In Nissan They Are Destined to Be Redeemed - The Month of Geulah in Light of Chassidus

00:00 The month of Nissan arrives, and with it comes the hope and faith in each of us that we will merit for this Nissan to be a month of Geulah. Nissan has an atmosphere of freedom—it is “the season of our freedom.” Pesach arrives, days when we relive, remember, and celebrate our first redemption. And along with that, the hope, confidence, and faith awaken in all of us that we will also merit the final Geulah, the Geulah that will come with the arrival of Moshiach. As the prophet says, “As in the days of your going out of the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders.” Just as we had miracles and wonders at the redemption from Egypt, may we merit for this month, too, to be a month of Geulah. And this is, in fact, a teaching of our Sages. The Gemara says it. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah tells us: “In Nissan they were redeemed, and in Nissan they are destined to be redeemed.” The first redemption was in Nissan, and the final Geulah will also be in Nissan. Wow, how wonderful! Actually, when we look at the Gemara, we see that there are two opinions about this. There is the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer and the opinion of Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Eliezer says: “In Nissan they were redeemed, and in Tishrei they are destined to be redeemed.” Rabbi Yehoshua says: “In Nissan they were redeemed, and in Nissan they are destined to be redeemed.” Interesting. So first we need to understand exactly what they disagree about. Why does Rabbi Eliezer hold that although they were redeemed in Nissan, they are destined to be redeemed in Tishrei? What is there about Tishrei? True, certainly, Tishrei is a month full of holidays and festivals, but Pesach is the time of the Exodus from Egypt. So what exactly is the disagreement? Why does Rabbi Yehoshua say—what seems more understandable at first—that just as they were redeemed in Nissan, so too they are destined to be redeemed in Nissan? Rabbi Eliezer comes and says: No, they were redeemed in Nissan, but they are destined to be redeemed in Tishrei. And when we look at the Gemara, we see even more. Rabbi Eliezer also says: “The world was created in Tishrei,” while Rabbi Yehoshua says: “The world was created in Nissan.” In other words, their disagreement does not begin with the future Geulah. Their disagreement begins with the creation of the world. When was the world created? Rabbi Eliezer says: In Tishrei

02:17 the world was created, and that is why we celebrate Rosh Hashanah in Tishrei. The world was created on 25 Elul, and Adam was created on 1 Tishrei. “This day is the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the first day.” We say that in the Rosh Hashanah prayers. That follows the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer. Rabbi Yehoshua says: The world was created in Nissan. The beginning of creation was on 25 Adar; Adam was created on 1 Nissan. And the Gemara says that we also follow Rabbi Yehoshua’s opinion regarding the calculations of the new moon. In all the calculations for sanctifying the month, we follow Rabbi Yehoshua. So there is something interesting here. The whole idea of a disagreement between Tannaim about whether the world was created in Nissan or Tishrei is a little strange—or very strange. And then there is the connection: the one who says the world was created in Tishrei says the future Geulah will come in Tishrei. The one who says the world was created in Nissan says the Geulah will be in Nissan. Yet when it comes to the Exodus from Egypt, there is no disagreement. Everyone says it happened in Nissan. What is actually going on here? What is the deeper meaning of this disagreement, this debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua? We need to understand that so we can understand the depth of the matter and understand the... Of course, we are now in Nissan. We want to understand the significance of Nissan specifically, and we truly hope and wait to hear the great news of the complete Geulah this month, this Nissan. How do we explain this? There is a truly wonderful Midrash in Midrash Rabbah on Parshas Bo. I’ll read you the words of the Midrash. Midrash Rabbah, section 15, paragraph 11. The Midrash says: “This month shall be for you”—about this it says, “Fortunate is the nation whose G-d is Hashem.” And the Midrash continues: “When Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose His world, He established in it the beginnings of months and years.” In other words, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose the world—He created the world and chose it—He established in it the beginnings of months and years. This refers to the month of

