not dealing with the עצם, we're not dealing with essence. And therefore there are different levels: this is this level, this is that level. When you talk about levels, one level could be higher than the other. The month of Iyar, as far as the צירוף of Shem Havayah, there is a special צירוף and I might mention if we get have the time at the end what the צירוף of Shem Havayah of the month of Iyar is, but as far as that, it's true, different days have different levels and connected to different godly light. But as far as the mitzvah is concerned and as far as the זיו, the fact that it's a month where godliness shines in a way that we could see the truth in whatever we do, every day is the same, because it penetrates all the way into our עצם, and all the days are the same. We don't have one day different than the other. Because of this great, huge, great godly revelation that came from Nissan to the month of Iyar, and that's when it is internalized in us and that's why this month is so special, there's another thing that's so special about the month of Iyar. So these are things that we don't think about, like I said in the beginning, Iyar sounds like a very simple month. Out of all the months, the most boring month. No Yom Tov, there's nothing, it's. But it says in Kabbalah a lot about Iyar.

There's another thing it says about Iyar: it says that the word Iyar is an abbreviation of a pasuk. The pasuk says, \"אני השם רופאך\", \"I am God, your healer.\" So אני is א Hashem, the Havayah starts with a יוד, and רופאך, I am your healer, is a ריש. So it's alef, yud, reish. So this, these three words, אני השם רופאך, makes up, the abbreviation makes up the word Iyar. Even though I said before that the word Iyar has two יודs, and this pasuk it only has one יוד, but the truth is the one יוד of Shem Havayah is connected to the two יודs. Now I'll explain what I mean. We all know we open a siddur, a lot of times when the siddur wants to write in a brachah or anything Hashem's name, instead of writing יוד-ק-ואו-ק, it has two יודs. Where does that come from? What's the idea of the two יודs? What kind of name is that? We know Hashem has all kinds of names: הויה, and אלקים, and ש-די, and קל, and אלו-ה, all kinds of names. What's the two yuds that's printed in the siddur? What is that? So it says like this: It really is a hint for Hashem's name הויה. But we know that הויה is closely connected to the other name of Hashem, which is א-דני, and I'm not pronouncing it properly because you're not allowed to, אלף, דלת, נון, יוד. Whenever it says in the siddur or Chumash yud and ק-ואו-ק, we don't pronounce it like that. We pronounce it as if it would be written אלף, דלת, נון, יוד, א-דו... I don't want to say it. These two names, the name הויה and the name א-דני, as we call it, are very closely connected. We find in the Midrash that Hashem, when he asked Adam Harishon to name all the creatures, all the animals, and he said, \"נו, what do you think my name should be?\" So he said, \"Well, your name should be הויה, יוד-ק-ואו-ק.\" Why? \"Because אתה אדון על כל בריותיך, because you are the master on all the creatures.\" And אדון, he is a master. The name that we use when we pronounce it, א-דו... א-דני, means master, and יוד-ק-ואו-ק, הויה, also means master. Means creator. יוד-ק-ואו-ק means הויה, means מהוה, the one that makes. So the two names, הויה and א-דני, are closely connected. So what we do is we take the first letter from הויה, the less, last letter from א-דני, and that's where the two yuds come from. הויה starts with a yud, and א-דני is finished with a yud, it's אלף, דלת, נון, יוד. So we take the yud from here and the yud from there, and we put it together. That's the hint for the name of Hashem. So really, the two יודן are really one yud. It's using Hashem's name, and we put it in two Yods. And therefore, Iyar, even though it has two Yods, the two Yods are really like one, and therefore, the three words, אני השם רופאך, are hinted in this name of the month Iyar. Which means, very simply, that the month of Iyar is a month mesugal, it's a special, an auspicious month, month for healing. That means if someone is sick during the month of Iyar, it's more chance he will be cured, because Hashem says, \"אני השם רופאך, I am your healer,\" and that's in the month of Iyar. And when Hashem says, \"I will heal you,\" and it's connected to the month of Iyar, it's not healing like a doctor heals. Because when we look at the pasuk where it says אני השם רופאך, it says like this: Hashem tells the Jews that if you follow the mitzvot, so he says, \"כל המחלה אשר שמתי במצרים, all the sicknesses that I put on the Egyptians, לא אשים עליך, I will not put on you, כי אני השם רופאך, because I am Hashem, your healer.