From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: New Moon of Adar 5785

The Twelfth House: Psyche

AI Overview:
In astrology, the 12th house is the realm of the subconscious mind, dreams, and the unseen. It's also known as the "House of Unconscious” and rules anything hidden from view - including intuition, secrets and also society’s shadows and blind spots (such as prisons and other institutions that people may not be free to leave).

https://www.thecut.com/article/astrological-houses-zodiac-meaning.html

The Twelfth House is considered the “unseen realm.” This domain — the last House in the cycle — contains all things that exist without physical form (dreams, secrets, emotions … along with affairs, addictions, and psychological ailments). The Twelfth House is considered the most psychic, spiritual, and mysterious area of the birth chart, so those born with planets in this area are often highly intuitive individuals who encounter psychic and spiritual experiences.

https://jewishlink.news/the-meanings-of-our-month-names/

Cohen writes in “The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East” (1993):
“It is unclear whether the name Addaru is of Semitic origin, presumably a cognate of the Akkadian verbs adaru A (“to be worried,” “to become obscured…)” or adaru B (“to be afraid”) or whether the month name is an Elamite or foreign word.” Klein mentions the suggestions “month of the threshing floor” and “dark or clouded month.”

א-דר the א resides

Rabbi Dovber Pinson - The Month of Adar: Transformation Through Laughter and Holy Doubt

Adar is connected to the word aderet, which means a cloak, clothing or covering. Our garments give us a sense of certainty and identity. Even while they ‘conceal’ the body, they ‘reveal’ something about our self-definition.

In the Purim story, the characters frequently change their clothing. Our celebration of Purim includes shedding the external clothes thar we accumulated in the winter, and playfully altering our identity. Dressing up in costumes on Purim involves letting go of inhibitions and projections that have concealed us, and donning garments that surprisingly reveal an aspect of who we really are. We become ‘lighter’ and more fluid with our garments and our self-definition. We become childlike, free of the form and accumulated conditioning that we have carried.

רד״א - Radla: the Unknowable

As this month includes the opposite qualities of rooted strength and fluid transience, openness and lightness, it is clear that Adar is connected to a reality that is beyond both. Indeed, this reality is even beyond definition and knowability.

This is represented by the fact that Adar אדר is an acronym for reisha d’lo ityada רד״א - ‘the Unknowable Head’ or ‘the head that does not know,’ usually called by its acronym Radla. This refers to the deepest level within the Divine Self, so to speak … Although inexpressible, for our purposes, Radla can be thought of as Divine doubt, a place where all is possible, for nothing is yet defined.

from The Month of Adar: Transformation Through Laughter and Holy Doubt

https://www.aldebaranhealing.co.nz/articles/the-spleen-in-chinese-medicine

The spleen is in charge of allowing the body to taste the primary 5 tastes: bitter, sweet, pungent/spicy, salty and sour. The spleen also has an important role in producing and nourishing the blood, converting the nutrients we eat into healthy functioning blood. …

The spleen is also correlated with the times of year when there is equal day and night, particularly the autumnal equinox but also the spring equinox. During this time of year, 2 weeks either side of the equinox, there is a natural momentum and dynamic in the cosmos for change. This is often why we have the phrase ‘spring clean’, to describe the movement toward creating order and cleanliness after the dying and decaying process in the winter months and to invite into our beings the newness of spring. …

The fleshy aspect of our body is governed by the spleen. When we are first born there is an innate need of our baby self to feel the presence of our primary care giver(s), often the mother, to have skin-skin touch, to be held and to be in relational contact. This is a mammalian experience of physically being in touch in order to feel safe on earth, safe in our body. Our Spleen functioning is strongly influenced by this early experience of infant care and nourishment. …

The spleen spirit (soul) aspect is described as Yì.

Yì is often understood as an intent, an idea, one’s predisposition of thought or way of thinking. It relates to one’s awareness, one’s perception which forms the basis of thought. The yì is considered to be closely related to the will, or zhì (志), which is the spirit aspect of the kidney. The intent is required for the will to manifest. ...