04:29 Tishrei. The world was created in Tishrei. In other words, the Midrash rules like Rabbi Eliezer on this point: in Tishrei, Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose His world, and then Tishrei was established as the beginning of months and years. “When He chose Yaakov and his children,” in the year 2448, the year of the Exodus from Egypt, Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose Yaakov and his children, and “He established in it the beginning of the months of redemption.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu decided to establish another, new beginning of the months, in addition to the Rosh Hashanah of Tishrei, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose His world. So now there is a beginning of the months of redemption: in this month the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt, and in it they are destined to be redeemed. It is interesting: the Midrash gives us a kind of reconciliation here. It adopts Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion regarding the creation of the world—in Tishrei, Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose His world—and Rabbi Yehoshua’s opinion regarding the future Geulah: that they are destined to be redeemed in Nissan, the month of redemption. “As in the days of your going out,” the Midrash continues, as it says: “As in the days of your going out of the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders.” And the Tzemach Tzedek cites this Midrash and says that although the Gemara records two opinions on this, a disagreement, the Midrash rules like Rabbi Yehoshua: the future Geulah is connected with the month of Nissan. What is the explanation? After all, we await the Geulah every single day, not just in Nissan. We say in the Ani Maamin about the coming of Moshiach: “Every day, I await his coming.” As the Rebbe would always explain: “Every day, I await his coming”—today. A Jew does not wait in the sense of, “Every day I await his coming,” whenever that may be. Every single day, whether a Jew is in the month of Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Teves—whatever day of the year it is—he waits for the Geulah to happen today. He does not wait for it to come in Nissan. Thank Hashem we are in Nissan, so we are looking to Nissan, but suppose you are in any other month. So what does it mean? What does it mean that in Nissan

06:45 they are destined to be redeemed? But that is what the Midrash says, and it goes on to say wonderful things: Nissan is the month in which they are destined to be redeemed. As we said, in it Yitzchak was born, in it Yitzchak was bound on the altar, in it Yaakov received the blessings, and in it He hinted to the Jewish people that it would be the beginning of their salvation. And it continues: This is like a king who brought his son out of prison and said: Make that day a Yom Tov for all time, for on it he went from darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from bondage to redemption. And the Midrash concludes: That is why they established this month as a month of joy, in which He exacted retribution from their enemies, as it says: “I will give people in your place.” A truly wonderful Midrash, and we all genuinely hope to see it fulfilled. This day, this month, the month of Nissan—a month of Geulah. What does that mean? Let us now try to understand the meaning of the Midrash. “When Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose His world”; “when He chose Yaakov and his children.” This tells us something wonderful. It tells us that the Jewish calendar is divided into two parts, and we can see it ourselves. In the Jewish calendar, there is the beginning in Tishrei: Rosh Hashanah is in Tishrei. That is how our calendar works. When Tishrei arrives, it is Rosh Hashanah and the year changes. When Nissan arrives, it is called the beginning of the months. The first month is Nissan; Tishrei is called the seventh month. In other words, in some respects Tishrei is considered the beginning of the year, and in others Nissan is considered the beginning of the year. How exactly is that expressed? What exactly is the difference between them? If we look at it, we will see it in the things we celebrate. In Tishrei we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. The year, the yearly cycle, is connected with the sun. If you look at the sun, it has no monthly cycle, because the sun does not change each month. It is the same sun throughout the months. The sun has a yearly cycle. There is summer, there is winter,

09:24 There is cold, there is heat, there is spring, there is fall—there is a yearly cycle. There is no monthly cycle. The fact that the general calendar divides the solar year into twelve months is just a way of counting; there are no corresponding monthly changes in the sun’s course. The sun completes its cycle once a year. So when Rosh Hashanah arrives, we are, in effect, celebrating the new year according to the sun’s cycle. That is also why we add a month every few years, so that the sun and the moon stay in sync, as is well known. We won’t get into that now. On the other hand, Rosh Chodesh Nissan is connected with the moon. The moon renews itself every month. At Rosh Chodesh it begins as a thin sliver, then grows until the fifteenth, when the moon is full. After that it wanes. So every twenty-nine and a half days, the moon renews itself. That is the basic difference between the moon and the sun. If so, it is also the difference between the month of Nissan and the month of Tishrei. What does that mean in a Jew’s life? It means two ways of serving Hashem. Our calendar is not just a technical calendar. It expresses a Jew’s life from day to day. We have two calendars, two ways of reckoning, two starting points, you might say, because there are two ways a Jew serves Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and every Jew needs both. There is a Jew’s service of Hashem in the manner of the sun. That means steady, everyday service of Hashem, service of Hashem within the framework of nature, serving Hashem by doing the same things each day. A person gets up in the morning and starts the day. There are the prayers we say morning, afternoon, and evening; there are the regular Torah study sessions; a person goes out to work and earn a living. Daily life, daily mitzvos—this is a Jew’s life in a more

