The month of Iyar is a less glamourous one, sandwiched between Pesach in Nisan, and Shavuot in Sivan. What is the significance of this month?
Well for one, this month is fully invested in the mitzvah of Counting of the Omer. What is this strange custom all about? In the times of the Temple, farmers would offer up their first grain to the Temple, the message being that everything comes from God, so even after a year-long agricultural process of caring for the production of these grains, we can still recognize the true source of their life.
We count the days from the day after Pesach, for 7 weeks until Shavuot. We don’t just count, we take account. The seven weeks parallel the seven major aspects of man’s psyche, and each one of those is divided into seven, thus creating 49 sub-levels which comprise mankind. Every day of the counting of the Omer, relates to a different opportunity to perfect man’s being.
The beauty of these days is that we have an opportunity to fix up every aspect of our being, one day for each one. Moreover, we are told that this whole process of man’s journey to perfection, is to become a receptacle to receive the Torah on the 50th day. And to the extent to which we achieve that perfection, to that extent we are able to receive the influx of wisdom.
While these days represent an opportunity for growth, it can work both ways. By way of analogy, the days of the Omer are like the building of a vessel. If you didn’t do it right, there will be a crack in the vessel. When it comes to filling the vessel, everything will eventually leak out. This presents a bit of a problem. For someone who has a history of procrastination, or is not always able to be consistent in his growth, he will not be able to create a perfect vessel – he will have a crack in his vessel!
What if we didn’t prepare? Are we destined to not receive this incredible flow of wisdom, doomed to live in ignorance? How do you fix something you have missed? How can someone who starts late, or simply couldn’t achieve perfection one day, be punished so severely for it?
To understand the solution to this problem we have to look at the underlying theme of the month of Iyar. Most noticeable, is that in the middle of the month, there is a little-known festival, barely celebrated, called Pesach Sheini, the Second Passover. This took place when someone could not partake of the Pascal Sacrifice in Nisan due to being spiritually impure. He missed his chance, and didn’t make it onto the VIP list to be counted for partaking of the sacrifice. One month later, those who missed out, were so upset that they missed this climactic moment in history they complained to Moses. Moses then speaks to God who tells him that those who missed it will have another opportunity to do it again. They got a second chance.
This theme of second chances actually runs through the whole month, and we can see some great examples of this. The mystics say that the month of Iyar is an auspicious time for healing. Hidden in the name of the month is an allusion to the verse Ani Hashem Rofecha (I am God your Healer), an acronym for Iyar. Indeed healing is a second chance of sorts. When a person is afflicted with illness, the sages postulate that on some level there is an opportunity being given for changing ones ways to awaken him to teshuva, to repent (of course every case and every illness is different, but this is meant in a general sense). When he does subsequently change his ways he will be healed, and thus afforded a second chance to fulfill his life mission.
Another interesting example is as follows. To understand it we must first, by way of introduction, state that everything in Jewish law can be understood on many levels. There is the superficial manifestation and the deeper one. With that in mind, many of the contemporary authorities have declared that it is not proper to give a get (a Jewish bill of divorce) in the month of Iyar. The reason is simple, and rather technical. There is a dispute as to how to spell the word Iyar (with one yud or two). And as we are incredibly meticulous to spell every name and date in a bill of divorce to be certain of all the facts, it was deemed better to wait until after the month of Iyar to complete the divorce. Now this seems quite logical, but there may be a deeper principle at play here. We have mentioned that Iyar is a month of second chances, and maybe the underlying reason we delay a get in this month is to say let’s give the relationship another go before making this decision final.
Lastly, one famous day in this month, is known as Lag Ba’Omer. This is the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer. We mourn the deaths of the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. On the 33rd day they ceased dying. And it was on that very day a number of years later that Rabbi Akiva decided to rebuild his dynasty of Torah and started again, this time with only five students. This day thus represents a second chance for Torah. Think of the scene, thousands of Jewish leaders died in the space of a month, and the people must have thought the end had finally come. Nevertheless Rabbi Akiva, through his determination and perseverance, began the process of rebuilding, allowing a new generation of Torah scholars to emerge. One of his five new students was the infamous Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, author of the Zohar.
Iyar is a month of building the most important thing one could build in the world: ourselves. Built-in to that process is a mechanism to help us when we inevitably fall. When we have the right intentions, there is always a second chance.
