Podcast Episode

The Living Jewishly Podcast

Sacred Time Adar I

Feb 17, 2022 Episode 66

Living Jewishly

“What I ask myself and what I want to ask other people is: what do you need more time for?”

—Ganga Devi

Mishenichnas Adar marbim b'simcha! As Adar enters, we increase in joy.

This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is an instalment of Sacred Time, a podcast that explores the healing art of the Hebrew Calendar, and it celebrates the month of Adar… twice, in this case.

Adar Aleph, the Jewish Leap Year, is also known as the Shanah Me'uberet, or “pregnant year,” a nod to its fullness and its potential. It grants us not one additional day, but an entire additional month of Adar, the final month in the religious calendar. This necessary inclusion to the lunar calendar protects the sacred timing of holidays such as Passover and Sukkot, in terms of their symbolic and agricultural importance.

It is the spaciousness of this extra month that gives us containers for experiencing deeper rest, for cultivating more joy, and discovering more liberatory ways of being, on the way to the celebration of Purim. This is a time of care and chaos, rest and release.

We invite you to tune in for an enlightening conversation about the origin and meaning of the Jewish New Year cycle, and to join us in celebrating the arrival of Adar Aleph.

“We’ve been talking a lot about Shabbat as a time of rest, but it’s not like an apathetic rest. It’s not a detached rest. It’s a rest that is then filled or inhabited… we inhabit the boundaries of our rest with what? With joy.”

— Bluth

This‌ ‌episode discusses:‌

The differences between the lunar calendar and the solar cycle, and the elegant ways in which the Jewish New Year creates harmony between the two
The beautiful function of adding space to a year and how this can help us rediscover our rhythms and alignment
The year of release, Shmita, and the role that it plays both socially and ecologically

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Highlights:‌

00:51 Mishenichnas Adar marbim b'simcha!

01:45 Purim to Passover

03:01 Origin of Adar I

05:05 The maths behind calendars

06:14 The meaning behind Adar Aleph

09:26 The pregnant year

12:36 The role of others

14:12 Shmita year

15:18 Kira Rib & Joanna Macy

19:00 Ganga Devi’s project story