When the mind is in constant rumination, perhaps feels constantly worried or anxious, or has continuous thoughts which have a paranoid, or delusional quality, this is often an indication the spleen and earth element is undernourished, and does not feel supported. …

Some of the ways we can nurture and take care of our spleen can include: taking breaks from sustained mental thought, or over-thinking and worry due to work, study, or relationship challenges, eating regular and well balanced meals, slowing down to eat, asking ourselves when we feel stressed ‘what do I need right now in this moment?’, connecting to mother earth, creatures and plant life… feeling our bodies through touch, grounded movement… et al.

Melinda Ribner on joy:

Joy is not trivial. It is actually a powerful spiritual weapon. The joy of Adar defeats sadness, depression, jealousy and anger. (From Living in the Divine Flow: Monthly Spiritual Gifts and Blessings)

The joy of this month comes from embracing the materiality, the mundaneness, the physicality of the world and experiencing its inner divinity. When we can see that the physical and the spiritual dimensions are separate but also together, we are filled with joy and laughter. (From Kabbalah Month by Month)

Make time for yourself.

One simply needs to make a commitment to do activities that bring joy into one’s life. Make a list of at least five activities and experiences that are joyful to you. Make a plan and commit to do at least two of these things this month and two other things in the next few months. It is important to give yourself permission to be joyful. When you are joyful, you are aligned with Divine Will, so let go of any thoughts you may have that you are wasting time by enjoying yourself. (From Living in the Divine Flow: Monthly Spiritual Gifts and Blessings)

שחוק - חוש-ק

Laughter = the sense of ק

On the surface laughter may look like the kind of lightheaded, air-like, and almost frivolous characteristic one would more readily expect from an ‘ungrounded’ Hevel. However, there is a laughter of Hevel and there is a laughter of Kayin. It is true that when our laugher is ‘of Hevel’ it is empty, detached, not rooted in the sacredness of life, and thus not transformative; rather it leads ultimately to cynicism and depression. When our laughter is ‘of Kayin,’ on the other hand, it comes from deep within a rooted, grounded state. This laughter can release us from conventional form, helping us break free from our fixed definitions of reality, our rigid identities and rote patterns of mindless living. Kayin’s is a laughter of paradox – simultaneously rooted and free, expressing both certainty and doubt, both kedushah and kof, monkeying around. …

Rooted laughter thus strikes a balance between the groundedness of Kayin and the ethereal, wind-like quality of Hevel… This is the deeper work of Adar: the paradoxical fusion of laughter, humor and drinking, with grounded kedusha, dedication, meaning and discernment.

From R Dovber Pinson: The Month of Adar: Transformation Through Laughter and Holy Doubt

Monkeys are said to be the animal most like human beings and they are great imitators. Monkeys imitate humans and humans imitate God. This letter representing the monkey reminds us that reality is not what it appears to be.

From Kabbalah Month by Month, by Melinda Ribner

Rabbi Peleh Ezrahi: Chagigah

On Purim we descend to our monkey-nature. This is the inner meaning of the letter kuf, whose form goes beneath the line. On Purim we get a little sly, a little deceitful: we pretend to be something we are not, and we give ourselves permission to speak our unspoken truths through disguise, a kind of falsehood. This allows Purim to be the most serious and least serious of holidays, all at once.

The month of Adar is the time for healing our sense of humour - for without humour a person cannot understand the secrets of existence.

The Maharal of Prague taught that Purim is a day of return or regression to our inner childhood. The soul repair that is possible on Purim is felt through renewed contact with the simplicity, the joy and the playfulness of childhood…

If we accept the idea that the origin of the Homo sapiens is among the primates, the monkeys, then returning to ‘monkey behaviour’ is thus a type of returning to inner childhood on a species level. In the course of Purim there is a sort of returning to the fundamental roots of human-ness… which allows a “sweetening of the judgments at their root.”