Maharsha Moed Katan 28

Hashem dropped another Maharsha onto me which I believe is extremely significant. It is worth seeing inside, and can be found in Moed Katan on page 28. I heard it said over at a Shalom Zachar this past Friday night, and yesterday in the morning, it hit me as to why I needed to hear it.

The Maharsha talks about the day of Lag B'omer and says that although it is the thirty third day of the sefirah, it is actually the fifty third day of a different count that started twenty days earlier. He brings down the opinion that the world was created in Nissan. This would mean that Adam Harishon was created on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, and the first day of creation occurred on the twenty fifth of Adar. If we count twenty days from then, it brings us to the first day of Pesach, the fifteenth of Adar. Add the next fifty days until Shavuos, and you end up with a count of seventy. The number seventy represents the days of a person's life (ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה). The first twenty days correspond to the first twenty years of a person's life, when he does not bear the responsibility of the death penalty. After twenty, one is mature and enters the prime of his life. Two thirds of the way into the second period of life (the fifty) represent 'most of the years' of one's life. This brings you to Lag b'omer. (Anybody got that?) Shavuos, says the Maharsha, represents the ultimate purpose of the person's life, where he reaches his completion.

What hit me was that we have ten sets of seven days (or years). For our purposes, there are ten weeks. In the explanation of the Maharsha in Sanhedrin, we spoke about the nine/ten months of the process of the leap year which begins - in a hidden way - in Av/Elul/Tishrei, the first three months. It continues to be revealed through the following six until you reach yesod, which corresponds to Yosef - which is the second Adar. It comes into full bloom in Nissan, which is Malchus. In that post, we spoke about how the last week of Adar is the climax of the birth of the transformation of פשע - sin - into שפע - influx.

Incredibly, what we see here is that the last week of Adar is the beginning of another series of ten, but this time, it is ten weeks. The first week is Keser - the inspiration, the transcendental realm. The weeks that follow, which are the first two weeks of Nissan, are Chochma and Bina. All three of these are in the head - they are hidden, and are not part of the sefirah count. But at the same time, of course, they are! Whatever happened in the last week of Adar is being brought down into the world, being revealed - culminating in Shavuos. The final week of the count, which we now find ourselves in, represents a full reflection (malchus) of the first week. It is a full development of what happened in the last week of Adar. The 'baby' that was conceived starting from Rosh Chodesh Av of last year, and was labored with and born in the last week of Adar - it now develops through another process into something greater which is revealed on Shavuos in its completion.

Of course, this is not the end, but again the beginning of another great spiral upwards for the Jewish people. The aspect of Moshiach ben Yosef continues to make its way higher and higher as we get closer and closer to the time we are all waiting for, בב"א.