It is Leo season, the season ruled by the Sun, the great luminary, and the skies themselves are saturated with Leo.

At the August 12 total solar eclipse, the Sun and Moon met in Leo while Mercury and Jupiter were also moving through the sign, concentrating extraordinary emphasis around the solar archetype: identity, creativity, vitality, courage, visibility, and the force of the individual self.

Leo speaks the language of light. It is the desire to shine, to create, to love with the whole heart, and to recognize that there is something singular we have been entrusted to bring into this world. Yet at the very moment the sky becomes so intensely solar, the Sun disappears. Astronomically, the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun.

Symbolically, this is the great paradox of the eclipse: at the height of Leo, we are brought into darkness. The sign that most wants to see itself illuminated is asked, for a moment, to live without its light.

A total solar eclipse is visually simple and almost unnerving. The brilliant Sun becomes a black circle, a dark vacuum in the sky surrounded by a burning corona, and for a few minutes the familiar order of the world is suspended. Day becomes dark and what was visible can no longer be seen.

An eclipse is very much felt inwardly in our sense of self, our creative fire, our confidence, our regenerative energy, or the parts of life through which we usually experience vitality.

A relationship can disappear, a plan can collapse, an identity we built can stop holding us, or the feeling of being carried by G-d can suddenly become inaccessible. We may know intellectually that G-d has not gone anywhere, just as we know that the Sun has not ceased to exist during an eclipse, but knowledge and experience are different things. The pain comes when we are left standing in the dark without access to the light we once depended upon. There are moments when G-d seems to turn off the light and leave us alone with ourselves.

This is especially powerful in Leo because Leo carries one of the strongest expressions of ego in the zodiac, and for good reason. A person needs an ego; we need a coherent self in order to act, choose, create, protect, lead, and contribute.

Leo’s healthy fire says: I am here, my life matters, and I have something to give. Its shadow begins when we forget that we carry the light and begin to believe that we are its source. The shadows of Leo are very strong as well, they are seen when creativity becomes a need for applause, leadership becomes control, uniqueness becomes superiority, and the natural desire to be seen becomes an endless hunger for recognition.

Fire has always contained these two possibilities. Uncontained, it destroys; contained and directed, it warms a home, cooks food, gives life, and builds. The spiritual work of Leo is therefore not to extinguish the fire but to humble it until the same force that once demanded attention becomes capable of construction.

This is where darkness becomes sacred. Jewish thought has a language for the experience of Divine concealment: hester panim, the hiding of the face. There are times when the presence of G-d feels obvious and times when it becomes obscured, yet concealment is not the same as absence. Psalm 139 expresses this beautifully: “Even darkness is not dark to You; the night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to You.” The verse does not tell us that darkness feels like light. It tells us that from the Divine perspective, what we experience as darkness is not outside of G-d. The eclipse gives us a physical image of that mystery: the Sun appears to have vanished, yet it continues to shine with its full force. What has changed is our position in relation to it. The darkness exists because our line of sight has changed.

And exactly here we enter Elul, the month that begins the great spiritual movement toward Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Its central practice is teshuvah, a word usually translated as repentance but whose literal meaning is return. Teshuvah is therefore larger than guilt over what we have done wrong; it is the return to the original direction of the soul. Virgo, the sign associated with this season, carries the image of the virgin, the betulah: whole, untouched at the center, still possessing an original integrity beneath everything that has accumulated around her. The spiritual drama of Elul rests on this possibility; that beneath what we have feared, confused, or distorted, there remains a self that has never entirely forgotten where home is.

This is also where the idea of sin becomes deep.

The concept of Return brings us back further into ourselves that we would have been able to access otherwise.

Return can become so profound that even the distance traveled is gathered back into the journey toward G-d.

The mistake becomes part of the wisdom, the fall creates a depth of longing, and the person who has wandered can come to know the road home with an intimacy that belongs specifically to someone who once lost it.

This may be part of the meaning behind the teaching that the place reached by the ba’al teshuvah, the one who returns, is a place even the completely righteous cannot occupy in the same way.

Sometimes we find our original direction precisely because we have experienced what it means to move away from it. We discover our values because we violated them, our boundaries because we abandoned them, the nature of love because we mistook something else for love, or the truth of our own soul because we spent years inhabiting identities that could never fully hold us.

The wrong road does not become the right road, but through teshuvah it can become the road that taught us how deeply we wanted to come home. Failure is therefore not merely something teshuvah erases. Teshuvah can redeem the descent itself, taking what once separated us from G-d and transforming it into the longing that draws us closer.

We return not despite having wandered, but with a depth that could only have been born from knowing what it feels like to be lost.

A soul, like a seed, does some of its most important work in darkness. Long before the first green shoot appears above the soil, the shell has cracked underground, roots have begun reaching into unseen places, and an entirely new structure is forming without witnesses. We tend to call a period successful once we can see what it produced, yet the invisible stage may have contained the deepest transformation. Pain can work this way as well. There are seasons when the personality believes it is losing everything while the soul is quietly growing roots.

An eclipse represents this threshold: the old light cannot guide us in the old way, and something deeper must learn how to see. Elul does not ask us to emerge from darkness shinier, louder, or more impressive. It asks us to emerge truer, with less attachment to proving who we are and greater willingness to use what we have been given.

The great invitation of this Leo eclipse is therefore not to shrink the self but to return the self to its Source.

Leo says that there is light inside us; Elul asks what that light is for.

The ego says, “My light proves that I matter.” The soul says, “My light was entrusted to me because I have something to do with it.”

This is the movement from the fire of destruction to the fire of construction. The same passion remains, the same creativity remains, the same vitality remains, but it is no longer consumed by the need to prove its own existence. It becomes service. It becomes devotion. It becomes something that warms rather than burns. When the external light disappears, even briefly, we encounter what remains underneath recognition, certainty, control, and identity: the soul itself, its longing for G-d, and the quiet memory of who we were before we wandered so far from ourselves. That is teshuvah.

This is why Psalm 27, recited throughout the season of Elul, ends where it does. After moving through fear, abandonment, concealment, longing, and the desire to behold the goodness of G-d, David closes with: קַוֵּה אֶל־ה׳ חֲזַק וְיַאֲמֵץ לִבֶּךָ וְקַוֵּה אֶל־ה׳ — “Hope in Hashem; be strong and let your heart take courage; hope in Hashem.” Kaveh means to hope, to wait, to remain oriented toward what has not yet revealed itself.

Faith is easy when the Sun is shining;

Elul teaches the soul how to remain turned toward the Light when it cannot see it. The eclipse passes and the Sun returns, but we are not meant to return exactly as we were.

We return humbler, clearer, stronger, carrying the same Leo fire with a deeper understanding of what it is for. קַוֵּה אֶל־ה׳. Trust the Light you cannot yet see. A soul does not only survive the darkness; sometimes, it is there that it finally remembers the way home.

Trust the Light you cannot yet see.

A soul does not only survive the darkness;

sometimes, it is there that it finally remembers the way home.

Aries is the energy of emergence, of the self coming into form, first as a burst, raw and undeniably alive.

In the language of Torah, this is the moment of יציאת מצרים. In Hebrew Egypt also is read and means: “Meitzarim”: constrictions. Indeed, the exodus is from constriction, from the narrow places that have defined us, limited us, and shaped the boundaries of who we believed ourselves to be.

Yet this year, the force of Aries is highly spiritual. It is carried, softened, and deepened by Mars (its ruler) moving through Pisces, a placement that transforms the instinctual fire of Aries into something softer, and more attuned to the unseen.

Mars, the ruler of Aries, is currently not acting through direct confrontation or external assertion. Instead, it moves through through deep waters, dissolving the illusion that strength is loud or forceful.

Here, strength becomes surrender. Action becomes alignment. The battle is no longer with the world, but with the veils that separate us from our own divine core.

This creates a profound shift in how we understand liberation. Leaving Egypt is no longer only about breaking external constraints, but about dissolving internal falsities.

The idols we are asked to destroy are subtle. They are the identities we have inherited, the roles we have performed, the expectations we have mistaken for truth.

The korban Pesach, the offering of the lamb, is not only a historical act but an ongoing spiritual demand. It asks for the willingness to sacrifice the version of ourselves that was shaped by fear, by dependency, by the need to belong at the cost of authenticity.

And this sacrifice is not clean. It is ruled by Mars: violent and marked by blood.

The Torah does not hide this, on the contrary, it exposes it. The doorway into freedom is not aesthetic or controlled, it is visceral, embodied, and total. To mark the doorposts with blood is to declare that transformation requires contact with life at its most real, most unfiltered edge. It is to acknowledge that becoming oneself is not a gentle process of refinement, but a passage through rupture, through intensity, through the dissolution of what can no longer remain.

At the same time, we are held within a larger architecture, one that is both stabilizing and evolutionary.

With a loud Aries season operated behind a very spiritual veil, Saturn, planet of structure, currently in Aries sextiles Pluto, planet of transformation, currenly in Aquarius.

The sextile between Saturn and Pluto offers a very powerful support, a structure that does not confine but rather enables transformation to take root.

Saturn brings form, discipline, and continuity, while Pluto works beneath the surface, undoing what is outdated, exposing what is hidden, and insisting on truth at the deepest level. Their harmony suggests that this moment is not chaotic, even if it feels intense. There is a design to this dismantling. There is intelligence in the way things are falling away.

Within this field, the Full Moon in Libra rises, illuminating the axis opposite Aries, the axis of relationship. If Aries is the declaration of self, Libra is the recognition that the self does not exist in isolation. It exists in dialogue, in reflection, and most importantly, in relationship with the Divine. The balance that Libra seeks is not social harmony in the superficial sense, but alignment with a deeper truth, a calibration between who we are becoming and the source from which we come.

This is where the teaching of the Haggadah becomes immediate and personal.

“בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים.”

“In every generation, a person must see themselves as if they themselves have left Egypt.”

The exodus is not something we inherit. It is something we enact. It is the moment we stop speaking in borrowed voices and begin to speak from the true place within us that has always known.

There is a new voice emerging now. Not new in the sense that it has never existed, but new in that it has not yet been fully lived. It is a voice that does not negotiate with fear, that does not shape itself to be palatable, that does not seek permission to exist. And yet, under the influence of Mars in Pisces, it is not harsh or aggressive. It is fluid and honest, willing to be seen in its vulnerability.

It is the voice that can stand before G-d without performance, without armor, without the need to appear whole.

This is perhaps the deepest layer of liberation. Not just the freedom to act, but the freedom to be revealed. To stand, like our ancestors on that first night of Pesach, in a state of urgency and vulnerability, unprepared and yet completely ready, carrying nothing but the truth of who we are in that moment.

There is something profoundly intimate in this image, something that speaks to the essence of what it means to be in relationship with the Divine. Not as an idea, not as a concept, but as a presence that meets us precisely where we are, in our rawness, in our becoming: Aries.

The Full Moon in Libra reflects this back: our liberation is not an end in itself. It is a return, a recognition that we are not separate from the source of our existence. The more we step into ourselves, the more we are able to meet G-d, not despite our humanity, but thanks to it.

And so the primary question of Passover“מה נשתנה”: “What has changed?” lingers as a living inquiry.

What has changed? Both externally and internally.

What has been released, what has been burned, what has been surrendered in order to make space for something truer to emerge?

If the answer is real, even if it is small, then the process has begun. The door has been marked. The passage has been crossed.

And through the burning and the breaking, something knows it will never turn back.

The doors are marked, the past released, the false gods left behind.

Beneath the Libra Full Moon, we step forward; ready, at last, to meet G-d as the self we are finally willing to become.

Happy Holiday of Freedom

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The Saturn–Neptune conjunction in Aries is an extraordinary astrological event that only happens once every 320 years. Saturn, the planet of structure, responsibility, boundaries, time, and embodiment, requires approximately thirty years to complete its journey through the twelve signs of the zodiac.

The cycle begins in Aries, the sign of ignition and emergence, and concludes in Pisces, the sign of dissolution and return, mirroring the arc of a full human lifetime from first breath to final surrender.

As the ruler of Capricorn and Aquarius, Saturn governs labor, discipline, societal frameworks, and the tension between tradition and disruption, and wherever it enters the zodiac it demands maturity, accountability, and the patient work of building something that can endure within the specific symbolic terrain of that sign.

Neptune, by contrast, is the planet of transcendence, compassion, faith, illusion, and divine consciousness, and as the ruler of Pisces it carries themes of surrender, spiritual permeability, and remembrance of origin. The planet of dreams moves so slowly through the heavens that it takes approximately one hundred and sixty five years to complete a full zodiacal cycle, imprinting entire generations with a shared spiritual mood. Neptune dissolves what has become rigid or ego-bound, inviting humanity to remember its source and to realign its path with something greater than personal ambition, insisting that meaning arises not from control but from attunement to the divine current that flows beneath all forms.

