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Ask The Rabbi

Ask The Rabbi

category:  Holidays

Meaning of double Adar

The Rav Name: Rabbi Asher Lemil Cohen

‏I would love to know what is the spiritual meaning for having two “Adar” cycles that are 60 days, instead of 30?

The reason we add an extra month is because the twelve-month lunar calendar is 354 days long, while the solar twelve-month calendar is (usually) 365 days long, so in order to synchronize the calendars and make sure that Pesach remains in the spring, we add an extra Adar every two or three years.

This shows the special spiritual attribute of the Jewish nation, which is compared to the moon and connected to its cycle. The gentiles are compared to the sun and connected with it.

Additional points:
1. The month of Adar symbolizes the mazal (downflow of abundance from Heaven) of the Jewish nation, due to the birth of Moshe Rabeinu (Moses) on the 7th of Adar. When there are two months of Adar, the effect is doubled.
2. In the laws of kashrut, there are certain cases where a non-kosher food is considered to be nullified if the kosher food that it became mixed with is at least sixty times more in quantity. When we have sixty days of Adar it is as if the forces of evil are nullified in the sixty days.
3. Most importantly, adjusting the solar and lunar calendars so that they become synchronized due to the additional month of Adar, reflects the coming of Moshiach, when the sun and the moon will become equal again, because the moon will be restored to the size it was at the beginning of Creation.

Sources

ספר השיחות תשנ”ב עמוד397