WORD OF THE MONTH A weekly feature of Torah Tidbits to help clarify practical and conceptual aspects of the Jewish Calendar, thereby better fulfilling the mitzva of HaChodesh HaZeh Lachem... HaChodesh HaZeh Lachem... It's after the Kiddush L'vana deadline and before Shabbat M'vorchim. Time for "other" words of the month. The following I heard from my nephew Tzvi. Yeshayahu (1:14, the Haftara of Shabbat Chazon) says that G-d hates our Roshei Chodesh and our Holidays, they trouble Him (so to speak) are a burden which He does not want to endure. The Midrsh tells us that a scoffer once asked Rabbi Akiva about that pasuk. Why do Jews keep celebrating the months and festivals if G-d hates them? Rabbi Akiva answered that the pasuk does not say that G-d hates HIS months and festivals, in other words, the Holidays that He ordained, but rather CHODSHEICHEM U'MO'ADEICHEM, yours, SA'N'A NAFSHI, the ones we made as a perversion of Torah, that's what G-d hates. To what does this refer? To the festival that Yeravam b. Nevat declared on 15 Cheshvan to celebrate his rebellion against G-d and Yerushalayim. Initial letters of the opening words in the above-quoted pasuk rearrange to spell CHESHVAN. [The Vayeira Homepage]
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