For these two planets to meet at zero degrees of Aries is astrologically extraordinary, as zero Aries represents the pure beginning of the zodiacal cycle, the raw spark of becoming before identity has taken shape. The zodiac itself is a symbolic map of an entire human life and so this conjunction signals not merely a new chapter but the initiation of a new life path for the world itself. Structure and dream, form and spirit, discipline and surrender converge at the very point of emergence, suggesting that the future can no longer be built through force alone nor through escapism, but through a fusion of grounded responsibility and divine vision that must be consciously embodied.

This conjunction unfolded on the eve of Shabbat Parashat Terumah, the Torah portion in which the Jewish people are instructed to build a Mishkan, a sanctuary for the Divine. In this Torah portion, The verse states: “They shall make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell within them,” a phrasing that the sages famously note does not say within it but within them. This teaching explains that the true dwelling place of the Divine is not a structure of wood and gold but the human heart and consciousness. This mirrors the Saturn–Neptune conjunction precisely, as Saturn the builder and Neptune the dream cannot construct anything external unless the inner sanctuary has first been prepared, activated through the uniquely Aries quality of individual soul spark, courage, and spiritual selfhood.

The word Terumah: “Offering” itself derives from the Hebrew root רום meaning to lift, elevate, or raise upward, and also carries the meaning of separation for the sake of holiness, as something is taken from the mundane and offered upward toward Go-d, reflecting the spiritual work of refining one’s life by elevating material existence toward divine purpose.

HaTerumah, meaning “the offering,” carries a gematria of 656, identical to that of Shushan, the capital of the Persian Empire in the Megillah of Esther.

Shushan serves as the central stage upon which the drama of Purim unfolds, a city of immense power and apparent permanence that quietly becomes the site of hidden Redemption.

It is within Shushan, and specifically within the palace itself, that the deepest expression of HaTerumah: the ultimate offering is revealed. Queen Esther, concealed in position and identity, bears the unbearable weight of deciding whether she will reveal who she truly is and risk everything to save her people.

Her hesitation is shattered by a single piercing question:

“But who knows if you were born for such a moment as this?”

A line that transforms uncertainty into destiny.

Esther’s sovereignty is ultimately revealed when she understands that her power does not lie merely in the title of queen, but in her willingness to step fully into authorship of her own story and take the necessary risk.

Today, Persia once again stands in turmoil, with the Iranian people subjected to oppressive forces reminiscent of the villainy embodied by Haman. Yet astrology reminds us that Mars, the ruler of Aries and thus the energetic activator of the Saturn–Neptune conjunction, currently resides in Aquarius, the sign of collective liberation.

Esther’s declaration, “If I perish, I perish,” encapsulates the essence of Aries courage, the willingness to risk the death of the old self in order to align with truth, and this same inner spark must awaken within each individual now, as personal bravery becomes the catalyst for the collective freedom of Aquarius.

Aquarius, and the month of Shvat which it governs, correspond to the season in which the sap rises within the trees, an invisible yet unstoppable movement of life returning upward.

In the story of Purim, the tree holds profound symbolic importance, as through a moment of radical reversal the very gallows that Haman prepared for Mordechai, the jewish advisor, become the instrument of his own downfall. Haman and his ten sons end up hung on The Tree.

“The Tree” is HaEtz in Hebrew and the gematria is 165, the precise number of years it takes Neptune to complete its cycle.

“The Tree” is ultimately the one Tree, the Tree of Life, identified with the Torah, which is likened to water, the medium in which the fish of Pisces swim.

“She is a tree of life to those who hold fast to her”

Pisces energy is unseen yet sustained, reminding us that true life flows through immersion in divine wisdom rather than domination of external reality.

As Neptune, ruler of Pisces, enters a new beginning and Saturn lays the foundations for a new world structure, humanity stands at the threshold of a renewed relationship with the Tree of Life, beginning once again the third day of the Hebrew month of Adar.

The 3rd day is known in Jewish tradition as the day of Chazakah, a term that signifies establishment, confirmation, and the solidification of a spiritual reality through repetition. Three stands for Chazakah as something that occurs three times is no longer accidental but presumed to belong to the fabric of what is unfolding.

On the 3rd day of the month of Adar, we witness the embodiement of Pisces reality: we are closer to the divine than we think and the tide is always turning, the presumption is clear. A flip is set in motion and what is high will be brought low, and what is low will be lifted high.

May we merit to walk this path with courage and humility, building sanctuaries within ourselves where the Divine may dwell, and may the hidden reversals of this season unfold for all beings.

May we witness the ultimate reversal of this exile, where the waters of divine consciousness flow just as the waters of the oceans cover the seabed. May the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries be the catalyst to the full Redemption we have been waiting for. May it happen immediately.

Neptune in Pisces does not remove truth; it conceals what is already there, wrapping reality in mist and asking humanity to live with what cannot yet be confirmed, to endure uncertainty without immediate answers, and to trust that meaning exists even when it feels inaccessible. These past years did not only bring heightened spirituality, but also prolonged grief, unresolved loss, and entire chapters of collective experience that felt suspended in waiting, unable to close, unable to fully move forward.

Exile consciousness is not merely geographic displacement; it is psychological and spiritual, a state in which something essential feels missing even when everything appears intact, a condition where the truth is right in front of our eyes and yet remains obscured, not because it is absent, but because it is hidden behind a necessary veil.

At the very end of Neptune’s journey through Pisces, Saturn joined it at the final degrees of the sign, and Saturn, unlike Neptune, does not blur or soften; Saturn structures, defines, limits, and ultimately closes. When Saturn reaches the end of a sign it does not negotiate, it completes accounts, demanding that what has been tolerated can no longer continue, marking the end of an era that has accomplished its purpose.

The meeting of Saturn and Neptune at the last degrees of Pisces signaled the closing of a paradigm defined by exile, by pain without closure, by hiddenness without revelation, and by a spiritual endurance that could not remain indefinitely suspended, because concealment itself has a shelf life, and the veil exists only until its work is complete.

And it is precisely at this threshold, at the moment when Neptune completed its long passage and the old cycle reached its end, that Ran was finally found.

After months of searching, after unbearable uncertainty, after prolonged waiting that stretched the limits of what the human heart can carry, the last hostage was returned. For the first time in over a decade no one remained suspended between disappearance and return, which was not only a political or military moment, but a spiritual retrieval, a closing of a chapter that had remained painfully open since 2014.

The Torah has always taught that redemption is never abstract or symbolic alone, but deeply logistical, precise, and embodied. In this week’s Torah portion, as the Jewish people prepare to leave Egypt after generations of oppression, pain, and slavery, the Torah tells us s that before freedom could begin, Moses took the bones of Yosef with him.

Yosef had bound the people with an oath not to leave him behind, insisting that his bones could not remain in exile, and the verse itself is stark in its simplicity: “And Moses took the bones of Yosef with him,” teaching us that redemption cannot proceed without retrieval, and that liberation which abandons essence is not liberation at all.

In Hebrew, the word for bones, atzamot, shares its root with etzem, essence, revealing that bones are not incidental remains but the core structure, the most enduring part of a being, carrying identity beyond flesh and circumstance, and thus Yosef’s bones represented Yosef’s essence, his unique spiritual spark, which had to leave Egypt in order for redemption to unfold.

Yosef himself embodies the architecture of hidden redemption. As the eleventh son aligned with Aquarius, the eleventh sign, the sign of collective freedom and liberation, his life story follows the pattern of exile consciousness: sent away by his brothers, concealed in a foreign land, presumed lost, his absence becoming unbearable grief for his father, Israel; and eventually, his concealment that enables him to redeem his family from famine and destruction.

This is why Yosef is identified in Jewish mysticism as representing the energy of Mashiach ben Yosef, the hidden redeemer, whose role is not triumph but groundwork, not revelation but preparation, not visibility but endurance, and whose suffering unfolds in concealment long before redemption is revealed through Mashiach ben David, the sovereign redeemer.

When Yaakov prepares to encounter Eisav, the embodiment of destructive force and the spiritual root of Galut Edom, (the finale exile, the one we are currently inhabiting) Yaakov arranges his family in a procession, placing the maidservants and their children first, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Yosef last, using the word acharonim, the last ones.

Rachel represents the Shechinah, the Divine Feminine presence that descends into exile with her children and refuses to move forward while any remain bound, and Kabbalah teaches that a son is the atzmut, the essence, of his mother, which makes Yosef, Rachel’s firstborn, the embodiment of her spark, her essence, her presence within darkness, standing at the very end before confronting Eisav.

Before meeting the forces of darkness, Yosef is placed last.

Ran, too, was the last spark.

The final light to encounter such darkness, the one who stood at the end, like Yosef, placed last not by accident but by structure, because the last spark is always the one that must be retrieved before redemption can begin.

This truth is not only symbolic; it is encoded in language and number, because Ran Gvili’s gematria is 309, the same number as the word ashuv, “I will return,” which appears in one of the most piercing verses in the Torah, where Hashem asks, “Is anything hidden from Hashem? At the appointed time, I will return to you,” (Genesis 18:14), naming the central tension of Neptune in Pisces: the veil which concealed what was never absent.

Ran is literally hidden within the verses that declare return, embedded inside the language that insists nothing is truly hidden from the Divine, and there are exactly 309 words in the Torah that share the gematria of Yosef, as though his essence echoes again and again throughout the text, refusing erasure, insisting on return until redemption is complete.

As Neptune completes its passage through Pisces and prepares to enter Aries, the paradigm shifts decisively, because Pisces dissolves while Aries ignites. Aries is the first sign, the first breath the soul takes upon entering the world, the spark of self that individuates, animates, and insists on presence.

Neptune in Aries does not dissolve identity the way Neptune in Pisces did; it sanctifies it, insisting that the soul’s individuality is not an obstacle to redemption but its vehicle, revealing that faith cannot remain forever in concealment and surrender but must eventually move into expression, courage, and embodiment, which is why Aries is aligned with Nisan, the month of liberation from Egypt, when the people do not merely imagine freedom but step into it with their full selves.

And yet, before liberation is visible, there is always a quieter emergence, which begins earlier, in Shvat, during Aquarius season, and most precisely under the full moon of Tu B’Shvat, when in the dead of winter the sap begins to rise within the trees, unseen by the eye yet utterly inevitable, signaling that life has already begun moving long before it breaks the surface.

Both Shvat and Nisan are bound to Malchut, the final sefirah, sovereignty rooted in earth and in lived reality, teaching that redemption does not bypass the physical world in favor of abstraction or escape, but completes it from within, and that every soul spark, no matter how concealed, is essential to that completion.

Ran was such a spark, unique and irreplaceable, and his return at the moment Neptune leaves Pisces and prepares to ignite Aries reveals the final law of redemption: that no spark can be left behind, because redemption is not collective in spite of the individual, but only through it.

Even his name carries this truth, for Ran forms the word Ner, a candle, a flame, and how precise the timing feels that Neptune enters Aries, the sign of the soul’s spark, at the very moment his spark is retrieved and returned, as though the cosmic and the intimate were speaking the same language.

On the boards calling for the return of the hostages, Ran’s last name did not always appear with the same spelling; I noticed several variations across different outlets, until one spelling stopped me completely, freezing me in recognition.

Ran’s name appeared as גואלי, Go’ali — “my Redeemer,” hidden in plain sight all along.

In typical Neptune-in-Pisces fashion, the truth was there all along. Hidden in plain sight.

And then there is the verse that seems to gather everything into itself, spoken from the depths of a soul that refuses to relinquish truth, Job declares:
וַאֲנִי יָדַעְתִּי גֹּאֲלִי חָי
וְאַחֲרוֹן עַל־עָפָר יָקוּם
“And I know that my Redeemer lives, and the Last will rise upon the earth.”

In this single verse, everything converges. The word Go’ali — my Redeemer — appears explicitly, the same word that emerged hidden within the spelling of Ran’s name, as though the identity of redeemer had been present all along, waiting to be seen.

The word Acharon — the Last — echoes again, returning us to the language of Acharonim, the last ones, Rachel standing last, Yosef placed last, the final spark that must be retrieved before the story can move forward. And then there is afar, the dust, the earth itself, from which the Last will rise.

This is not only metaphor. It is instruction. The verse insists that redemption does not end with retrieval alone, but continues into resurrection, into techiyat hameitim, the revival of what has fallen into earth, a central pillar of the second and deeper stage of redemption. What descends into dust is not erased. What lies unburied is not forgotten. What is returned to earth is not lost, but waiting.