\" So what kind of healer is he? Not a healer like a doctor who cures you after you're sick, but he's a healer that makes that you shouldn't come to begin with. He says, \"I will not put all these sicknesses upon you.\" So it's that kind of curing. And as it says in all the commentaries, that what Hashem meant to say, not only that I will not allow the sickness to come to you, but what it means is that even if you do get sick, I will cure you in such a way that as if it was never there, which a doctor cannot do. A doctor can only change the future. If he doesn't cure, heal you, then you'll continue being sick. If he heals you, you will not be sick from today on. But the fact that yesterday you were sick cannot be changed. We cannot change history. Hashem says, \"I will cure you in such a way that after you're cured, your sickness was never there.\" Something we can't even understand how that works, but that's what Hashem says he's going to do, and that's אני השם רופאך. Which in halachah, it's similar to the difference between curing a sickness and nullifying a vow, hatarat nedarim. It says when you have a when you say a you make a vow, and then you would go to a beit din or to a chacham to nullify it, so it says החכם עוקר את הנדר מעיקרו. He he nullifies it in such a way that as if it was never there. It never existed. While if you go person is sick and you go to a doctor, and the doctor cures you, it's not lemafre'a, retroactive. It's from today on. Actually, cholei hanefesh, the sickness of the soul. I don't mean here mental sickness, that's part of the body's sickness. But sickness of the soul means if a person is not the way he's supposed to and doesn't behave the way he's supposed to, and sometimes there's something within him that doesn't let him, that means his yetzer hara overcomes him, so then this is a sickness of the soul. When it comes to the month of Iyar, that's an auspicious month, special time when we are able to get the cure for the sickness of our soul, the godly the godly cure for the sickness of the soul, just like we get the cure during the month of Iyar for the sickness of the body. And the truth is, if we look at it, the main one is the cure for the sickness of the soul, because as mentioned many times, we know the famous Shlah, the Shlah writes that it's not like people think that the Torah talks about things of this world and also hints to spiritual matters. So the Shlah says it's wrong. The Torah talks about spiritual matters and hints to us. Torah is not מדברת בתחתונים ורומזת בעליונים, the Torah is מדברת בעליונים ורומזת בתחתונים. So whenever we learn something in Torah, and it seems to be talking about something physical, that's the superficial part of it. The main part is the spiritual. So when we say that the month of Iyar, it says in the Torah that the month of Iyar is a special time for אני ה׳ רופאך, for the cure, and it seems to be the physical cure, that's only the superficial part of it. The main part of it is the spiritual cure that's there during the month of Iyar. And why is the month of Iyar a time when we are able to have the spiritual cure? It would seem to fit to the month of Elul, when we do teshuvah, then we cure ourselves, cleanse ourselves from our sins, Tishrei. Here we're saying the month of Iyar is a time. Yes, the month of Iyar is a time. Why? Like I said before, the month of Iyar comes after the month of Nisan. During the month of Nisan, there was this great godly revelation. Hashem took us out of the klipah, of the evil of Mitzrayim. He elevated us then by revealing Himself to us and took us out of the evil of Mitzrayim. He cleansed us then. But like I said before, then it wasn't internalized yet. Comes to the month of Iyar, that great cleansing that we got then now starts working properly. So now we are able to cleanse ourselves from our sickness, from our spiritual sickness. When Hashem took us out of Mitzrayim, He made us into bnei, bnei chorin. Bnei chorin means free people. What does a free person mean? Now, we imagine a free person means you're not a slave anymore, you could do what you want, you could go where you want, you become a free person. That's not really what a free person is. You could do what you want, and you could be the biggest slave. If a person is a slave to his yetzer hara, that means he's a slave, that means that he's not free. There are some people that cannot do what they want. They just can't overcome their desires. Their yetzer hara controls them. So, what's the difference if you have another human being controlling you, or this evil, evil force, this