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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In this context, it is not enough to repeat the observance of the previous day, but the same Mitzvah that one has already fulfilled must be done in a better way each day, as the Hasidim used to say, "tomorrow will be better," that is, tomorrow we will rise to a higher level in the same action that we are doing today.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Another quality of the month of Iyar is its strong connection with healing - refua.<\/p>\n
To illustrate, a short story.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The visit was very moving, then we met at a Kabbalat Shabbat, but afterwards we lost contact.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
She asked me to pray for him. Although they had hope and expectations, the odds were terrible... it had never been done successfully in the history of humankind...<\/p>\n
No? So? I explained two things to Grandma:<\/p>\n
1) The month of Iyar (in which we were already because it was the night of Rosh Chodesh) is the month of healing: the word Iyar is written alef - yud - yud - reish, the same letters as the verse of the Torah that says "I am God, your healer" (ani hashem rofeja).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It goes without saying that the child passed both parts of the operation, that Iyar is truly the month of healing, and that the Rebbe is none other than The Rebbe, that is, the head of the Jewish people, who thinks of and cares for every Jew, even in the most remote places on earth, like an old children's hospital in La Plata, where a four-month-old baby from the city of Santa Fe is fighting with his little heart to live and say "May everything that has a soul within praise You, God.".<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"El mes de Iyar (en el cual nos encontramos desde el lunes) tiene varias cualidades especiales, que lo destacan de los dem\u00e1s meses en forma particular. Una de esas cualidades es que Iyar es un mes en el que cada d\u00eda tiene su Mitzv\u00e1 particular. en general, todos los d\u00edas del a\u00f1o tienen sus Mitzvot… Read More \u00bbHealing<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1002,987,950,952,971,980,954,1014,1030,945,1225,988,943,976,1222,942],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editoriales","tag-bendicion","tag-carta","tag-di-s","tag-hashem","tag-hombre","tag-jabad","tag-judio","tag-la-plata","tag-letra","tag-mitzva","tag-pesaj","tag-rabino","tag-rebe","tag-shabat","tag-shavuot","tag-tora"],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/Curaci\u00f3n.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/avatar1400.jpeg","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"castbox":{"key":"castbox","url":"","label":"CastBox","class":"castbox","icon":"castbox.png"},"rss":{"key":"rss","url":"","label":"RSS","class":"rss","icon":"rss.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/en\/feed\/podcast\/rabino-tuvia-serber","embedCode":"Curaci\u00f3n<\/a><\/blockquote>