Ran, unburied for so long, suspended between concealment and return, draws us directly into this truth. The language of afar yakum does not only speak of a future metaphysical promise; it speaks to the sanctity of the body, to the necessity of return, to the restoration of dignity that allows the soul to complete its journey. The earth itself becomes a participant in redemption, holding what must one day rise again.

This is why retrieval is not closure alone. It is preparation. It is why Yosef’s bones could not remain in Egypt, and why Ran’s spark could not remain hidden.

Hidden in plain sight, Ran carried the language of redemption within his very name. Go’ali. My Redeemer. The Last. Rising from the dust.

The veil that once concealed this truth has lifted because it has completed its work. What was hidden has been revealed, and what was held in exile has been returned to its place.

Redemption does not arrive all at once. Like sap rising within the tree, it begins quietly, with essence, with the last spark brought home, and it continues forward, toward a future where even the dust itself will rise.

As Neptune prepares to leave Pisces and enter Aries, we are entering a moment of radical transition.

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Neptune, a planet associated with spirituality, transcendence, mysticism, surrender, and dissolution, has been moving through its own domicile—Pisces—since 2011. A planet in its home sign expresses its qualities with the greatest fluency and power, and Neptune in Pisces has magnified the archetypal themes of spiritual longing, collective compassion, religious devotion, and emotional permeability. However, as with all astrological signatures, the expression of this energy exists along a spectrum. What can manifest as spiritual elevation and self-transcendence in one context may easily become a form of passive idealism, porous boundaries, or a tendency to sanctify suffering in another. The desire to dissolve the ego or transcend the self may also obscure the necessary work of maintaining clarity, responsibility, and personal sovereignty.

Over the last decade and a half, under the influence of Neptune in Pisces, spiritual and religious narratives across the globe have emphasized submission, endurance, and in many cases, silence. This is not to say that Neptune in Pisces has caused these patterns, but rather that it has supported the collective conditions in which they are more easily perpetuated or justified. Spiritual rhetoric has often been used to validate pain, and cultural systems rooted in power have presented disappearance—particularly of women—as a form of moral virtue.

The symbolism of Pisces, often associated with veils, hiddenness, and the unseen, becomes particularly significant when viewed through this lens. In the esoteric tradition, concealment can serve a holy purpose, guarding the sacred from profanation. Yet when concealment is not chosen but enforced—when it becomes a method of control rather than a gesture of reverence—it ceases to protect and begins to erase. Nowhere has this tension been more visible than in the treatment of the feminine throughout this period. Across many traditions, the feminine principle—embodied in women themselves—has been veiled, both literally and figuratively, in the name of modesty, piety, or communal order. But what is often left unspoken is that what is veiled also becomes unavailable: unheard, unseen, and ultimately disempowered.

Within Jewish tradition, the clearest archetype of concealment appears in the figure of Esther. Her story, read annually during the Hebrew month of Adar—Pisces season—takes place in ancient Persia, a land that has long been associated with hiddenness, secrecy, and reversal. Esther’s very name shares a root with the Hebrew word hester, meaning “to hide.” Throughout the Megillah, G-d’s name does not appear explicitly, reflecting a divine presence that remains concealed throughout the narrative. Esther hides her identity for much of the story, and yet at the pivotal moment, she reveals herself in a way that shifts the entire structure of power. The transformation in the Purim story comes not from divine intervention that bursts forth from above, but from within a veiled structure that is overturned from the inside out. In this way, Persia becomes not only a geographical location but a symbolic space where the interplay of hiddenness and revelation becomes the very mechanism of redemption.

This pattern appears again in the mystical tradition, where the land of Persia is linked to eschatological transformation. In the Midrashic collection Yalkut Shimoni, there is a striking teaching that when upheaval emerges from the lands of Persia and Arabia, it is a sign that the time of redemption is drawing near. This text actually starts like this: “On the year that the Messiah will come” revealing that that when entrenched systems based on concealment begin to fracture, the conditions for messianic emergence become possible.

This teaching becomes especially relevant in light of the present moment. As Neptune prepares to leave Pisces, we witness widespread unrest and uprising among Iranian women—modern descendants of ancient Persia—who are rejecting the systems that have forced them into symbolic and literal veiling. Their refusal to disappear into the rhetoric of virtue reflects not a rejection of spiritual life, but a call for a spiritual life that does not come at the expense of embodiment, voice, or presence. To say that no woman wants to be veiled is not a rejection of modesty, privacy, or sanctity, but a rejection of compulsion and theologies that equate absence with devotion.

What makes this transition even more significant is that Neptune will not linger in a neutral space after leaving Pisces—it will enter Aries directly. Aries, as the first sign of the zodiac, represents emergence, identity, individuation, life force, and the assertion of self. Aries is ruled by the planet Mars: the red planet of war, the planet of blood, the planet that influences our drive and our willpower. The transition is brutal. Where Pisces dissolves, Aries defines. Where Pisces surrenders, Aries acts. The movement from Neptune in Pisces to Neptune in Aries is not only the closing of a 14-year cycle, but the completion of a full zodiacal round. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event: a planetary shift from spiritualized erasure to spiritualized sovereignty.

The last time Neptune entered Aries was in April of 1861, precisely at the beginning of the American Civil War. This is the exact historical context for the ideological unrest that accompanies these transitions. Neptune in Aries challenges the ways in which belief systems are embodied in real structures, calling attention to the gap between spiritual ideals and lived experience. It asks not whether an idea is beautiful, but whether it is right, not if an idea sounds holy, but whether it is just, fair, and under the Aquarius stellium we are currently under: if it will be freeing to the collective.

Aquarius is the sign that cares about truth, clarity, and freedom—especially freedom that benefits the collective. It is less focused on personal emotions and more concerned with what serves humanity as a whole. Aquarius invites us to challenge systems that limit human dignity, and it encourages bold, even disruptive, thinking in the name of progress. At its core, Aquarius wants to liberate what has been trapped—whether in culture, thought, or spirit. It supports movements that ask hard questions: Is this structure just? Is this belief serving the people it claims to protect? Is this the future we want to build?

This energy is being reinforced by Pluto, the planet of deep change and transformation, which has just entered Aquarius for the first time in over two centuries. Pluto brings things to the surface that have been buried. It reveals the places where power has been misused or held in secret. When Pluto moves through Aquarius, it pushes us to examine the very foundations of the systems we live in—religious, political, and social—and to begin the long work of changing them. It does not promise ease, but it does offer the possibility of regeneration. It asks us to imagine new ways of organizing life, grounded not in fear or hierarchy, but in shared responsibility and spiritual integrity.

Now, with Neptune beginning its transition from Pisces into Aries, we experience a shift from dissolution into emergence. Aries is the sign of identity, action, and sovereignty. If Pisces is about surrendering the self, Aries is about finding it. As Neptune leaves its home in Pisces—where it has supported ideals of unity, mysticism, and spiritual submission—it enters a sign that calls for strength, clarity, and the right to exist fully. Neptune in Aries brings the question of belief into the body: not what do you believe, but what are you willing to stand for, and how do those beliefs live through you?

Taken together, this moment asks something precise of us. It asks that our spiritual lives be aligned with truth, that our institutions reflect justice, and that our practices do not veil the very people they claim to protect. It asks that the feminine—long concealed, spiritualized, and controlled—be welcomed back into visibility, not only as a symbol, but as a force. Under Aquarius and Aries, there is no room for spiritual structures that depend on silence. What is veiled must now be revealed, not to destroy what came before, but to make space for what is finally ready to be born.

In a profound alignment of sacred time, this astrological transition occurs during the reading of Parashat Beshalach, the Torah portion that describes the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt. This Parasha marks the turning point from bondage to liberation, from enforced labor to spiritual identity, from imposed silence to communal song. It is within this portion that the sea splits, that the Egyptian army is swallowed, and that for the first time in generations, the people of Israel experience what it means to move forward freely. The culmination of this narrative occurs not in the battlefield but in the moment of song, when Miriam the prophetess takes up her drum and leads the women in dance. Her voice, which had been silent until then, initiates a public act of praise that marks the beginning of redemption—not after the danger has passed, but in the very act of crossing.

The word Beshalach has a gematria of 340. Remarkably, the Hebrew word for Persia—Paras—also has a numerical value of 340. That the numerical value of Persia should match the name of the Torah portion read during this astrological transition—while women in the land historically called Persia remove their veils is a magical spiritual convergence. It shows us that Neptune is indeed entering Aries under Pluto in Aquarius, and that perhaps—for the first time ever— wee are truly ready.

In Kabbalistic thought, the ultimate goal of creation is the revelation of the Shechinah—the indwelling divine presence—within the physical world. The Shechinah is often described as feminine, as rooted in the body, in the earth, in relationship, and in voice. When she is veiled, the world appears disconnected from its Source. When she is revealed, divinity becomes visible through the ordinary. The re-emergence of women’s voices, especially in places that have historically demanded their silence, is not merely a social movement. It is a mystical event.

As Neptune leaves Pisces and enters Aries, the Shechinah begins to rise through reclamation. Through the end of silence and the return of her presence. And in this rising, we begin to see clearly the outlines of Redemption—not as something that arrives all at once from above, but as something sung into being from below, loudly, by the feminine.

May it happen soon and in our days.

These jars were not valuable in any conventional sense. They were not gold or silver. They were not essential for survival. They were modest vessels, barely worth noting. Yet somehow Jacob cannot leave them behind, so he turns around, completely alone.

This moment deserves to be slowed down. After decades of struggles, Jacob has just secured everything he loves: his children are safe, his wives are protected all his possessions are in his domain and accounted for. Any reasonable person would remain with the camp and move forward with the mission ahead.

But something inside Jacob knows: If even one spark of his soul’s purpose remains behind, the journey cannot continue. The jars symbolize those sparks — aspects of a person’s essence that seem small, but actually hold tremendous significance. Small lost parts of the self. Forgotten responsibilities. Unclaimed inner light. Jacob is willing to risk everything — time, safety, status — to retrieve the pieces of himself that would otherwise remain scattered

.

And he chooses to go alone. Jacob had servants, warriors, assistance available at every level. But he does not send anyone else. He retraces his steps into the night by himself, suggesting that some tasks in life can only be performed alone.

There are truths one must face without company. There are shadows one must enter without support. There are sparks one must retrieve with their own hands, because no one else can even see them. Certain inner journeys cannot be shared. And certain transformations only happen when a person stands alone in the dark, willing to reclaim what belongs to them.

Jacob is alone, in silence, searching for the jars — searching. Searching.

And it is in this solitude — precisely here — that the story takes its unexpected turn. The Torah tells us: “And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.”

A presence emerges from the darkness, and Jacob is suddenly not alone. Rabbinic tradition identifies this figure as the angel of Esav — a spiritual force bound to Jacob’s past, his fears, his unresolved guilt, his destiny. But this angel, although appearing as resistance, is ultimately an emissary of God.

There is a principle in our tradition that God creates not only light but darkness as well:
“יֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חֹשֶׁךְ — I form the light and create the darkness.”

Darkness is not separate from God. Challenge is not outside the Divine plan.
Pressure and confrontation are not punishments but part of the architecture of spiritual growth.

And so, this angel is both Jacob’s opponent and his catalyst.

This is the kind of encounter that happens only when a person turns back for their lost sparks — when they decide to reclaim themselves. At that moment, forces rise to meet them, when shadow meets intention and old patterns meet new resolve. This is a universal principle: When a soul chooses to become whole, resistance appears, and so, the struggle begin and Jacob and the angel wrestle through the night and… Jacob does not let go.

This is the inner work, the spiritual labor that each person faces at some point — the confrontation with the part of life that challenges us most deeply. It is a lonely, dark, long, exhausting, intimate struggle that no one else sees.

There is no support, no clarity, no audience or applause. There is only the truth one meets in the dark. Jacob’s struggle is not only a physical alone. It is psychological, emotional, existential.
He is wrestling with identity, fear, responsibility, blessing, and a lifetime of unresolved tension.

It is, in many ways, the Scorpio stage of the journey, the descent into shadow, the confrontation with depth, the pressure that exposes what is hidden. Only through this confrontation can a person rise into Sagittarius — clarity, direction, meaning, purpose, the fire of forward motion.

But before the ascent comes the deepest point of struggle. And it is here, in this heated moment, that the angel wounds Jacob — striking him in the thigh. This detail is crucial, for the thigh is the seat of movement. It is what carries a person forward. In Jewish mysticism and in astrology, it corresponds to the body part aligned with Sagittarius: the sign of expansion, truth, and spiritual direction.

The injury is real and symbolic: The journey itself will forever bear the imprint of this struggle. Jacob will move forward, but differently. He will rise, but he will never forget the night in which destiny pressed against him. He will carry this wound as a reminder, of what he confronted, what he endured, and what he reclaimed.

