The Leap Year - Part III

00:00 The hemsech and continuation to the earlier installments in regards to a leap year and its lessons, we continue now with installment number four, discussing additional lessons based on the insights of the Rebbe regarding a leap year. This is from a letter, a Rosh Hashanah message, which the Rebbe wrote on the sixth day of Tishrei, Tov Shin Lamed Ches, late 1977. The year Tov Shin Lamed Ches was a leap year. In the letter, the Rebbe writes, "The purpose of a leap year is, as is well known, to adjust and replenish the passing months and years which we, Am Yisrael, are required to calculate on the basis of the moon so that they do not fall short of the years calculated according to the sun. Inasmuch as the solar year is by a number of days longer than the lunar year. This adjustment, by way of periodically adding a month, a second Adar in a leap year, is necessary in view of the fact that the four seasons of the years, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, are determined by the sun, and the Torah requires that our festivals should occur in their due season. Sukkot, the festival of ingathering in the autumn, the season when the produce of the field is gathered in. Pesach in the month of spring. The intercalation of an extra month from time to time reduces the difference between the lunar years and solar years so that the festivals occur in their proper season. A full adjustment of the two methods of calculation

02:15 takes place at the conclusion of every nineteen-year cycle, when the lunar and solar years attain complete parity. And here it is where the year Tov Shin Lamed Ches has its special significance, for it marks the completion of the current nineteen-year cycle, when the process of adjustment and replenishment reaches the fullest measure. The leap year teaches a special lesson, which will become clear after the following introductory remark. The sun and the moon were both created to give light on the earth. However, there's a difference in the manner of their illuminating the earth. The sun radiates and gives off its own light, whereas the moon has no light of its own, but receives light from the sun, which it reflects and sends down to earth. In other words, the sun and the moon constitute and symbolize the role of mashpia, giver, and mekabel, recipient, respectively. The sun acts and influences. The moon is acted upon and is influenced, and only thereafter it also becomes a mashpia. The lesson of it is that a Yid has to be a mashpia and he has to be a mekabel. He is required to diffuse light, godliness, to illuminate himself and his surroundings. But in order to be a mashpia, he must first be a mekabel, a recipient of the light of the Torah and mitzvahs to illuminate his intellect and emotions and all his activities. There are times when one has to be primarily a mekabel, or even exclusively a mekabel, as for example, a disciple when receiving Torah instruction

04:24 from his teacher. Similarly, in regards to his task as a mashpia, as for example in giving tzedakah. In both aspects, he's expected to attain perfection, so that in the final sum total, his conduct both as recipient and giver will be perfectly balanced according to the capacities and opportunities that are given him, especially from on high, in each of the two roles individually and in both jointly. Only then is the service complete and perfect. This requires profound introspection and honest self-appraisal in order to utilize all one's capacities, both known and hidden, in the fullest and most complete measure in all areas of human endeavor in thought, speech, and deed. We will, im yirtzeh Hashem, continue in the next installment.