The month of Iyar (in which we have been since Monday) has several special qualities, which make it stand out from the other months in a particular way.
One of those qualities is that Iyar is a month in which each day has its own particular mitzvah. In general, every day of the year has its daily mitzvot, obligations of man to God and of man to his neighbor that one must fulfill every day, even if one has already done so the day before.
En este contexto, no alcanza con repetir la observancia del día anterior, sino que la misma Mitzvá que uno ya cumplió debe hacerse de una mejor manera cada día, como solían decir los jasidím, «mañana será mejor», es decir, mañana nos elevaremos más de nivel en la misma acción que estamos haciendo hoy.
From the second day of Passover until Shavuot, we count the Omer (as explained in a previous edition). Passover falls in the month of Nisan. Shavuot falls in the month of Sivan. Iyar is between Nisan and Sivan, which leads us to conclude that the mitzvah of counting the Omer occurs every night of the month of Iyar. Some days of Nisan, some of Sivan, and all of Iyar. Each day has its mitzvah.
Otra de las cualidades del mes de Iyar es su fuerte conexión con la curación – refua.
To illustrate, a short story.
About a month ago, I received a call from the city of Santa Fe, where the Chabad rabbi told me about a couple whose son was hospitalized in the children's hospital in La Plata. The next day, my son Shloime and I went to visit. Our sages say that a visit to a sick person reduces their illness by one-sixtieth, provided the person being visited and the visitor are of similar ages.
It turns out the hospitalized child was a four-month-old baby with a very serious and rare heart condition. The baby needed to undergo four very dangerous operations to be able to lead a normal life. He had already had the first one and was preparing for the second in the coming days.
The visit was very moving, then we met at a Kabbalat Shabbat, but afterwards we lost contact.
Last Sunday night I received another call. This time it was from La Plata, but from a cell phone in Santa Fe. Silvia, the boy's grandmother, told me that the baby was hospitalized due to a medical emergency, and that he needed a catheterization procedure that had never been successfully performed on such a young baby. And if this operation went well, immediately, without even leaving the operating room, he would have to undergo the second of four operations, for which he wasn't really ready.
Ella me pedía que rece por él. Si bien tenían esperanza y expectativas, las probabilidades eran pésimas… nunca se había hecho en la historia de la humanidad con éxito…
No? So? I explained two things to Grandma:
1)El mes de Iyar (en el cual ya nos encontrábamos por ser la noche de Rosh Jodesh) es el mes de la curación: la palabra Iyar se escribe alef – iud – iud – reish, las mismas letras que el versículo de la Torá que dice «Yo soy Di-s, tu curador» (ani hashem rofeja).
2) I asked him if he had written a letter to the Rebbe, and I explained to him the concept of this ancient custom of asking for the blessing of a Tzadik, a righteous man, and how he should proceed to do so.
De más está decir que el niño pasó las dos partes de la operación, que Iyar es realmente el mes de curación y que el Rebe es nada más y nada menos que El Rebe, es decir, la cabeza del pueblo judío, que piensa y se ocupa de cada judío y judía, hasta en los lugares más recónditos de la tierra, como un viejo hospital de niños en La Plata, donde un bebe de cuatro meses de la ciudad de Santa Fe lucha con su corazoncito para vivir y decir «Que todo lo que tiene alma dentro Te Alabe Di-s».