11:41 general sense. Let’s call it a Jew’s life as it relates to the everyday world, to the natural order. A Jew’s nature, of course, is to conduct himself according to the Shulchan Aruch and the Torah, in the course of ordinary life. The sun does not wax and wane. There is a pattern that repeats itself again and again, and each year, on Rosh Hashanah, a Jew’s life within the natural order is renewed. Then there is a Jew’s life in the manner of the moon. The moon represents renewal. As we said, there is suddenly darkness, and then light suddenly breaks through and continues to grow. There are changes. In a Jew’s service of Hashem, the moon symbolizes service that breaks through the boundaries of nature: renewal. A person changes; he does not remain in the same place. From time to time, a Jew needs to break out of his routine, his everyday pattern, his natural way of behaving, and go beyond the limits of his own nature. That is what the moon symbolizes, and that is essentially what the Midrash tells us. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created His world. There is the creation of nature: “In the beginning, Elokim created the heavens and the earth.” It says in Kabbalah, in the Zohar, that the numerical value of Elokim is the same as that of hateva, “nature.” In other words, the name Elokim is a holy name, a name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but it is the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu as He conceals Himself within the framework of nature. He created a world that follows the patterns of nature. Day after day, the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. There is everyday life. Rosh Hashanah arrives, the year of the natural order is renewed, and a Jew’s task is to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu in His world. “When He chose His world”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world and chose His world. He wants the world. He wants there to be a world, and for a Jew to live in this world and, within the world, within physical life and nature, make it cleaner, more refined, more

14:05 gentle, by conducting himself with honesty and fairness in worldly affairs, in business and in daily life, and by being a healthy, normal, well-adjusted person in his everyday life. This is what we receive in the month of Tishrei. Then the month of Nissan arrives: “He chose Yaakov and his children.” Yaakov and his children, in essence, do not belong to the world. The Jewish people are a people who transcend the entire world. The souls of the Jewish people are hewn from beneath the Throne of Glory. The soul is literally a part of G-d Above. It is not bound up with nature or with creation. It comes from the name Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei. The world was created through the name Elokim, whose numerical value is that of hateva, “nature.” A Jew is a part of Havayah, a part of Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, His people. The name Havayah is the wondrous, holy name, the essential name that expresses the unlimited, the miraculous, the infinite. These are, in essence, two ways in which Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the world. There is the governance of nature, and there is the governance of miracles. Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the world in two ways. This is a deep subject, and we won’t get into it now. Great Jewish sages have discussed it. Some said that, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective, there are not two ways of governing the world: it is always a miracle; everything is a miracle. Nature, too, is a miracle. We simply get used to it, so we call it nature. You see the same things every day: the sun rises, rain falls, plants grow. So you call it nature. When something happens once in a lifetime, once in many years, suddenly you say, “Wow,” and call it a miracle. That is what it says in a number of books. But according to Kabbalah and Chassidus, that is not really so, because these are two distinct ways in which Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the world. There is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s governance through the name Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, and there is His governance through the name Elokim. The numerical value of Elokim is the same as that of

16:05 hateva, “nature.” That is the month of Tishrei. So we say: “This is the day on which Your works began, a remembrance of the first day.” A Jew goes to shul, prays, does teshuvah, and asks Hakadosh Boruch Hu to give us a good and blessed year, a year of success, a year of happiness and health—all the material things, within the natural order. That is Tishrei. In the month of Nissan, “When Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose Yaakov and his children, He established it as a month of Geulah.” A Jew is connected with miraculous governance. And this did not happen just once in history, when the Jewish people left Egypt on Pesach and there were so many miracles, the miracles of the Geulah. Rather, it means that this is a way of life. The Jewish people are connected with what transcends nature. A Jew’s service, his connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is a miraculous connection. The Exodus from Egypt is not just a story that happened once, in one particular place. Chassidus teaches us that when we say “Egypt,” we do not mean only the country of Egypt. Egypt symbolizes everything connected with nature. Nature itself is Egypt, because Mitzrayim, “Egypt,” conveys the idea of a meitzar, a narrow place. A narrow place means limitation. Nature means limitation: order, fixed laws, routine, always the same thing. And although Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs nature through Elokim—as we said, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present in each and every thing—this is, so to speak, Hakadosh Boruch Hu contracting Himself in such a way that the world and nature seem to conceal His presence. So a person gets used to nature and, G-d forbid, forgets Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When a miracle happens, a person opens his eyes and says, “Wow, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is infinite. He is unlimited. He is not bound by any of the laws of nature.” Here you see an infinite revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And a Jew is connected with miracles. If he is connected with what transcends nature, then his service of Hakadosh