Yet even as the pain intensifies and the night begins to peel back into morning light, Jacob does not loosen his grasp. The angel urges release, asking to depart with the dawn, but Jacob, transformed by the experience, responds with a firmness the Torah preserves with remarkable clarity: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” It is a moment that reflects a profound internal shift, because earlier in his life Jacob sought blessings through cleverness or disguise, acting from fear, urgency, or survival, but here the blessing is sought through endurance, through integrity, through the simple yet powerful insistence that the struggle itself must yield meaning.

This insistence matters. It signals Jacob’s readiness to hold his ground, to remain present to the pressure and not flee from it, to demand that the experience, however painful and disorienting, become a source of clarity rather than confusion. It is the moment the night stops being an obstacle and becomes a teacher, and the angel—still locked in his grasp—recognizes this.

What happens next unfolds slowly, as all turning points do. The angel asks Jacob his name, and when Jacob answers, the angel responds that this name will no longer define him. He will now be called Israel, “for you have wrestled with God and with humans, and you have prevailed.”

This transformation, however, began not with the blessing but with the return for the jars, the willingness to reclaim what was small, forgotten, or seemingly insignificant.

But in Sagittarius season and in the month of Kislev, the connection between Jacob’s jars and the later miracle of the Temple oil becomes even more resonant, because both moments reveal a distinctly Jewish instinct: the willingness to search through rubble and ruins for even the smallest remnant of holiness, guided by the quiet inner confidence that if a spark once existed, it may still be found, and if it is found, it can ignite far more than expected. The jars Jacob retrieved become symbols of this orientation, not merely as physical containers but as vessels of spiritual resilience, mirroring the fire of Sagittarius that refuses to give up on what appears small or hidden, the fire that continues seeking because it knows that renewal is always possible even in unlikely places.

Sagittarius, is the sign whose fire is nourished by emunah, a deep inner knowing that does not depend on evidence or certainty, a confidence that the arrow will find its way because it is aimed toward Hashem, and that the journey forward is illuminated by a flame that does not easily flicker. This is the flame that carried Jacob into the night and sustained him through his struggle, the flame that whispers that a person is held, guided, and accompanied even when standing alone in darkness, and this flame transforms the entire encounter into an act of faith as much as an act of strength. To wrestle is to believe that something meaningful can emerge from the struggle, to hold on is to trust that the dawn will reveal a blessing, and to refuse to let go is to affirm that one’s story is larger than the obstacle in front of them.

When Jacob emerges wounded yet blessed, renamed and realigned, the narrative gathers all these threads into a single truth: that wholeness does not come from avoiding darkness but from entering it with purpose, retrieving what was lost, engaging what resists, and rising with a deeper identity shaped from within. Jacob’s limp becomes the physical echo of this process, not a symbol of weakness but a marker of transformation, a reminder that destiny is shaped through both strength and struggle, and that the place of pain often becomes the very place that gives direction.

This connection between wound and mission is then preserved in halachah through the mitzvah that immediately follows the story:

“עַל־כֵּן לֹא יֹאכְלוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת־גִּיד הַנָּשֶׁה אֲשֶׁר עַל־כַּף הַיָּרֵךְ.”
“Therefore the Children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve that is upon the socket of the thigh.”

This commandment becomes a living reminder of Jacob’s transformation, marking the very place of the body associated with movement, purpose, and the forward stride, and by refraining from that part of the animal we preserve a memory of the night when spiritual destiny and human struggle intersected.

In the context of Sagittarius and Kislev, this mitzvah gathers additional meaning, because it becomes not only a remembrance of Jacob’s wound but also an expression of Jewish faith and discipline, a way of acknowledging through our food that our lives are part of a covenantal journey.

So we don’t eat the sciatic nerve, for we feed the body in alignment with the story of the soul, we nourish ourselves with a consciousness rooted in faith, purpose, restraint, and identity. By excluding the sciatic nerve we affirm that the places where the journey once faltered deserve reverence and care, and by reminding ourselves that our bodies are vessels of mission, that what we consume shapes the energy with which we walk our path, and that eating is itself a covenantal act.

In this way we feed ourselves belief, we feed ourselves commitment, we feed ourselves the memory of struggle and the promise of blessing, we feed ourselves the covenant of the keshet, the sacred bow of Sagittarius aimed toward Hashem for it nourishes us and keeps our flames alive and rising. May it rises forever.

There is a whisper in the chambers of Jewish prophecy about a figure little known yet but absolutely essential: Mashiach ben Yosef.

In Jewish tradition, there are two messianic figures: Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David. Mashiach ben Yosef comes first, a forerunner who fights Israel’s battles and awakens hope in the darkest night.

His life is marked by pain, estrangement, and silent sacrifice. To understand Mashiach ben Yosef, we return to Yosef HaTzadik —the dreamer betrayed by his brothers, cast into a pit, sold into Egypt, imprisoned, forgotten. Yet through isolation and humiliation, he becomes the savior of his family and of nations.

“וְיוֹסֵף הוּא הַשָּׁלִיט עַל הָאָרֶץ”
“And Yosef was the Shalit over the land.” — Bereishit 42:6

The word Shalit (שָׁלִיט) means ruler, one who holds authority. Yosef, the HaShalit, works behind the scenes — unseen, indispensable, sustaining life through divine wisdom.

His suffering is not punishment but kapparah (atonement). Through exile, he becomes the conduit of survival for his people. This is the spiritual DNA of Mashiach ben Yosef: hidden work, redemptive pain, victory born of exile.

Shalit is also the name of shalit is also the name of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli hostage taken into Gaza after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

In 2011, Israel lived the Yosef story again. Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas, taken into Gaza, hidden for five years, even transferred through Egypt — a journey that mirrors Yosef’s own descent.

The very name Shalit links him textually to Yosef HaShalit al ha’aretz — “Yosef, the ruler over the land” — and connects the experience of being taken hostage to the story of Yosef himself.

The story repeats itself. Today’s hostages mirror Moshiach ben Yosef:
the hidden redeemer who suffers for the sake of others.
His pain is not meaningless— it becomes a spiritual atonement, a kapparah,
for the soul of the nation.

In our time, the hostages carry this hidden, redemptive energy.
Alone. Unseen. Exiled in darkness. And yet— their pain has awakened an entire nation. To cry. To pray. To return. They are the living mirror of Mashiach ben Yosef.

The Hebrew word for hostages, Hatufim (חֲטוּפִים), shares a gematria of 153— the same as HaPesach (הַפֶּסַח), the Passover offering. At Pesach, Yosef’s exile ends. The promise he made the Jewish people swear — to carry his bones out of Egypt — is finally fulfilled, and Israel begins its journey to freedom.

Hatufim: the Hebrew word for hostages (153) also equals Betzalel (בְּצַלְאֵל) — “In the shadow of G-d.” The hostages were never lost. They were held in the shadow of Hashem’s presence, as a reflection of our collective exile.

Yet Gilad Shalit’s release came at the cost of 1,027 prisoners.

The number 1,027 recalls the 127 provinces over which Queen Esther ruled (Esther 1:1). The sages teach that Esther, whose very name means “I will hide My face,” embodied the Moshiach ben Yosef of her generation — the redeemer who operates through concealment. In her hidden devotion, she risked her life to save her people, and through that courage, she reversed the decrees against them. In both Esther’s story and Yosef’s, salvation arises from within exile; redemption hides inside the very empire that oppresses.

And in divine symmetry, the prisoner freed in the Shalit exchange became the perpetrator of October 7 —the circle of hidden suffering and revealed redemption now closing before our eyes.

The date itself speaks: October 7 — written 10/7 — conceals within it another date entirely: the 10th day of the 7th month, the Torah’s description of Yom Kippur (Vayikra 16:29).

Yom Kippur is the ultimate day of kapparah, when Israel becomes angelic.
On that day this year, we witnessed thousands of angels of Israel ascend — tinok shenishba, children, pure souls — their loss becoming a collective atonement, a purification through unbearable grief.

But Yom Kippur — or Yom Kippurim, “a day like Purim” — is, after all, only a day like Purim. It points us back to the moment when Queen Esther — the Moshiach ben Yosef of her generation — saved her people through hidden courage and revealed light.

Yom Kippur is compared to Purim because both are days of reversal and revelation — moments when we recognize Hashem’s hand orchestrating everything behind the veil, even when His name is absent, as it is throughout the entire Megillah.

Purim is also a day of joy, which leads us naturally to Sukkot, when that hidden joy becomes fully revealed — Zman Simchateinu, the season of our rejoicing.

And what happened this past Purim? Above us, the heavens began to echo the same story: a Blood Moon lunar eclipse, the very sign the prophet Yoel declared would mark the beginning of the end of days:

“The sun shall turn to darkness,
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the great and awesome day of Hashem.”
— Yoel 3:4 (2:31)

Yoel is also the name of the man instrumental in brokering the current hostage deal.
Just like Yosef in Egypt, his role is hidden, his power behind the scenes. Redemption often unfolds through unseen negotiations.

The Talmud teaches: In the days of Moshiach, there will be great mourning for the death of Moshiach ben Yosef. But if death is the default, then life is the miracle. The Talmud goes on to teach that his fate depends solely on the merit, unity, and love of the people.

One of the men instrumental in brokering the deal?
Jared Kushner. His Hebrew name: Yoel Chaim.
Yoel—like the prophet of the eclipse.
Chaim—for life.
For the life of Mashiach ben Yosef.
For the return of the captives.

The name Yoel Chaim has a gematria of 115.
115 is also the gematria of “HaNes”: “the miracle.”
Death may have been the historical default, but the miracle is what we’re here to witness.

In the entire Talmud, Mashiach ben Yosef is mentioned in connection to a very specific day: the seventh and final day of Sukkot, a day called “Hoshanah Rabbah” which translates as: The Great Salvation.

If the judgement is written on Rosh Hashana and sealed on Yom Kippur, Hoshanah Rabbah is the day where it is finalized and delivered. It’s known as the day when the “final verdict” for the new year descends from Heaven to Earth, a day where the hidden light becomes finally revealed.

When Gilad Shalit was released in 2011, alive and well, it was on Hoshanah Rabbah.

After two years in captivity, the hostages will be returning home on Hoshanah Rabbah.

Astrologically, Venus, the planet called “Noga” in Hebrew and connected to the sefirah of Netzach — victory, eternity, and endurance — in the Sefirotic Tree, has journeyed through Virgo (Mazal Betulah), the sign of the month of Elul, associated with purity, sacrifice and service.

Venus will now enter Libra (Mazal Moznayim), her home sign, the sign of the month of Tishrei, symbolizing partnership, balance, and restoration. Libra, represented by the scales, governs relationships and harmony between counterparts.

Tishrei is the month of partnering with Hashem, remembering that our foundation for the year begins with our relationship to the Divine.

Venus, ruler of Libra, will enter her home sign on October 13th, on Hoshana Rabba. From that moment, she seals a Tishrei defined by renewed balance — harmony between all parts of the Jewish people, and between Hashem and His people — a time of unity and becoming whole again.

And in this balance and harmony — just as the hostages return, carrying the redemptive energy of Mashiach ben Yosef — the Shechinah can fully return, preparing the way for the revelation of Mashiach ben David, may it be soon and in our days.

The season began with gently returning. Elul opened the door to teshuvah, the soft, daily turning toward our inner truth. Virgo, the sign of sacred refinement, asked us to pause, to look again, to ask again, to serve again, out of alignment, recalibration and devotion. Teshuvah, in its essence, is a return to love. Not just divine love, but also self-love, soul-love, the clarity of being who you are without distortion. Elul teaches that you have not been broken: you are becoming. Every small step is an offering.

It begins with the acronym of Elul: Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li. I am to my Beloved, and my Beloved is to me. We offer ourselves in service without needing to be chosen first. That is Virgo’s strength. The service is its own reward. We don’t perform in order to be loved. We love, and so we show up. And then, right before Rosh Hashanah, the heavens answered back.

A solar eclipse at 29 degrees Virgo cast its shadow over the final hours of Elul. This was a South Node eclipse, closing a karmic chapter. The South Node always asks us to release old identities. Virgo’s shadows rose for one final examination: the need for control, the grasping for perfection, the never-ending worry, the self-sabotage of always needing to do more. The eclipse sealed those doors. The light disappeared for a moment to help us see. You are not here to fix yourself. You are here to show up with truth. And if the Virgo has done her work, she doesn’t beg to be seen. She has already chosen herself.

Rosh Hashanah arrived not as a celebration of completion, but as a coronation. We crowned the King. We took the seat at the wedding canopy. The choosing was mutual. But this was not intimacy. Not yet. Rosh Hashanah is the moment of divine alignment. A decision. We commit. We walk through the gates with reverence and awe, with trembling joy. The soul says yes. But the merging is still ahead.

