The Spark that Lights the World

This article on the portion of the week was previously published in 2016.

Welcome to Adar II. Seven times in a 19-year cycle, we when we have a leap year in the Kabbalistic calendar, we have two months of Pisces (Adar I and Adar II). So here we are, ready to head into another month of the fish! 

The month of Adar (along with Kislev, Sagittarius) is associated with Joseph, a tzadik (righteous soul) who was able accomplish something in his life that very few people are able to do, back then and even now.

Joseph, like his father Jacob, was capable of taking the most negative things that happened to him and around him, and transforming them into positivity and Light. Not only was he able to overcome the adversity, but he was able to use it to elevate both himself and the world to a higher level.

Joseph’s mother died when he was very young, and he was separated from his father for many years after being sold into slavery by his brothers at the age of 17. Despite these and other painful situations that he faced, Joseph prospered everywhere he was sent and in everything he did. Somehow, he knew with great certainty that wherever he found himself, the Creative Energy was with him.

This month, Adar II, the second month of Pisces, is our opportunity to have that same level of certainty: the certainty to know that no matter how difficult our challenges, how dimly lit the path before us, the Creative Energy is with us always. Just as the sun rises in the morning, the Light of the Creator is with us from now until eternity, and it is within our capacity to transform those things that hold us back from revealing our true potential.

In Kabbalah, we learn that the Hebrew letters created the planets and the signs of the zodiac. The month of Pisces is governed by the letter kuf, which is the only letter of the Hebrew alphabet that descends beneath the line. This represents the idea that any person who wants to achieve goodness and happiness in their life needs to realize that he or she must, of necessity, go down into the garbage, the dirt, the negativity, the darkness. Why? Because Light can only come from darkness. Therefore, they must take the energy within the negativity and darkness and bring it back up from the depths to flourish in the Light.

The second letter associated with Pisces is the gimel, representing Jupiter. Jupiter is the planet of multiplication and increase. The combination of these two letters brings us to a unique spiritual opportunity this month. There is the kuf, which represents our ability to elevate the most negative channels into the Light, and the gimel or Jupiter, which represents our ability to expand that Light outwards.

We understand that physically, the heavier the weight we lift, the stronger our muscles become. The same concept applies to us mentally and spiritually. This means that we must take the letter kuf, draw it down into the depths of darkness, and then use our spiritual effort to move it up out of that darkness, make ourselves whole, and rise above those situations in our life that are the most difficult. It is through this process that we can spark the Light in our life and in the lives of those around us, energy that can ripple out and light the world.