18:08 It is not defined by the limits of nature. That gives a Jew the strength to break out of the rut, out of the day-to-day, out of those limitations where every day is the same. Breaking through the limits of nature in daily life means rising to a miraculous way of serving Hashem. In other words, as we said, we all have a way of serving Hashem in which every day is the same. You fall into a kind of cycle that you’ve grown used to, and sometimes we become almost like machines, just doing things. Tick, tick, tick—and it’s as though you’ve forgotten what the routine is about. Every day is the same. What are you doing? Who are you doing it for? What lies behind it? From time to time, we need to break out of our nature. From time to time, a Jew needs to rise to a place of miracles, to rise above nature, to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu beyond what he is used to, beyond his own nature. To break through my boundaries, to stop thinking only in fixed patterns, to make some change, rise to a higher place, demand something different of myself, something else—demand something of myself that will take me beyond my boundaries, beyond my daily routine. There is the well-known teaching of our Sages. The Alter Rebbe cites it in Tanya, from the Gemara in Chagigah: “One who reviews his chapter a hundred times cannot be compared to one who reviews his chapter a hundred and one times.” In other words, a person can become accustomed to a certain pattern of learning. That’s how it is: every day he has his Torah study session. Breaking through nature means a hundred and one times. As the Gemara says, in Talmudic times people would review everything a hundred times. They didn’t have books; it was the Oral Torah. They would review everything a hundred times to remember it, and that was the norm. The moment he does one more than a hundred—just one—he has broken the pattern. He has broken his routine, stepped out, and broken through the limits of

20:09 nature. He is a completely different person. He is called one who serves Elokim. What does it mean to serve Elokim? He does, he does... he works, works, works. It means he refines, he elevates Elokim. Elokim, as we said, represents nature. To “serve Elokim” means to work on it, like taking a hide and processing it into something more refined. You take the coarse hide of an animal and make parchment from it. That work is called processing hides: working on it, refining it, making it different. You work on your own nature and go beyond your nature, rise above nature. The same applies to doing acts of kindness and giving tzedakah. There’s the usual amount: I give a tenth, I give a fifth. And then there’s going beyond the limits in giving tzedakah. Then I rise to a miraculous way of conduct. More generally, a Jew needs to live with a supernatural connection in serving Hashem, not get stuck in a rut of “This is who I am, this is how I behave, and that’s that.” Rather, he must demand of himself that tomorrow be better than today, that there be some change, something that takes me beyond my daily routine. That, in essence, is a daily exodus from Egypt. If so, this is the meaning of the Midrash’s words. Here we speak of when Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose His world: there is the world as Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose it, a world of nature. Serving Hashem within nature is also extremely important, because we need to make the world a G-dly place. That is what we receive in Tishrei. But there is also when He chose Yaakov and his children: a Jew needs to rise above the world, and then his service is beyond the limits of nature. With this in mind, let’s go back and explain the disagreement between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Eliezer says, “The world was created in Tishrei.” What does that mean? What is the disagreement here? Was the world created in Tishrei, or was it created in Nissan?