As Tishrei begins, we enter under the sign of Libra, the scales. Libra is the zodiac of marriage, balance, beauty, and partnership. It is ruled by Venus, the planet of refined love. But in the Hebrew, the wisdom deepens. The word for Libra is Moznayim, which comes from the root Ozen—ear. The scales of justice and the balance of love are not visual metaphors alone. They are auditory. In the body, our sense of equilibrium exists in the inner ear. Our ability to stand upright, to walk straight, to live balanced: comes from how we listen to the Divine.

And here, the Hebrew letter Peh, which rules over Venus, adds another layer. Peh means “mouth,” but it looks like an ear. Before we speak, we must first listen. Libra does not demand harmony. It hears its way there. Listening to the world, to others, to Hashem, to the soft movements of the soul. This is the invitation of the season: balance begins with sacred hearing.

It’s no accident that during the shabbat after Yom Kippur we read parashat Haazinu, (which contains the root word: Ozen: Ear) the great song that Moshe sings to the heavens:

הַאֲזִינוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם וַאֲדַבֵּרָה
וְתִשְׁמַע הָאָרֶץ אִמְרֵי־פִי
Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak.
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth. (Devarim 32:1)

The whole world is listening. All of creation is tuned to its Creator. The natural world responds to divine speech because it is a faithful servant. Haazinu reminds us that to live in harmony with Hashem, we must attune our inner ear.

And now, the days unfold toward their secret. Yom Kippur is not just the tenth day of the month. It is the culmination of a 40-day cycle that began on Rosh Chodesh Elul. Forty days like the 40 of the flood, like the 40 years in the desert, like the 40 se’ah of water in a mikveh. Forty as gestation, as transformation, as purification. The Virgo, whose journey began in refinement, ends in union. She has purified herself, not to become absent, but to become present. She doesn’t ask to be chosen. She arrives as the one who has already chosen. And now, she’s ready. Not for approval. But for intimacy.

Yom Kippur is the one day of the year we are told to transcend the body. We fast. We wear white. We refrain from touch, from adornment, from all earthly needs. But this isn’t denial. It’s merging. When two become one, they forget themselves. The body is no longer a barrier, it becomes a vessel of presence. According to Kabbalah, the sense of the month of Tishrei is touch. But not casual touch. The kind of touch that is completely awake. The kind of touch that dissolves the illusion of separateness. On Yom Kippur, we touch the Divine.

It is called Achat Bashanah—the one day of the year. A day outside of time. Not a break in the calendar but a tear in the veil. This is when the soul’s deepest layer, the Yechidah, is awakened. The part that was never exiled. The part that was never afraid. The part of you that remembers who you are, because it never forgot.

And this year, the heavens conspire to make it even more vivid. Venus is in Virgo, bringing the fullest beauty of devotional love. Mars is in Scorpio, igniting the purest passion and depth. These archetypes are not opposing forces. They are divine lovers. They merge not in struggle but in surrender. Together they create the energy required for the soul’s most intimate act.

Yom Kippur is the act of coition between soul and Source. The moment when self vanishes in the flood of total merging. This is when the Virgo, once so meticulous in her refinement, gives herself fully. She listens with her whole body. She disappears into union. And in that moment, she doesn’t ask to be received. She screams the one word that ends the cycle:

Li.
Mine.

Forty—the gematria of Li—completes its journey. She doesn’t whisper anymore. She claims. This is not about ownership. It’s about becoming. This is not about needing. It’s about knowing. On Yom Kippur, the intimacy is so total, so consuming, that there is no longer a subject and object. There is no longer effort. There is no longer separation.

And so, for this one day, we dress like angels. We eat nothing. We become light. And through that very shedding, the most embodied thing happens. The love becomes flesh. The soul fuses with its Source. The body disappears and becomes illuminated from within.

And through it all, for each of these 40 days, we’ve whispered the same psalm. Tehillim 27. A song of longing, of return, of trust. And at its heart:

אַחַת שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת ה’ אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ
שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית ה’ כָּל יְמֵי חַיַּי
לַחֲזוֹת בְּנֹעַם ה’ וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלוֹ

One thing I have asked of Hashem. That I shall seek. To dwell in the House of Hashem all the days of my life. To gaze upon the sweetness of Hashem and to frequent His Sanctuary.

Today, we no longer seek.
We are no longer asking.

We have become One.

The very unique part of our soul, the “Unique One”, Yechidah, awakens on Yom Kippur and breathes life into the entire year ahead. It sustains us in balance, holding us steady in our relationship with the Divine. The intimacy we experience on this one day is so powerful it becomes a living memory, a quiet fire that continues to burn even on the days we feel disconnected. At the root of everything is a love so pure, so transcendent, so unstoppable that it keeps us aligned with our true path. This is the seed from which a year of blessings grows, a year of divine alignment, a year that draws the ultimate return of Hashem into the world below.

May it be soon and in our days.

Gmar Chatima Tova, May you all be sealed for a beautiful year!

As the Hebrew month of Elul arrives, we step into the energy of Virgo, the sign that bridges summer and fall. In astrology, Virgo is mutable earth: she closes one season and prepares the way for the next. She grounds us while teaching us how to shift and transform. In Jewish time, Elul is the month of return, teshuvah, when we prepare ourselves for the awe and renewal of the High Holidays.

Virgo’s essence is about diligence, humility, and service, and guides us in Elul as it calls us into that same posture of presence. Virgo reminds us that the greatest transformations rarely come in flashes of inspiration, but in the quiet, steady work of intention.

Virgo is the sixth sign of the zodiac, and in Jewish thought, six corresponds to the six days of the week—yemei hama’aseh, the days of work. These are the days of showing up. They lack the holiness of Shabbat’s rest, but they hold their own sacred potential.

Virgo embodies this truth. She teaches that service to Hashem is not only about elevated moments in the synagogue or on the holiday calendar. It is also about how we move through the ordinary days. In her way, Virgo whispers: holiness is hidden in details, and the smallest acts can become offerings when performed with consistency and care.

The Talmud says, “What is the service of the heart? It is prayer.” But prayer itself is not only about words; it is about the daily discipline of turning one’s heart toward Heaven. Virgo expands this idea even further: every task, when done with presence and intention, becomes a form of prayer. In Kabbalah, the Shechinah—the Divine Feminine—is described as the indwelling presence of God. She does not remain aloof in the heavens, but descends into this world, accompanying us in exile, dwelling in our homes, and infusing our actions with holiness.

The Torah itself tells us: “Lo bashamayim hi — It is not in heaven” (Devarim 30:12). Hashem’s truth is not distant or inaccessible. It is here, woven into the fabric of life, waiting to be revealed. This is the great secret of the Divine Feminine. She shows us that holiness is not abstract, not beyond reach. It is in flour and fire, in water and light, in the daily rhythms of family and home.

When Hashem created man, He began with the most humble substance—dust of the earth. From soil came the greatest miracle of all: human life. Creation began not with precious stones or heavenly fire, but with the simplest matter.

So too, women are entrusted with three very specific commandments that mirror this act of creation:

• Challah: Taking flour, the “soil” of sustenance, and elevating it into bread that nourishes body and soul. When a woman separates the piece of challah, she transforms baking into an act of offering, linking her kitchen to the altar of the Temple.

• Candles: Taking wax and wick and transforming them into light. By kindling the Shabbat candles, she brings peace and blessing into the home. The Zohar teaches that through these flames, the Divine light spreads to every corner of the household.

• Mikvah: Immersing in water, the source of life itself, to renew body and spirit. In its depths, the most primal cycle of creation is reenacted: chaos becomes life, separation becomes union, potential becomes renewal.

Flour, wax, water are not rare or lofty materials. They are the simplest of substances. But through intention, they become the holiest of vessels. This is the essence of Virgo’s mutable earth: the power to transform what is raw and ordinary into something sacred and sustaining.

Virgo reminds us that when we do something consistently and carefully, with presence and purpose, we bring Hashem into that moment. To sweep a floor, to fold laundry, to light a candle, all become acts of service, vessels of holiness.

Hashem’s truth is not in the heavens. The Shechinah teaches us: the Divine lives in the flour dusting our counters, in the glow of firelight, in the stillness of water. She is in the very fabric of our everyday life. Within the six days, within the details of everyday life.

The Divine Feminine carries the map for this transformation. She knows how to guide us from the raw to the refined, from the simple to the sacred. Her wisdom reveals that creation itself is a partnership: matter waits for our intention, and spirit waits for our devotion. When we follow this map, we learn that magic is not rare or unreachable. It can be summoned each day by intentionally bringing holiness into our lives. This is not symbolic, it is actual alchemy. What was simple becomes holy. What was ordinary becomes radiant, spirit is now revealed within matter.

This is Virgo’s gift to Elul. She teaches us that holiness is not somewhere else, not locked away in mystery, not only in the synagogue or on the High Holidays. It is right here, in the daily work of our hands, in the details of our service, in the quiet choices we make again and again.

The Divine Feminine invites us to walk her path: to take what is raw and elevate it, to take what is humble and raise it to light. Every act of care, every intention of the heart, is a dwelling place for Hashem.

Lo bashamayim hi—“It is not in the heavens.” It is in the challah, in the candles, in the mikvah waters. It is in our homes, in our hands, in our breath.

This is the true magic of Virgo and the women’s commandments: to live each day as sacred service, to reveal the Shechinah in the ordinary, and to uncover the holiness that has been here all along.

Magically, we celebrate Tu B'Av, the Jewish festival of love, on that night. Hidden within the heart of summer, Tu B’Av is a celebration of union, romance, and soul-aligned relationships. In ancient times, it was the day when young women would dress in white and dance in the vineyards, and young men would come to choose their partners—not based on status or wealth, but on shared destiny. It was a day when the veils were lifted and love became a spiritual encounter.

Energetically, Tu B’Av is the counterbalance to Tisha B’Av, the darkest day in the Jewish calendar. Where Tisha B’Av breaks the heart open, Tu B’Av fills it again, with hope, connection, and divine partnership. It teaches us that after destruction comes rebuilding, and after loss, love. Under the full moon of Leo season, when the masculine and feminine energies are perfectly poised, we are invited to align with this sacred union within ourselves and with others.

When the Moon is full in Leo season, she stands in Aquarius, the sign opposite Leo. If Leo represents the self, the heart, the radiant center, then Aquarius stands for the collective, the world at large, the humanitarian dream that transcends the personal. It is in Aquarius that the Moon, our luminous Divine Feminine, receives the full light of the Leo Sun, the Divine Masculine in all his sovereign fire.

Aquarius is a fixed air sign, steady in its ideas, unwavering in its vision. But unlike other fixed signs that preserve what is, Aquarius holds fast to what could be. It is here to disrupt, not for the sake of chaos, but for the sake of evolution. Aquarius comes to challenge the status quo, to awaken new possibilities, to help humanity rise into a higher expression of truth, justice, and collective healing. Its disruption is holy, it clears the way for a better world. And in Aquarius, the Moon disrupts simply by receiving. In Aquarius, the sign of sacred disruption, she doesn’t rebel through noise or force, she rebels through receptivity.

She receives the Sun’s light fully, without resistance. That act alone is radical. To be open, to reflect, to hold, that is her power. Her feminine nature is the disruption. In a world built on control, domination, and performance, she embodies a different kind of revolution: one of presence, intuition, and holy reflection. Tu B’Av the holiday of love does NOT happen on a Rosh Chodesh, a new moon, where the moon is hidden. It does not happen under a Zodiac sign that is not the sun, the epitome of the Masculine.

The Holiday of Love, celebrated under a disruptive feminine full moon happens in Leo Season where the sun, the masculine, is crowned king. the Aquarian disruption here is the receptivity of Love. Being willing to receive, to accept, being willing to surrender to the Light of Hashem and all that it has in store for us.

Tu B’Av is celebrated under this specific full moon to teach us something profound: the greatest disruption — the one that makes sacred union and new life possible — is the act of surrendering to tradition. The Masculine can give and the Feminine can receive.

This time also aligns with Shabbat Nachamu, the “Shabbat of Comfort,” which comes after Tisha B’Av, a day of national mourning for the destruction of the Temple and the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. Tu B’Av and Shabbat Nachamu together offer deep emotional and spiritual healing. After a time of grief, we are reminded that brokenness can be mended, and that love is what comes through the breaking.

From a broken heart, we discover that the light of Hashem can reach us in ways we never imagined. It shines through the cracks of despair, through the places we thought were too shattered to be healed. This is divine inception — the birth of something entirely new. Out of pain emerges possibility. What didn’t exist before is suddenly here: more power, more opportunities, more truth, more hope, more love, more light, more life. This is the true miracle, not avoiding brokenness, but allowing it to become the vessel through which the Divine creates.

