Do you know the connection between Tevet and Torah Study?

Chodesh Tov to you all! Today starts a new month called Tevet. Tevet along with Tammuz and Av are considered by the Zohar the 3 most negative months of the year. Why is Tevet considered negative? We will answer that question below!

The Zohar also teaches us that Moshe was concealed by his mother for 3 months during his gestation (her pregnancy). The Zohar also tells us that these 3 months were Tammuz, Av, and Tevet. The underlying explanation for the negativity of Tevet as well as the other 2 months is that the Shechina does not operate as a protection shield during that period. That is why Yocheded (Moshe’s Mother) needed to act as the Shechina in Moshe’s development during those 3 months and protect the future redeemer.

What has all of this to do with my life today? These stories from the Torah are truly speaking to us, in our life today! Even when we do not understand what the code is saying.

Lets discuss the code by starting to review what the Sefer Yetzirah and other Kabbalistic Teachings say about this month.

Letters of the month: Ayin – created the constellation Gedi גדי. The Hebrew word means “immature or young goat”.

Bet -- created the planet Noga which we call Venus. Venus is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise – this means left to right.

The gematria of Ayin and Bet together is 72. This relates to the level of Chochma and the 72 Names. It is also interesting to note that the essence of the letter Bet deals with Bracha or Blessings and the essence of the letter Ayin, which means “eye” in Hebrew, deals with the level of consciousness called Chochma. Ayin also can mean Nothingness as in the Ayin Sof translated as the endless world or the world of nothingness.

Tribe: Dan – represents initially a state of immaturity which has the possibility to gow to maturity during the month of Tevet. Initially the Tribe of Dan דן(which is the Hebrew word Din meaning judgment) judges with an immature view. Always being critical and judging with strict judgment. This is sometimes referred to as the “evil eye”. Maturity of judgment means to be able to see with a more benevolent eye and use a softer (less strict) judgment. This will impact us during the month of Tevet. We will learn to judge with less harsh judgment as the month progresses from New Moon, to Full Moon, to the next New Moon of Shvat.

The correction for the Tribe of Dan; and for people born in the month of Capricorn which is the same period as the month of Tevet; is to learn to use Anger as a tool for positive effect not negative. One must learn Holy Anger to fight against Evil Anger. An example of Holy Anger is the teacher who pretends to be angry at his student in order to impress on the student the seriousness of his wrong behavior and to try to have the student change his future behavior.

To understand this next section, one must learn a little bit of Reincarnation Principles. Each person has a root soul. This means that each person who is spiritually Jewish comes from one of the 12 Tribes of Israel. Actually they come from the soul of one of the sons of Jacob. Some people come from Judah – the man not the Tribe. Some people come from Issachar – The man not the Tribe. Each story in the Torah about the man (Judah, Issachar, or another son of Jacob) is teaching us about the attributes of the Tribe that develops from that soul root. It also teaches us that people with those attributes come from that soul root.

Our sages teach that only a person who is from the “root soul” of Dan can “jump up and kill the snake simultaneously.” To understand the metaphor from the sages we need to understand that the snake represents the evil inclination and the negative system will constantly be making judgments. The correction is to make judgments that “see” the positive and not the negative. This is rising higher (Jumping up) and killing the snake (our evil inclination). This is a simultaneous event. This is the attribute of Dan that helps us overcome our evil inclination. During the month of Tevet, we each are imbued with the ability to “see” the positive and not the negative. We have to choose to “see” things this way.

To truly understand the aspect of the Tribe of Dan we need to understand the following metaphorical statement from The Zohar. The Zohar says that the commander in chief of the army of Mashiach will come from the Tribe of Dan. To fully understand this is too long for this discussion. I would like you to think about its meaning and utilize this as a meditative tool to strengthen your intuition during the month of Tevet and write an email to me at yeshshem@hotmail.com to explain your personal understanding of this statement from the Zohar.

As we know, each Hebrew Letter has a numerical value. This is the basis for the gematria relationships. Final letters have 2 numerical values. One value is their normal gematria. The second value is the final letter value. The final letter value only comes into play when we are in the frame of reference of the final days or the “Birthpangs of Mashiach” as the sages call it. We are being told by the Mekubalim that we are in that period now. Each letter that has a final letter form has these 2 aspects at the same time.