22:20 According to this explanation, the disagreement is not simply about whether the world was created at one time or the other. There is something deeper here. As we said, there is the natural order and there is miraculous conduct. There is the world viewed through the name Elokim, and the world viewed through the name Havayah, and so on. There is a world associated with nature and a world associated with miracles. So the question is: Which world should a Jew live in? What is the main reality in a Jew’s life? Is it working within nature or rising above nature? Rabbi Eliezer says, “The world was created in Tishrei.” Nature exists. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created reality, and that reality operates according to nature. We need to work within nature and make it healthy, living soundly according to the pattern of daily life. That is the main part of a Jew’s service in the world, in the reality of creation: to live everyday life in a sound way. The world was created in Tishrei. Then Rabbi Yehoshua comes and says, “The world was created in Nissan.” As we said, a Jew’s source is a veritable part of G-d above, beyond nature. His service of Hashem must also be above nature. Therefore, “the world was created in Nissan”: the essential purpose of the world, our task in the world, is to lift the world out of its limitations, break through its boundaries, and raise it to the level of the name Havayah, above nature. And so, when it comes to the Geulah of Moshiach, the same disagreement arises. Regarding the exodus from Egypt, there is no disagreement; everyone says it happened in Nissan. Why? Even Rabbi Eliezer agrees with Rabbi Yehoshua that at the exodus from Egypt, something happened outside the normal order. Something was broken; a boundary was breached. The moment of the exodus from Egypt was a moment of an entirely supernatural miracle, because the Jewish people were not actually worthy of redemption. The Jewish people were not ready for redemption. The Jewish people were, as

24:21 the Gemara says, “These were idol worshippers, and those were idol worshippers.” The Jewish people were in a state where, by the natural order, they could have been—and should have been—left in the darkness of Egypt. But what happened? Hakadosh Boruch Hu broke all the rules, went against nature, and performed a miracle. So Pesach, the exodus from Egypt, took place in Nissan, the month of redemption, breaking through every boundary. Rabbi Eliezer agrees with Rabbi Yehoshua on that too. But that was the first time. The question concerns the Geulah of Moshiach. Rabbi Eliezer argues: The Geulah of Moshiach comes after the Jewish people received the Torah, left Egypt, and were given a path for serving Hashem. Throughout the more than 3,300 years since the giving of the Torah, our task has been to become ready for the Geulah even according to the natural order. Tishrei is the month of nature, the month of the world’s creation. A Jew must prepare for Moshiach’s coming in such a way that even by the standards of nature, the world will be ready for the Geulah. Not miraculously, but naturally, through the natural process of redemption. That is why Rabbi Eliezer says, as the Gemara in Sanhedrin relates, “The Jewish people will be redeemed only through teshuvah.” Tishrei is the month of teshuvah. This is the time of redemption, the time for a Jew’s work. The Jewish people do teshuvah and serve Hashem, and thereby make the world’s nature ready for the Geulah within the world’s own limits. Then Rabbi Yehoshua comes along. He holds that a Jew’s very essence is above nature, on the level of miracles. So he follows his approach and says, “In Nissan they are destined to be redeemed.” The Geulah will come in a state of Nissan. That means a Jew’s service of Hashem is the service of Nissan—going above nature, breaking through nature’s limits. A Jew rises above nature, and it is specifically in Nissan, through service above nature. He says: Certainly, just as the first Geulah was in Nissan,

26:34 The final Geulah, too, will be in Nissan. The first Geulah was in Nissan, as we said, because that is what happened: Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not wait; He redeemed us miraculously. The final Geulah, it is true, comes through the work of the Jewish people throughout the long years of exile—through 3,300 years of Torah and mitzvos, of work and refinement and suffering, and everything the Jewish people have gone through. We are worthy of the Geulah. But Rabbi Yehoshua is arguing that there is something deeper about Nissan. It is not just a gift; there is work for a Jew to do here, too. But that work is the work of Nissan, not the work of Tishrei. A Jew’s main work must be to rise above nature, and the Geulah, too, will be a supernatural Geulah, a Geulah in the manner of Nissan. So when we are in the month of Nissan and are told, “In Nissan they are destined to be redeemed,” and the Midrash cites this as the ruling—that this is indeed how it will be—what does the Midrash mean? Of course a Jew must await Moshiach’s coming all year, all the time, every single moment. “I will await him every day, that he should come”—that is real. Every day means Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz. Every day a Jew awaits Moshiach. The question is what kind of Geulah we are anticipating, and therefore how we prepare for it. And the point is that we anticipate the Geulah of Nissan. A Jew anticipates a Geulah that will come miraculously: the unlimited light of the Ein Sof, the revelation of the Name Havayah, the revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s infinity. Nissan—the light of the Geulah will be a light above the natural order. But here, too, there is work for a Jew to do. It does not mean that we sit quietly with our arms folded and go to sleep, and the Geulah arrives without our doing anything. Rabbi Yehoshua, too, demands work, but his is work in a miraculous manner. He says that a Jew has the power to rise above