We celebrate love and sacred union precisely after experiencing deep grief because it is from the inception of new life and light that we become ready to receive even more. After the darkest moments, we are prepared to be met by Hashem — as the verse says, “Mimaamakim karaticha Hashem” (“From the depths, Hashem called to me”). This meeting with the Divine allows us to give birth to greater love, completing a powerful full circle: rising from the ashes to create something whole, sacred, and new.

The energy driving this powerful cycle is Love. Tu B’Av is known as the holiday of meeting one’s soulmate — a time when the essence of the soul reunites, returning to its original, complete state.

Aquarius, the sign of the full moon at this time, is an Air sign, not a Water sign. At first, this may seem surprising, after all, love is often associated with emotion and feeling, like the water signs Cancer or Pisces. But here, love is expressed as brilliance and clarity. Aquarius is the genius of the zodiac, representing innovation, insight, and higher understanding. On Tu B’Av, love becomes our genius, a form of wisdom and illumination that transcends mere feeling and connects us to something greater. Aquarius is driven by a deep desire to help humanity evolve and become free. It is a sign focused not on personal gain but on the collective good, on breaking down the barriers that keep people separated and limited.

Love, as we learn through the energy of Tu B’Av and the full moon in Aquarius, holds the power to make this vision real. Love is not just an emotion or a personal experience, it is a transformative force. The energy behind the ultimate Redemption.

Love frees us from isolation and limitation by reminding us of our shared divine origin. Tu B’Av is a day of great joy; it’s a day dedicated to surrendering to the Divine and fully receiving Hashem’s light. It teaches us that love is a revolution, our innate genius, our birthright, and the essential path toward our personal liberation and our collective freedom.

This Tu B’Av, stand under the full moon in Aquarius, reclaim your love as your genius, and watch it expand your aura to bring the

Redemption.

In Parashat Pinchas, the Torah presents a moment of significant change led by five women. Their names are Machlah, Noa, Choglah, Milkah, and Tirzah. They are known as the daughters of Tzelofchad, a man who died in the wilderness without leaving behind any sons. When the division of the Land of Israel among the tribes is being discussed, these women come forward to make a bold request. They ask to inherit a portion of the land in their father's name so that his legacy will not be lost simply because he had no sons. This had never been done before.

This moment is important because, until that point, land inheritance had followed a male line. Their request is not only bold for its legal challenge but also meaningful in how it changes the way the Torah sets the laws. Their case is brought directly to Moshe because there was no precedent, no way to answer this case. Moshe is dumbfounded and doesn’t know how to answer. He brings their case before God. And God replies that the daughters are correct. Their words are true. The law is changed in their merit. Women in similar situations are given inheritance rights from that moment forward.

According to a teaching attributed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the name can be broken into two parts: Tzel meaning “shadow,” and pachad meaning “fear.” Tzelofchad can be understood as “the shadow of fear.” This interpretation opens another level of insight into the daughters’ actions. These women step directly out of that shadow. They break a cycle. They confront the fear that has kept others silent. They face the structures that told them inheritance was not for them, and they speak with authority anyway.

This is not only about halachic change. It is about spiritual courage. Every generation receives patterns and beliefs from the ones before it. Sometimes these are healthy traditions. Sometimes they include silence, restriction, and fear. Patriarchy is not only a social structure. It is a spiritual inheritance that can block certain voices from coming forward. The daughters of Tzelofchad teach that in order to receive your blessing, you sometimes have to stand outside of what you were given. You have to confront the shadow. You have to look directly at the fear and ask anyway.

They teach that it is possible to step outside the expectations of silence, even if that silence has lasted for generations. They are not reacting with anger. They are acting with clarity. They do not reject Torah. They engage with it. They speak to its leaders and ask for a response from within the tradition. This is one of the deepest spiritual teachings of their story. It shows that when you approach with honesty and conviction, even the deepest fear and silence can be transformed into revelation and growth.

In this act, they teach us something about how divine blessings are accessed. It is not always through waiting. Sometimes it is through stepping into the unknown and trusting that truth will be recognized. Sometimes it is through confronting what you’ve been told you cannot have, and discovering that God is on your side.

The daughters of Tzelofchad are descendants of the tribe of Yosef, which is mentioned twice; a striking detail in a text where nothing is extraneous. This detail connects their courage to the spiritual legacy of their ancestor. Yosef was different from his brothers in several ways. One of his most unique qualities was his love for the Land of Israel, even while he was living in Egypt. Within the depths of exile, Yosef asks for a promise: “Take my bones with you.” This is not just a request for burial; it is a declaration of an enduring and visceral love for the Land. The word for bones, atzmot, echoes atzmut: the essence. In Kabbalistic thought, the essence of a father is being channeled through his daughters. (Not his sons) The daughters of Tzelophechad, then, are not just descendants: they are Yosef’s atzmut, his essence, his hope and dream carried through exile. Yosef himself too is the essence of his mother, Rachel, the mother who weeps for her children in exile, who refuses to be comforted, who never stops believing in their return. Rachel embodies the Divine Feminine Presence, the Shechinah, bound to her children in exile and yearning for redemption.

In the daughters of Tzelophechad, we glimpse this chain of essence—Rachel to Yosef, Yosef to his daughters—a thread of hope, memory, and love for the Land, carried even through the darkness of exile.

Yosef is the masculine expression of this Divine Presence. He holds the energy of Rachel and channels it into the world in a unique way. His descendants, the daughters of Tzelofchad, carry this same energy but in a different form. They are the feminine embodiment of the Shechinah. But unlike Yosef, who expressed his spiritual strength in quiet and hidden ways, the daughters speak directly and openly. They do not hold the Shechinah in silence. They bring it forward into action. They are not only spiritual carriers of the Divine Presence. They reveal it through their words and their courage.

Their ability to speak with clarity and confidence shows that the Shechinah is no longer hidden. It is becoming more visible. When the feminine Divine Presence begins to rise and express itself in the world, this signals a major transition. In the teachings of Jewish mysticism, the goal of creation is the union between the masculine and feminine aspects of the Divine. This union is part of what brings about redemption. But for that to happen, the feminine must rise first.

Pinchas, the figure for whom this entire section of the Torah is named is the grandson of Aharon the Kohen. But he is also the son of Elazar and a descendant of Putiel. The Sages explain that Putiel is another name for Yitro, the Midianite priest who converted and became part of the people of Israel. Pinchas has both priestly and outsider roots.

The Midrash teaches that: “Pinchas is Eliyahu.” This means that the soul of Pinchas continues in the prophet Elijah. Eliyahu is the one who, according to tradition, will appear before the coming of the Messiah. He will announce the redemption and prepare the people for it.

The story of the daughters of Tzelofchad is not only a legal or spiritual success. It is part of a larger pattern of redemption. When the Shechinah rises through the voices of these women, the world begins to shift. Their courage is not just personal. It is historical. It signals that the time is beginning to change.

When the feminine rises, it prepares the way for Moshiach. The Shechinah must come into visibility. It must find expression in this world. Only then can there be divine union. Only then can the fullness of redemption come. The daughters of Tzelofchad do this. And they do so in the very parasha of Pinchas, the voice that will announce the Redemption.

In this way, we can say that their voices join with his. He is the announcer of redemption. They are the first signs of it. They ask for a portion, but what they really bring is a signal. The future is already arriving. The Divine Shechinah is rising, and the Redemption is becoming.

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As we shift from the month of Sivan to Tammuz, the movement from Gemini to Cancer is a profound energetic and spiritual pivot.

Gemini, the twin sign of communication and duality, governs Sivan, the month of Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah. We receive Divine wisdom. We are enlivened by curiosity, communication, and learning: all big Gemini energies.

But with the Sagittarius full Moon behind us, we now enter Cancer and the month of Tammuz, where we are tasked with integrating that wisdom into the emotional body, the home, the heart, the inner life.

Jupiter, planet of expansion, faith, and Divine justice, has just entered Cancer—the sign of the mother, the home, and the emotional vessel. Jupiter is exalted in Cancer, meaning its powers are intensified. It brings healing, abundance, and emotional security. Specifically, Jupiter in Cancer teaches us to actualize the Torah we received in Sivan within the intimate character of our lives: our families, our bodies, our homes, our ancestral lines.

This doesn’t come quietly: Saturn in Aries squares Jupiter in Cancer and this square forces us to reconcile spiritual vision with material reality. It pushes the soul to grow not by dreaming bigger but by taking real, grounded, emotionally intelligent action.

At the same time, Mars, the planet of drive, ego, and willpower, is in Leo the sign of ego and pride, and it is squaring Uranus the planet of revolution and upheaval in Taurus, the sign that represents planet earth.. Both sit at 28°, the Hebrew number Koach (כ"ח): meaning strength, power, potential.

When Mars and Uranus meet like this, we’re pushed toward decisive change. There may be disruption, breakdowns, or eruptions ( the start of WWIII?) especially around identity, material security, and how we hold power.

Globally, we’re seeing this erupt on the geopolitical stage. Israel’s strikes on Iran and Iran’s retaliatio mirror these astrological tensions. Mars in Leo fuels aggression and leadership through war.. Uranus in Taurus destabilizes long-standing structures and economies and refuses to allow the earth to stand for what it has stood for, for too long.

At 28°, the degree of Koach, this is not random. It is a karmic ignition point: a cosmic invitation to handle power with responsibility, not domination. Uranus in Taurus wants to break what we take for granted. Mars in Leo wants to control. But 28° Koach asks us to activate true inner strength—to transform, not destroy.

Sivan is the month we stood at Sinai where we received the Torah but Tammuz begins the descent, when we enter the Three Weeks, a mourning period marking the spiritual and national breakdown that led to the destruction of the Temple. Kabbalistically, the loss of the eternal home reflects the exile of the Shechinah, the Divine Feminine, the Mother Presence.

Tammuz demands that we not only remember but that we also repair. And that repair starts with what many of us carry privately and generationally:

Tammuz is ruled by the Moon: “the great Mother” and it is in Tammuz that we start healing the mother wound. The unhealed feminine. The lost intimacy with the Shechinah which is often represented and felt by the emotional and spiritual disconnection with ourselves and with our inner home, in a way that we’ve normalized.

Jupiter in Cancer blesses us and empowers us to heal this wound. But Saturn in Aries demands that we take responsibility for it. Mars square Uranus will shake what isn’t aligned.

In last week’s Torah portion: Beha’halotecha, Moshe pleads on behalf of his sister Miriam:"El na refa na la" – “Please, G-d, heal her now.” (Numbers 12:13)

This isn’t just a request for physical healing. In Kabbalistic terms, it’s a global plea to heal the Shechinah. To restore the Feminine. To bring wholeness back to the parts of us we’ve lost—individually and collectively.

This is the energy of Tammuz, when understood not as decline, but as initiation.

A descent that enables transformation.
A time when we are called not only to mourn, but to mature. Not only to remember destruction, but to build something eternal within.

And in doing so, we prepare the ground not just metaphorically—but literally—for the immediate rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash.

The Temple is not merely a structure of stone and gold. It is the vessel of Divine Presence, the reunion of heaven and earth. And every act of emotional courage, of healing the feminine, of honoring our spiritual power with integrity—lays another stone in its foundation.

May it be rebuilt swiftly, in our days. And may the Shechinah return to dwell among us, whole, at home, and forever.

Shavuot has passed, and the petals are starting to fall. Their fragrance is fading from our rooms. But they leave behind something quiet and enduring: the memory of revelation. We brought blossoms into our homes to echo the Midrashic image of Mount Sinai bursting into bloom, the moment a barren desert mountain mirrored the profound presence and awakening of a people ready to receive. The Divine Wisdom is mirrored too in the divine beauty and grace, the gifts that flowers are. At Sinai, we didn't move to find holiness; holiness found us where we stood. The flowers reminded us that the Torah isn’t meant to live in the clouds. Torah is a gift. Torah touches earth. It enters the home. It decorates the body and the breath. The Torah is not ancient. It is alive. The revelation is not past. It is perennial. The mountain is not there. It is here: in your home, your breath, your body.

Leading up to Shavuot, we moved through the steady, earthy energy of Taurus. The work was slow and sacred, we tended to our inner gardens (and sometimes outer gardens too, if privileged enough to do so) and this work mirrored the counting of the Omer. Taurus grounded us in the rhythm of nature: cycles of planting, waiting, blooming, being awed by this very life. We need that grounded devotion to stay alive and inspired. Nature keeps showing up, and so must we. We need our blossoms: our reminders that something beautiful always follows the work, even if briefly. And even when the petals fall, something new will bloom again. Taurus teaches us to be cyclical, not linear; devoted, not hurried. To trust that inspiration will return if we stay rooted.