The Gematria of Dan is 54 and 704 (final letter value) simultaneously. The words that have a similar gematria of 54 seem to be conflicting messages. The words are: My Blood דמי; from a hand מיד; to my hearts לבבך; hope אחילה; from gold מזהב;and a brain ומח; while the words after maturity (after Mashiach as represented by 704) seem to be very directed. “In Shabbat” בשבת.

There is one Verse, in the Tanach (Bible) that has a gematria of 704. It is Numbers Chapter 13 Verse 9. Here it is in both English and Hebrew: למטה בנימן פלטי בן-רפוא Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu. To help understand the connection. Palti (which is a name of one of the descendants from the Tribe of Benjamin) means “my delivery” and Raphu means “His healing”. This indicates that after correction, after Mashiach, the Capricorn person (from the Tribe of Dan) will deliver the healing of Hashem. What is that healing? It is the changing of the snake to be less severe in its judgments. This is metaphorically called “killing the snake” by the sages.

Sense: Anger – Righteous Anger. This is anger felt by the good inclination towards the evil inclination. Righteous Anger is the frustration the parent feels toward a child who has not yet learned proper behavior and embarrasses the parent, in front of company. Righteous Anger is still immature. Ultimate maturity means to release all anger and to learn that everything comes from the light and therefore is good.

Controller: Liver – In the body, the liver is the home of the evil inclination. The action of the liver is to cleanse the blood of toxins. The Zohar (over 2000 years ago) teaches that when one is unable to control anger, one produces an abundance of one of two types of fat that is fed to the heart. Modern science calls these two types of fat good cholesterol (Hi density lipoprotein - HDL) and bad cholesterol (Lo density lipoprotein - LDL). By not getting angry, by controlling anger, and not suppressing anger one causes ones body to produce the proper balanced amount of good and bad cholesterol. When not controlling anger we cause too much bad cholesterol which as we are taught causes heart disease and strokes. In is amazing that this was known, by the Kabbalists, over 2000 years ago.

In the Talmud it says there are 3 parts of the body that control the body and soul. They are the heart, the brain, and the liver. Adam is a metaphor for the brain; Eve is a metaphor for the heart; and the snake is a metaphor for the liver.

In Hebrew the word for liver is Kaved כבד. It is also the word for honor Kavod. It’s gematria is 26 which we all recognize as the gematria of the name of God called the Tetragramaton. Just as the snake in Hebrew – gematria 358 is the antithesis of the Mashiach – gematria 358; the liver is the home (in the body) of the antithesis of Hashem which is Satan. The main tool of Satan is to make us angry. This is the correction of the Tribe of Dan and the sign of Capricorn. Initial judgment is hot like the venom of the snake. After correction, it warms the cold of the month of Tevet which is one of the winter months and usually very cold in the northern hemisphere.

Constellation:

The nature of the Capricorn (Gedi גדי) is to see separation. The Tikune (correction) is to “see” the unity. This goes above our nature and provides space for the Miracles in our lives. The word Gedi means both a young goat and the sign of Capricorn. Its gematria is 17 which is the same as the word Tov meaning good. After the judgment has been sweetened by the killing of the snake the Capricorn is considered good and can progress into the sign of the water bearer – Aquarius.

Holidays: The Last 3 days of Chanuka are in the month of Tevet including its culmination of Zot Chanukah!

Energy days of Tevet:

Rosh Chodesh Tevet: is within the Holiday of Chanuka as mentioned.

Third of Tevet is Zot Chanuka: The translation of Zot Chanuka is “This is Chanuka”. Yet each of the 8 days is Chanuka so why is the last day called V’zot Chanuka? The Zohar explains that Zot וזות actually is the unity of Zeir Anpin and Malchut (the spiritual and physical worlds). On this day all of the Ohr Ganuz is fulfilling all of the 8 vessels (Sephirot) meant to receive that light. Please see my discussion about this in the weekly email for Vayegash.

