HALACHA OF THE WEEK: The Two Months of Adar
This coming week is Rosh Chodesh Adar I - the additional month which we add in a Hebrew leap year. (Leap years occur in the third, sixth, eighth, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th years of a 19-year cycle)
While this added month assures us that our holidays will remain in the proper seasons, it does create an unusual dilemma since there are now two months with the same name - which is the real one and which is added? Or in other words, which one should be the Adar that contains Purim, birthdays, Yahrzeits, etc.
The answer is that it depends on the type of observance we are trying to place. Specifically, there are three basic categories of observances:
OBSERVANCES BASED ON MONTHS: A typical example is the 12 months of mourning for parents or the kaddish recited for 11 months. These halachot are calculated exclusively on the passage of months and the second Adar is no different than any other month.
OBSERVANCES BASED ON A YEAR: The classic example of this is the mitzvah of "batei arei chomah." In the days of the Beit Hamikdash, one had up to a year to redeem property sold in a walled city before it was considered permanently sold to another. This halacha would be 12 months in an ordinary year and 13 months in a leap year. Similarly, a bar/bat mitzvah is based on full years and not on months. Therefore, a bar mitzvah boy born in Shevat would wait 13 months from his 12th to 13th birthday and celebrate in Shevat. [Pri Chadash (Orech Chaim 55:10) quotes the Maharash HaLevi who disagrees and rules that the bar mitzvah should be in the first Adar.]
OBSERVANCES BASED ON A SPECIFIC DATE: If a date, for example, a yahrzeit, occurs in Adar then there is a disagreement when it should be observed. According to Maharil (and later the Taz), the first Adar is the primary one. While the Shulchan Aruch indicates that the second Adar is generally the important one. (Purim, after all, is celebrated on the Second Adar.) The Rema suggests that both the first Adar and the second Adar should be observed (the Vilna Gaon is said to have ruled that keeping both days is not a stringency, but a requirement).
An exception to this final rule is Purim, which should fit into this category except that the Gemara rules that it is observed in the Adar closest to Pesach - to link the two events of redemption, one to the next.
DVAR TORAH
אם כסף תלוה את עמי - when you lend money to My people, to the poor person who is with you..." (22:24)
Rashi quotes Rabbi Yishmael, who taught that wherever the word אם is found in a verse, it refers to something optional (i.e., it means "if"), except in three instances where it means "when," and this is one of those three." In other words, according to Rabbi Yishmael, lending money to other Jews is an obligation and a discretionary deed.
Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the "Netziv"), in his approbation to the Chafetz Chaim's book Ahavat Chesed, wrote: We read in Tehilim that "The world is built on chesed." This means that performing acts of chesed is not just a Jewish obligation, it is an obligation incumbent on all of humanity! And as proof, the Netziv cites the story of Sodom, which G-d destroyed because its people did not perform chesed. If they weren't obligated, how could they have been punished?
The Netziv continued: In addition to the universal obligation to perform chesed, Jews are commanded to perform an additional level of chesed, as we find in our verse and others throughout the Torah.
But what is the difference between the Jewish and the non-Jewish obligation of chesed?
The Jewish obligation of chesed includes things that may not seem rational. One example is the prohibition on charging a Jew interest on a loan. Giving a loan that bears interest is also an act of kindness and is perfectly moral; indeed, it permits both the borrower and the lender to benefit from the transaction. But the Torah imposes a higher standard on us and demands that we not charge a Jew interest.
SEMICHAT CHAVER PROGRAM, Wednesday 8:15p
TALMUD CLASS – Shabbat, 45 minutes before mincha