And then, as Gemini rises, breath replaces weight. The bull gives way to air, to questions, to communication. The soul of Shavuot lives here—in this transition from earth to air, from doing to receiving. The revelation comes not in striving but in stillness. We don’t climb the mountain to reach G-d. We become the mountain. And just like Sinai, we let ourselves bloom when the moment arrives. So now, in the aftermath, as the physical flowers fade, we remember: Let your space bloom. Let your stillness speak. Let yourself be the mountain, waiting not to climb but to receive. Revelation is a daily practice. Flowers always return.

The month of Iyar, falling between the redemptive fire of Pesach and the revelation at Sinai, is often overlooked. But Iyar is foundational, it’s home to the work of Sefirat HaOmer, the 49-day count from Pesach to Shavuot, from the holiday of Redemption to the holiday of Reception. Iyar is about slow progress, the sacred act of walking step by step toward destiny.

It is also deeply the month of Yosef HaTzaddik — Joseph the Righteous — the tzaddik yesod olam, the righteous foundation (Yesod), the dreamer in exile.

Yosef is a paradox: he saves the world from famine, governs Egypt with wisdom, and sustains his brothers yet he is never king. He is the viceroy, Mishneh leMelech, second to Pharaoh (Bereishit 41:40). He wears the garments of royalty, but the crown never truly rests on his head. Yosef remains the outsider on the inside. He is extremely powerful, but not sovereign. Even at his death, he asks for a favor: “Take me out with you.”

Yosef represents Yesod, the sixth of the lower Sefirot — the conduit of divine abundance. He is the channel through which sustenance flows into the world: feeding Egypt during famine, sustaining his brothers despite betrayal. Yet despite his power, he is not king. He is second to Pharaoh. He has influence, but not sovereignty. He prepares and supports, but does not reign.

Yesod is inherently relational, it connects, but does not rule. In the Sefirotic tree, Yesod pours into Malchut, the final vessel. The Omer journey reflects this transition: from transmission of potential to embodiment of presence.

Yosef is the tzaddik, the dreamer, the exile. He doesn’t choose his path — he is thrown into it. Betrayed, sold, and imprisoned, he learns to rise to each moment with resilience and faith. His greatness is one of response, not rule.

By contrast, his brother Yehuda rises not by force of exile, but by conscious repentance and courageous leadership. He steps forward to protect Binyamin. He admits his mistakes with Tamar. And in doing so, he earns the eternal crown: “The scepter shall not depart from Yehuda” (Bereishit 49:10).

Yehuda is Malchut, the vessel that receives and reflects divine kingship into the world. He represents free will, the bold act of standing in truth. From Yehuda will come David, and from David, the King Moshiach.

The counting of the Omer is a spiritual trek through the Sefirot. Each week, a different divine attribute shines. The sixth week, Yesod, is Yosef’s week, it’s marked by connection, foundation, and channeling holiness. But the final week, the seventh, is Malchut, the realm of Shechinah, of receptivity, sovereignty, and choice. Malchut has nothing of its own, and yet it inherits everything.

In this transition from Yesod to Malchut, we move from being shaped by exile to choosing redemption. From being sent to Egypt to standing at Sinai. From Yosef, who was forced to survive, to Ruth, the ancestress of King David, scion of the House of Yehuda.

The finality of the Omer is Shavuot: the day we receive the Torah. On that day, we read the Book of Ruth, the story of a Moabite woman who chooses the Jewish people and chooses Torah: “Your people are my people, your G-d is my G-d”(Ruth 1:16).

Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David.

Malchut is the final step on the Sefirotic tree, it’s the culmination of the entire divine process. It represents embodiment, manifestation, and sovereignty. While the upper Sefirot shape intention, emotion, and thought, Malchut brings it all down into action and reality. In the journey of Sefirat HaOmer, Malchut is the crown at the end, not in the sense of superiority, but of fulfillment. It is the point where all the inner refinement becomes lived. We become sovereign beings, choosing to fully inhabit our lives, our mission, and our world. We no longer merely dream or refine, now we embody.

In astrology, Malchut corresponds to the rising sign — your ascendant — the gate through which your soul enters the world and how you interface with it. It is the mask that reveals rather than hides; the posture you take in order to actualize your purpose.

And Ruth is Malchut incarnate. She chooses. She acts. She shows up. By willingly entering the covenant, she becomes the vessel through which the Messianic line begins: the great-grandmother of King David. She is not born into the people; she becomes the people. Through her sovereign choice, Ruth embodies the deepest mystery of Malchut: not inherent light, but the power to reflect, receive, and transmit divine purpose into the world.

The giving of the Torah was not a passive event. Hashem offered it, but the people had to say “Naaseh v’Nishma” : We will do and we will hear (Shemot 24:7). Just like Ruth, we stood and chose. And each year on Shavuot, we reenact that choice. All the souls of Israel, the ones past and future were and will always be present at Sinai. But their presence was not automatic. They were there because they said yes.

The Zohar refers to the Shechinah as Malka d’Meshicha, she is the Messianic Queen. Shavuot is the wedding of the Bride and her Beloved, the moment of union between heaven and earth. In the Kabbalistic tradition, Malchut is the Bride, the feminine vessel that reflects divine light.

This is the mystery of Ruth: the righteous convert, the archetypal Malchut, choosing to become the vessel for Mashiach. And this is the journey of the Omer: from Yesod (Yosef, the dreamer in exile) to Malchut (Ruth, the sovereign chooser). From the one who responds to suffering to the one who chooses the path. Malchut is the only Sefirah that is not inherently illuminated, and so she must be filled. This filling comes through human consciousness and choice.

When we get to Mount Sinai, the choice becomes ours. We are not just receiving Torah — we are choosing it. As Ruth chose. We have taken care of the foundation. Now, we receive the crown.

In the Divine Union, the Jewish people is the bride. Ruth, the righteous convert, is a woman. Malchut, we are taught, resembles the Shechinah — the Divine Feminine. To choose Torah is to step into our sovereignty, to align with the Shechinah, the indwelling presence of the Divine. This is the realm of Malchut, the feminine vessel that holds all the light of what came before and births it into the world.

Malchut is not passive. She chooses what to hold. She is the queen, not the subject. She is Ruth stepping forward not by lineage, but by love. She is the mystery of embodiment: taking the lofty and making it real, lived, grounded, present. She doesn’t question. She doesn’t need reassurance. She doesn’t need promises. She comes. She joins the journey walking forward into the unknown and into her truth.

From Ruth, we learn to choose. And only through choice can the mission of Yosef be fulfilled. Yosef survives exile with vision. But it is Ruth, the sovereign soul, who chooses to enter the covenant, and in doing so, anchors that vision into reality. Her choice is what transforms the dream into destiny.

Through Malchut, through choosing to show up fully in this world Yesod, foundation of future redemption, finally find its home.

This Shavuot, may we embody our most sovereign selves and in doing so, mirror the return of the Shechinah. May we activate the final and complete redemption, speedily and in our days.

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Each year, the full moon in Scorpio falls in the month of Iyar, ruled by Taurus, the ox. Taurus is the fixed earth sign of stability, beauty, and abundance. It is represented in Jewish tradition by Yosef, who is likened to an ox: "בְּכוֹר שׁוֹרוֹ הָדָר לוֹ"—“His firstborn bull has majesty” (Deut. 33:17). Yosef brings blessing to Egypt, sustains the world through famine, and remains pure despite the trials. This is Taurus at its best: faithful, grounded and abundant.

But before he was able to rise to viceroy of Egypt, save his country and his family, Yosef had to face the scorpions. Yosef’s descent begins in darkness. Sold by his brothers, he is cast into a pit described as being “empty, with no water”, but the sages add: “It had snakes and scorpions.” (Rashi on Gen. 37:24)

Scorpio, symbolized by the scorpion, rules over the hidden, the deep, and the painful inner work that happens beneath the surface. It is a nocturnal sign, drawn to the darkness—not out of fear, but because that’s where the real transformation happens. While Taurus basks in stability and enjoys the fruit, Scorpio is busy digging through the soil. This is the work of exile. The scorpion, buried in the depths of isolation and struggle, stirs the ox from his comfort and calls him to awaken—to do the work he might otherwise avoid.

It’s not a coincidence that this full moon often falls near Lag BaOmer, the celebration of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi), who spent 13 years buried in a cave—literally in the dirt, like Yosef in the pit. Both of them endured exile, concealment, and spiritual labor in the dark. Both emerged to bring light to the world: Yosef through sustenance and leadership, Rashbi through the secrets of the Zohar.

In Jewish tradition, it is known that there are two messiahs: Moshiach ben Yosef and Moshiach ben David. Moshiach ben Yosef, named after Yosef the Tzaddik, represents the hidden potential, the process, and the preparation. He suffers in exile, does the inner work, and builds the foundation—often unseen, often unrecognized. He clears the path, purifies the vessel, and begins the redemption from within. Moshiach ben David, descended from Yehudah, is the fulfillment—the revealed king, the embodiment of sovereignty, and the culmination of the work Yosef began. Yosef is the channel; David is the crown. Together, they represent the full arc of redemption: from concept to completion, from exile to revelation.

Yosef represents Moshiach ben Yosef—the soul who comes first, who does the inner work, who suffers in silence to lay the foundation for the final redemption. He prepares the vessel. Only then can Moshiach ben David: the king can come through.

During Sefirat HaOmer, we journey through the seven lower sefirot—refining a different soul trait each week. This inner work prepares us to receive divine revelation by aligning our spiritual foundation. This is the lesson of Yesod: the sefirah associated with Yosef. Yesod is the foundation. It is about connection, about holding the flow between the upper and lower worlds. It’s about aligning our desires with divine will. In human terms, it’s about sexuality, intimacy, and emotional integrity.

Before we can rise to the crown of Malchut: Sovereignty, which represents the ultimate sovereignty of G-d on earth, and receive the Moshiach ben David, the true king, we we must pass through Yesod. Through Yosef. Through the scorpion’s cave.

Kabbalah teaches that Yosef’s soul returns in Moshe. And Moshe’s soul returns in Rashbi. Each one picks up the inner work where the last one left off:

Yosef preserves purity and trust in the darkest exile.

Moshe liberates the people from slavery and brings down Torah.

Rashbi hides in the cave and reveals the deepest secrets.

All three were cast aside, separated from their families and communities, all three are linked by their descent into the earth—the pit, the exile, the cave—and their return with light. This is the Scorpio path. Pain becomes power. Darkness becomes wisdom.

Scorpio shows Taurus that the true work is underground. It’s not just about what we do—it’s about who we are when no one’s watching. That’s Yesod. Like sexuality, like intimacy, like everything sacred that happens behind closed doors, the real work is hidden. Quiet. Personal. But it’s exactly this hidden work that becomes the foundation for everything visible.

The foundation of redemption is not public. It’s often lonely. It’s healing trauma, refining desire, doing the unseen spiritual labor that makes embodiment possible. We each carry a piece of Yosef’s journey, like those silent moments in the pit, those days when no one sees the work we’re doing just to stay aligned.

When we build from Yesod, we prepare for Malchut. When we do the foundational work of alignment, of trust, of intimacy with the divine, we become vessels for revelation.

This Iyar, to allow the Taurus within to rise, with all its abundant beauty and powerful strength, we must not overlook the deeper work that no one sees, yet changes everything.

This is where inner Redemption begins.

The first is Devorah, a nursemaid to Rivkah. Her death is described with rare tenderness: “And Devorah, Rivkah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below Bet El, under the oak; and its name was called Alon-bachut”—the oak of weeping(Genesis 35:8). She may seem like a quiet soul, a background figure—but in Torah, if your name is mentioned, it means your soul is monumental. Names are never incidental. Devorah the nursemaid is named because she is here to teach us something eternal.

The second is Devorah, the prophetess, warrior, and judge. She sat beneath her date palm—“Tomer Devorah”—in the hill country of Ephraim, holding the people accountable and commanding generals.

Devorah means bee, and bees are known to be creatures of order, discipline, collective loyalty, and divine productivity. Bees are tenacious, communal, and tirelessly hardworking. From the labor of their wings comes golden honey: sacred, and sweet. They are more than insects; they are magic.

Two Devorahs: the milkmaid and the palm tree. The nurturer and the judge. The feeder and the seer. Two faces of the feminine divine, flowing together in harmony. Together, the two Devorahs form the milk and honey promised in the Torah’s vision of a redeemed land: Eretz zavat chalav u’dvash, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Devorah, embodied in the sacred bounty of milk and honey, channels the divine feminine expression of the Sefirah of Tiferet—the radiant emanation of Truth, Beauty, and Harmony.