Tenth of Tevet is a fast day: The physical reason for this fast day has to do with the siege of Jerusalem by the Persians and the Romans both started on the 10th day of Tevet. The spiritual reason has to do with a connection to the energy of the day as explained below by the connection to the House of HaShem. (The Temple is the House of HaShem. The destruction of the Temple relate to the 4 fast days in the Hebrew calendar. They all have something to do with the destruction of the Temple.) The 10th of Tevet is the last fast day of the year. The other fast days are 17th of Tammuz, Tisha B’Av, and the Fast of Gedalia, The relationship of the months that fast days occur is a connection to Hashem. The fast days are:

Fast of the 17th day of Tammuz in the 4th month (Tammuz)

Tisha B’Av in the 5th month (Av)

Fast of Yom Kippur in the 7th month (Tishrai)

Fast of the 10th of Tevet in the 10th month (Tevet).

4+5+7+10 = 26 which is the Gematria of the Name of Hashem. This is not just coincidence. These numbers are revealing a specific connection between HaShem and the 4 months. Even if this connection is not yet revealed or understood, does not mean the connection does not exist.

24th of Tevet: The Chabad organization celebrates the Hilula of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi the founder of the Lubavitch organization that has grown into the Chabad of today.

Other days in Tevet: We live in a generation that is fortunate to have a Tzadik that has left each of the 30 days of Tevet. It is good to connect to all of the Tzadikim that passed on a certain day. They are available to assist you in overcoming the excess energy of the month of Tevet since the Schechina is not operational this month. The link above will bring you to the list of Tzadikim and the day in Tevet that they chose to leave. Hilula, means a day of joy, which is the word in Hebrew used to refer to the death day or in Yiddish it is Yartzeit. Actually the true meaning of these words is very different.

One of the tools of the Satan is to make us feel unhappy or depressed. Being happy especially in the short winter months like Tevet takes great restricition. These Tzadikim help us achieve a state of happiness when we contemplate their lives and their accomplishments in getting closer to the creator. They offer themselves to us, to use as a channel to get closer to Hashem. They can be used as a go between our world and us and Hashem.

The Kabbalist answer to Why is Tevet negative?, by teaching us that the protection shield called the Shechina (Female aspect of God – definition from the academic Kabbalists) is not active during this month. The reason has to do with the actions of the son of Jacob whose name is Gad.

We have a Midrash that explains that Gad one of the children of Israel did a negative action that caused the arrival time for Mashiach to be transferred from Tevet to the month of Shvat which is the Aquarian month immediately following Tevet. We do not know what action he did. There is no writing about it other than this one midrash. We do know the effect is to cause the Shechinah to become inactive which leaves us with only our own restriction to balance the energy of the month. Work hard at stopping your reactions this month. This includes remaining happy during what appears (only in the illusion) to be difficult times.

People will find that the spiritual tools provided by Yeshshem with their individual names intertwined within the energy sources of the 72 Names and the Book of Adam will make doing restriction easier.

To receive this, one must send an email to yeshshem@hotmail.com requesting a set of “Name Tools”. There is no charge yet donations are requested and no one is turned away due to a lack of donation.

Let me caution you about the month of Tevet: People find that their reactions slip easily into Anger. It takes a lot of restriction to keep in balance this month. Many people find that they get colds and other flu symptoms this month. This is an indication of being out of balance. It takes a lot of restriction to remain in balance this month. Please keep that in mind!

The question at the top of this email is answered by doing letter substitutions, based on the part of the mouth where the letters are expressed. Tevet טבת , can be transformed into Lamed למד, (teaching) by substituting a Lamed for the Tet (Both come from the same part of our mount – our teeth), a Mem for a Bet (both come from the same part of our mouth – our lips), and a Dalet for a Taf (Both come from the same part of our mount – our teeth). It is good to do additional study of Torah as part of your restriction during the month of Tevet.

Also Tevet is a winter month when the days are short. We learn from this concealment within Tevet, that doing extra study during the long winter nights will reveal the light of Hashem and keep the physical darkness at bay. This is a part of restriction as well.

One additional point, There is a period in the calendar that most Rabbi's do not discuss. It is the period called Shovavim spelled שובבים. I will discuss more about this in my email of Shmot. Please look for it around December 19 which is the 12th of Tevet.

Good Luck with your restriction this month! Remember, i am available for personal consultation durring this month. Again there is no charge for this.

Chodesh Tov