28:37 nature, and through that he becomes, as it were, a vessel for G-dly light that is above nature. What does that mean in our daily lives? When the month of Nissan arrives, a Jew is called upon to serve Hashem in a miraculous way: to leave his limitations, to break out of his fixed habits, to rise above his nature—even his good nature of observing Torah and mitzvos. But it must not be routine observance, “mitzvos performed by rote.” Rather, serving Hashem should be an act of renewal, like the moon: renewing ourselves with fresh vitality and a new light, above our nature. And when we break through our nature, the Geulah from Above, too, will come in a way that is above nature, in the manner of Nissan. According to this, something wonderful emerges. The Midrash tells us, as we said, following Rabbi Yehoshua, “In Nissan they are destined to be redeemed.” But what about the dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua? How will the Geulah come? The Gemara in Sanhedrin gives two views. Rabbi Eliezer says, “The Jewish people will be redeemed only through teshuvah,” as we said earlier. That is why he said they are destined to be redeemed in Tishrei. Rabbi Yehoshua says that the Geulah does not depend on teshuvah—not on money and not on deeds. That is what the Gemara says: the Geulah will come from Above. But look at the halachah. In Hilchos Teshuvah, the Rambam states an explicit ruling. He says in chapter 9, “The Jewish people will be redeemed only through teshuvah”—like Rabbi Eliezer. So what is going on here? We rule like Rabbi Eliezer, yet the Geulah will be in Nissan. But with this explanation, it is wonderful. Rabbi Yehoshua, too, holds that the Geulah will come through teshuvah—but the teshuvah of Nissan, not the teshuvah of Tishrei. Not a natural process of teshuvah, orderly and steady, day by day, but a teshuvah in which a person bursts forward and leaps over the mountains. That is the very theme of Nissan: the leap, the skipping. Pesach is named for the skipping. This skipping, this leap, is teshuvah by leaping and breaking through. To leave

30:58 our limitations, to break through our boundaries. Teshuvah of this kind is the teshuvah of Rabbi Yehoshua. It is the teshuvah of Nissan. And of this teshuvah it is said, “The Jewish people will be redeemed only through teshuvah.” As the Rambam says, the Torah has promised that the Jewish people will be redeemed only through teshuvah. Now, as Moshiach is about to arrive and we can already feel the footsteps of the Geulah, we are certain it will happen this month of Nissan. Something is awakening in every Jew. Recently, we have been seeing and witnessing a remarkable awakening of teshuvah among the Jewish people. This teshuvah comes as a leap, as Pesach, as Nissan—our own inner Exodus from Egypt, rising above our nature. This, too, will bring the light of the complete Geulah in the month of Nissan. So we are living in Nissan, a wonderful month. This month tells us that a Jew must rise above the limits of nature, and we become ready for this month of Nissan to be the month of Geulah. As it says in the sefarim, the Shelah HaKadosh writes that all of Nissan is Rosh Chodesh—not just Rosh Chodesh Nissan. “This month shall be for you the first of months,” says the Shelah, means that every day of the month is like Rosh Chodesh. Every single day has the same greatness, depth, and festivity as Rosh Chodesh. That is also why we do not say Tachanun throughout the month. To live in an atmosphere of Geulah is to rise above our nature. And through this work, we truly become worthy and become vessels to merit seeing the complete Geulah this Nissan, this wonderful month. As the Midrash says, it is a month of joy. Serving Hashem with joy is itself a release from exile. When a person serves Hashem only according to his nature, he has no joy. He works; he does things. There is no vitality, no joy. When the work is above nature, you are alive every day, you are alive every day, you are

32:50 joyful. And that is what the Midrash says, in the words we read: “a month of joy.” The joy with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu exacts retribution from our enemies. May we merit to see victory in the war, victory over all the darkness of exile, and the light of the complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach. “In Nissan they are destined to be redeemed.”