yetzer hara controls you and you can't get rid of your desires? You're not a free person. So when it says that on Pesach we were taken out of Mitzrayim and we became free people, what that means is actually we then got the power of overcoming our yetzer hara. That's what it really means. That's a real free person. This was the by Nisan, when He took us out of Mitzrayim, it was the beginning of later Hashem giving us the Torah, the luchot. It says the luchot had the words written on it חרות על הלוחות, engraved. But the word charut, which means engraved, engraved, the same letters could be another word: cherut. Cherut means freedom. The Torah, giving of the Torah, which started by the coming out of Mitzrayim, gave us freedom. And people wonder, the Torah gave us freedom? In our language, we are used to saying when a person is not observant, you call him a freier yid. In Yiddish, it's called a freier. You have a frumer yid and a freier yid. A frumer yid is a religious Jew, and you have a freier yid, a freier is a free Jew. Obviously, what it means is that if you don't keep the mitzvot, you're free. That's what it sounds like. A person who keeps mitzvot is so restricted. Wherever you move, this you can't eat, this you can't drink, and this you can't do, and here you can't go, and today you can't do this, you're so restricted, you're not free. A guy who doesn't keep mitzvot, he's free, he could do what he wants, he could go out, he could eat at Pizza Hut, he could eat treif, he could eat kosher, get what you want, you can do what you want, all kinds of things. So what's the pshat that Hashem took us out of Mitzrayim to give us the Torah and He made us free? In truth is, He tricked us. He told you, \"I'm going to make you free\", and instead of that, what He did was, He took us out from being slaves to Paroh and He made us slaves to Him. But that's not the pshat. What He did really was made us free. Till then we were not free, meaning we were under another control, and also spiritually under the control of our yetzer hara. When He gave, took out of Mitzrayim, gave us the Torah, He says, \"Now you are free. You're able to control your desires. Now you're able to control your yetzer hara. No one is your boss but yourself. You are able to control yourself.\" That's what started at Yetziat Mitzrayim. So that was the month of Nissan. And this overflows into the month of Iyar, and that's why in the month of Iyar, we have this ability, after going through the month of Nissan with the special power of being free men, free people, it flows over to Iyar, that in Iyar we're able to do that, too. And we see an interesting thing in the month of Nissan, now let's go back to the month of Nissan for a second, we see how we control the yetzer hara, as we see this is something that we do in the month of Nissan. In the month of Nissan, every day of the month we don't say Tachanun. So Tachanun is a form of teshuvah. Tachanun means you say, \"אשמנו, בגדנו,\" we ask Hashem, you know, we sinned, and then we ask Hashem to forgive us. In the month of Nissan we don't do it. Why? Because these are Yom Tov, every day is a holy day. And on a holy day you don't say it. What does that mean on a holy day you don't say it? Because the day is holy we should lose out in the opportunity of getting close to Hashem? How does that work? Should be the opposite, on a holy day we should say twice Tachanun. You get closer to Hashem, you do teshuvah more. Why is it on a holy day we don't say it? The pshat is because since it's such a holy day, what is supposed to be accomplished through saying Tachanun happens by itself without even saying it. That's why we don't say it, since the day is so holy. When we have a whole month of Nissan where we don't say Tachanun, that means that a whole month when we have this idea of overcoming our sins without even working on it because of what happened in the month of Nissan. But that's just the beginning. Comes to the month of Iyar, which is the second month, and Iyar has everything from the first and it overflows into the second, now we really have this koach of overcoming our yetzer hara. And that's why this is the month when there is the רפואת הנפש, when we're able to have this cure of our nefesh, the spiritual cure, including, like I said before, the physical cure. And that's why this is the month when we have this זיו, this shine, because this is the month when we internalize the great kedushah and גדלות that were given to us, and it gives us the level of what we call, like I said before, kabbalat ol malchut shamayim, the proper acceptance of the yoke of Hashem. And this we see in one more thing.

Said before that every month has a different צירוף. In every month, a different order of Hashem's name, of the four letters of Hashem's name, shines. What's the צירוף of the month of Iyar? And besides the צירוף, every month there is a pasuk that has four words that the four letters, the first four letters of those words, are the order of the four letters of Hashem's name that shine that month. So the month of Iyar, it's י, that's the צירוף it says in Kabbalah, י, ה, ה, ו. It's the four letters. So it's י, ה, ה, ו, that's the צירוף of the month of Iyar. That's the order. Which pasuk has this these four letters in that order? There's a pasuk in Tanach, says like this. It's a famous pasuk. אל יתהלל החכם בחכמתו, let a chacham not praise himself with his chochmah, a smart person with his wisdom, ואל יתהלל הגיבור בגבורתו, let a strong man not praise himself with his strength, ואל יתהלל עשיר בעשרו, let not a rich man praise himself with his riches, כי אם, but, בזאת, with this, and here come the four words: כי אם בזאת יתהלל המתהלל השכל וידוע אותי. So the four words, יתהלל המתהלל השכל וידוע, are י, ה, ה, ו. So again, what is the pasuk? The pasuk says let not a person with chochmah praise himself because he's smart, a person who's rich praise himself because he's rich, a person who's strong, כי אם בזאת, with this let a person, יתהלל המתהלל, let the praiser praise, השכל וידוע אותי, he should know Me. And in Kabbalah it says that what this pasuk really means, that a person should not be satisfied with the chochmah he has, he's very smart, fine, he has money a lot, he has strength a lot. בזאת יתהלל, with this you should praise. And in Kabbalah it says that the word זאת, the word זאת represents ספירת המלכות. We all know that there are ten ספירות. חסד, גבורה, תפ... חכמה, בינה, דעת, חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד, מלכות. There are ten ספירות in אצילות and in all the worlds. The last one is מלכות. And it says in Kabbalah that we know that מלכות, if you want to apply what מלכות stands for in our daily life, It stands for acceptance of the yoke of Hashem, because מלכות means kingship. When we accept the kingship of Hashem, then we connect ourselves to the ספירה of מלכות. And it says in Kabbalah that the word זאת represents the ספירה of מלכות. זאת is feminine, מלכות is feminine according to Kabbalah, so that represents מלכות, which is the acceptance of the yoke of Hashem. It says in Parashat Acharei Mot, when Hashem warned Aharon never to go into the קודש הקדשים, the Holy of Holies, and then it says כי, בזאת יבא אהרן אל הקדש. With זאת he can come in. The simple פשט is this way he can come in, it means on a special day, with a special service, etc. But Kabbalah says with זאת he can walk in. When Aharon goes into the קודש הקדשים on Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day of the year, the holiest person, the Kohen Gadol, the high priest, into the holiest place, he has to go in with זאת. Which means, Kabbalah says it's ספירת המלכות, which means with a real, real acceptance of the yoke of Hashem. Now the same זאת in this pasuk, it says in Kabbalah, כי אם בזאת יתהלל המתהלל. What is the praise? When do you really feel that you're satisfied, you accomplished something? If you have the זאת. What is the זאת? ספירת המלכות, which is the acceptance of the yoke of Hashem. And as I said before, when out of the whole year, when is a time when we internalize this acceptance of the yoke of Hashem? Out of all months, the month month of Iyar, because this comes after the month of Nisan. And that's why the צירוף of שם הויה that's for this month is hinted in this פסוק, כי אם בזאת יתהלל המתהלל השכל וידוע, because it's בזאת. This is the significance of the month of Iyar. So if we go back to everything I said before, we see how special this month of Iyar is. And this is בכלל what Kabbalah does: it takes things which seem to be simple, very simple, nothing to it, and it shows how deep it is. And like in this case, sometimes there are things which we could see are deep. Blowing the shofar, everyone knows it's really deep. There's so much behind it and there's so much depth, whether we know what it is or not, but we know it's there. Eating matzah, eating chametz on Pesach we shouldn't eat, everything. But simple things seem to be simple, the month of Iyar, there's nothing there. Then comes, you listen to Kabbalah, it says, no, it's a very, very special month. And to just be in short for two minutes, it's the month when we have the refuah. Hashem is a it's a time when we're able to accomplish to get a refuah of Hashem in such a way that as if it was never there. B'gashmiyut for our physical health, b'ruchniyut for our spiritual health. It's the month when we have the זיו, as I said in the beginning, the shine, that the kavod of Hashem shines within us and we internalize it that we recognize the kavod of Hashem, we see the kavod of Hashem in everything. And therefore, it's a month that has a mitzvah every single day, and every single day equally. And a mitzvah not just that we have to do every day, the mitzvah is the day, because the mitzvah is to count the day. Not like we eat matzah on the day, so there's a matzah and we do it on this day. The mitzvah is to count the day, that's what the day the days of the month. And that's what the month of Iyar is. There's not too many days left in the month of Iyar, so after knowing all this, we should take advantage of the last few days of the month, and do what the month teaches us to do: to get the cure b'gashmiyut, get the cure b'ruchniyut, and to get the light, and try to work on this. And if we do this, then we will enter into the month of Sivan really, really prepared for what Sivan stands for, and that is Matan Torah, that we will be able to receive the Torah the proper way to see for the pnimiyut.