“Tomer Devorah,” Devorah’s Palm, written in the 16th century in the mystical city of Safed, is a foundational text of Kabbalah. In it, the Ramak: Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, outlines how a human being can mirror the divine by embodying the traits through which God governs the world. The 13 Attributes, based on the verse in Micah 7:18–20, become not just descriptions of God, but imperatives for human refinement. As the Ramak writes: “It is proper for man to emulate his Creator, resembling Him in both likeness and image according to the secret of the Supernal Form.”

Ramak teaches that to walk in the path of the Divine is to embody the 13 Attributes of Mercy, the secret of divine Rachamim (compassion). These attributes pour through the Sefirah of Tiferet, the heart-center of the Tree of Life, where chesed and gevurah (loving-kindness and restraint) are harmonized. Tiferet is not mere symmetry. It is the ability to see truth with compassion, to offer judgment softened by love. It is beauty rooted in mercy.

Tiferet is also the sefirah associated with the patriarch Jacob—Yaakov Avinu, the father of the twelve tribes—who, after wrestling with an angel, is renamed Yisrael. Yaakov represents balance, integrity, and spiritual refinement. He is the bridge between the visionary Abraham and the disciplined Isaac. In him, opposites join into wholeness. So when we say that Devorah represents Tiferet, we are also saying she embodies the soul of Israel itself—a land and people rooted in harmony, in truth, in sacred proportion. She is milk and honey, yes—but she is also Tiferet Yisrael: the beauty and balance of a nation called to reveal divine mercy in a fractured world.

Devorah—the Bee—teaches us not only through her name, but through her sacred offering: honey. Bees bestow a golden gift, drawn from wildflowers and labor, a sweetness born of devotion and collective purpose. Honey is no ordinary sweetness. It is sacred food, divine nourishment. On Rosh Hashanah, we dip apples into honey not for flavor alone, but to taste the promise of renewal, of mercy, of a world made whole. Honey is a reminder that even through the toil and sting, something luminous and good can emerge.

There’s something mystical—and paradoxical—about honey. Although bees are not kosher animals, their honey is. According to halacha, the product of a non-kosher animal is typically also non-kosher—yet honey is the exception. The Talmud (Bechorot 7b) explains this unusual allowance by noting that honey is not considered a secretion from the bee’s body, but rather a transformation of nectar. It retains the purity of its floral origin. There's a message here: that holiness can emerge from unexpected sources. Purity can be preserved even through strange vessels. Honey reminds us not to judge the source, but to witness the fruit.

And yet, not all that glitters is honey. Royal jelly—secreted by bees to nurture a future queen—is not kosher. It is more internal, more secreted, more of the bee itself. Perhaps there's something to contemplate here: honey is the offering given in service to the collective; royal jelly is reserved for power. Honey is for everyone. Its sweetness flows from community, from toil, from harmony. Royal jelly may be potent—but it is not for our table.

The bee lives in Tiferet. Order and compassion. Productivity and sweetness. Every cell of the hive is a hexagon—geometry rooted in harmony. Bees don’t work alone; they build together. Each bee gives to the whole. Each sting is measured, purposeful. Each drop of honey is a world.

In Perek Shirah, the mystical text that gathers the prayers animals says, it is reported that the bee sings: “Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings” (Psalm 33:2). Ten strings. Ten sefirot. The harmony of the cosmos.

The message is clear: if we want to live in a world that survives, we must return to harmony. Devorah arose in a time of collapse. She judged with clarity and mothered a people with courage. She is the answer to imbalance.

Following the week of Tiferet, we must embody the inner light of Devorah the Prophetess—a woman who radiated such clarity, conviction, and divine authority that kings and warriors came to her for wisdom. She stood tall beneath her palm, a channel for truth, because she had cultivated the strength to hold it.

To live in harmony, our divine masculine must become a powerful vessel: boundaried, compassionate, and unshakably strong. When we become such vessels, beauty flows through us. Truth speaks through us: healing honey that has the power to heal the world around us.

And we must tend to the bees. Honor their role in creation. Protect their hives. Eat local honey with reverence, not just sweetness. Recognize that this golden food ,sacred enough to touch our Rosh Hashanah table, connects us directly to the Divine. It is a gift of the land, a whisper of redemption.

Devorah was divine masculine embodied:

decisive, structured, visionary—and yet she remained honey: nurturing, generous, overflowing with love. She did not sacrifice sweetness for strength. She held both. She was both.

This is the essence of Tiferet: the sacred harmony between opposites. To live in Tiferet is to become a vessel strong enough to hold paradox—masculine and feminine, judgment and mercy, structure and flow. It is the balance within ourselves and in relationship with others that generates the harmony the world is so desperate for. This is not optional; it is our spiritual task. Moshiach will not come through domination or disconnection, but through integration. When we cultivate Tiferet within—when we live as both palm tree and honey—we become the channel through which redemption flows.

The Messianic era is an age of balance, integration, and radiant clarity. It is waiting within us.

May we become its vessels. May we welcome it soon..

Pesach ends and we enter the hidden, less-celebrated season of inner work guided through Sefirat Ha’Omer which takes us to the holiday of Shavuot: the Receiving, 50 days later. Sefirat HaOmer is the spiritual bridge between liberation and revelation: the journey from Egypt (Mitzrayim, the narrow place) to Sinai, where we receive the Torah.

The journey begins with lovingkindness which is immediately paired with: Gevurah, defined as restraint, judgment, severity and discipline .

To many, Gevurah feels threatening. We fear boundaries. We associate judgment with punishment, discipline with harshness, and strength with violence. In an age of hyper-individualism, Gevurah is often cast as the villain in the story of personal freedom. In spiritual terms, however, the opposite is true. In Jewish mysticism, Gevurah is not meant to repress, but to focus and direct energy. Without boundaries, there is no vessel to hold Divine light. Gevurah is what enables form to emerge from chaos. It gives structure to love (Chesed), and without it, love becomes either overwhelming or indiscriminate.

Gevurah, teaches Kabbalah is governed by the planet Mars, which was created with the Hebrew letter Dalet. The fourth letter, Dalet means door in Hebrew. Gevurah, Kabbalah teaches is the doorway, the portal. The right restraint will open you, not block you. Limitations are essential to initiation.

Miriam the Prophetess is the feminine archetype of Gevurah. Miriam's very name begins with Mar (מר), “bitterness.” She was born just as exile began to settle. But rather than be consumed by the bitterness of galut (exile), Miriam alchemized it.

When Pharaoh was killing all the male babies, Miriam’s father Amram divorced his wife Yocheved in despair. Miriam, still a child, confronted him. “Your decree is harsher than Pharaoh’s,” she said. He reunited with Yocheved. And from that reunion came Moshe, the Aquarian redeemer of Israel.

Miriam is Gevurah at its finest: strength that channels life. She is the womb that contains, the prophetic vision that says not yet so that the yes may be even more powerful. Mars, the red planet, rules over the sefirah of Gevurah, as well as the zodiac signs of Aries and Scorpio. These signs hold the keys to holy severity. Aries, the fiery head of the zodiac, initiates with boldness, when Scorpio, the watery shadow, masters transformation through depth and truth.

The first act of redemption, the Korban Pesach (Passover sacrifice), is steeped in Gevurah. Blood on the doorposts. Slaughter at twilight. It is a rite of cutting away: cutting off the bondage of Egypt through covenantal blood.

Blood is not evil. Blood is life. Freedom does not begin with comfort: it begins with discipline. The act of separating from Egypt involved clarity and courage and it also set the stage for the larger spiritual project of Jewish peoplehood.

One of Miriam’s most significant roles is after the splitting of the Sea of Reeds. After the Israelites pass through, she leads the women in song and dance (Exodus 15:20). The Midrash states that the sea split due to the “faith” and “song” of Miriam.

Theologically, the sea’s splitting represents an act of Divine Gevurah: separating waters to reveal dry land. In Kabbalistic terms, this is the creation of a vessel—the formation of space where spiritual growth can take place. It is no coincidence that this event aligns with Taurus season, corresponding to the Hebrew month of Iyar, which is associated with healing: Exodus 15:26: “I am the Lord, your Healer”.

Kabbalah teaches that this physical world was created through contraction (Tzimtzum), a form of Gevurah. In other words, Gevurah is the mechanism by which this world becomes a vessel for the Divine. Rather than being the enemy of love or light, Gevurah enables them to manifest in a meaningful and sustainable way. Miriam’s strength—her prophetic clarity, her moral courage, and her disciplined response to suffering—is a model for how Gevurah should function. She is not harsh, but firm. She is not punitive, but principled. She does not shrink in the face of crisis, but channels strength toward constructive ends.

Miriam is deeply linked to Gevurah, and through that, to the Omer journey itself. Gevurah is not only a spiritual quality—it is expressed in the agricultural reality of barley, the grain brought as the Korban HaOmer (Omer offering) during this time. Barley is the second of the Seven Species (Shiv’at Haminim) of the Land of Israel, following wheat, and it represents the beginning of self-refinement. While wheat is often seen as a symbol of human maturity (bread is considered “food of humans”), barley is “animal food”, representing our base instincts. The Omer process is about elevating this “animal soul”—refining desire, discipline, and instinctual power.

Miriam leads us in this journey. Her strength gives us permission to be whole—to lead, to resist, to speak out, to say no, and even to judge. Her role in the Torah is not confined to support or song; she challenges, critiques, and acts decisively. When she criticizes Moshe, she is struck with tzara’at, the biblical affliction often translated as leprosy. But even in her sickness, she teaches us something profound: the community waits for her, and prays for her healing. We learn that communal prayer has the power to heal not only the individual, but the collective.

And while Gevurah is her essence, her legacy also includes water—the well of Miriam, which accompanied the Jewish people

and provided life-sustaining chesed (lovingkindness) through the desert. Gevurah creates the vessel; Chesed flows through it. Miriam teaches us how to hold both: to be strong and soft, to set boundaries and to nourish, to be disciplined and to love.

Rather than viewing Gevurah as restrictive, we must see it as the essential doorway into freedom. It is the boundary that protects. The discipline that enables creativity. The structure that holds the soul.

As we move through the Omer, and particularly through this second week of Gevurah, we are invited to reassess our relationship to strength and limitation. Gevurah is not an obstacle; it is the framework through which freedom becomes real.

May this week of Gevurah be for you a portal of discipline, clarity, and healing. May you find the strength to hold yourself with dignity, to hold others with care, and to hold the Divine presence in the vessel of your life.

The Vashti of the Megillah is not a heroine, but a tyrant. She did not use her power to uplift but to subjugate, particularly targeting Jewish women, whom she compelled to work unclothed on Shabbat, as recorded in the Talmud. Her cruelty was matched by her arrogance—she viewed Achashverosh as an unworthy usurper, holding herself superior as the granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian ruler who destroyed the First Temple and exiled the Jewish people.

Contrary to contemporary retellings, Vashti did not refuse the king’s summons out of dignity. She had flaunted herself before, reveling in her own beauty and power. According to Midrashic sources, her refusal was not an assertion of self-respect but an act of desperation. She was afflicted with tzara’at, a spiritually-inflicted skin disease, or, as another Midrash states, she sprouted a tail. Her sudden refusal to appear was not ideological but pragmatic—she sought to conceal her disfigurement.

The idea that Vashti embodied modesty is equally unfounded. Midrashic literature describes her as shameless, an exhibitionist who relished manipulating others. To elevate Vashti as a feminist symbol is to strip the Megillah of its moral and historical complexity, reducing it to a palatable, secularized myth divorced from Jewish tradition.

Instead of honoring Esther—the true heroine of the Purim story—certain Jewish voices seek to rehabilitate Vashti’s image. Their efforts to make Judaism appear more modern and palatable come at the expense of our own sacred narratives. The story of Esther, in contrast, is one of profound sacrifice, courage, and divine mission. Esther was forcibly taken into Achashverosh’s palace, yet according to Talmudic sources, she remained legally bound to her true husband, Mordechai, through a concealed marriage. This made her the only Jewish heroine recorded to have navigated two intimate relationships simultaneously. The Talmud further recounts that she immersed in the mikvah regularly to preserve her bond with Mordechai, and when she made the fateful choice to enter the king’s chamber uninvited, she knew she was irrevocably severing her right to ever return to him. This moment was not merely an act of political defiance but a staggering personal sacrifice—a relinquishment of love, home, and self in pursuit of a higher mission.

When Esther hesitated to risk everything, Mordechai’s words cut to the heart of Jewish destiny: "And who knows if it was for this very moment that you were created?" This is the defining lesson of the Megillah—every Jew is born for truth, born for responsibility, born for a divine mission. And yet, this message is often neglected because it carries weight, demanding an unflinching acknowledgment of our duty. It is precisely this sense of mission that so many wish to evade, for it is easier to adopt the language of modern moral relativism than to embrace the burden of Jewish purpose. The Jewish mission is potent, demanding, and often frightening in its implications—for to accept it fully is to recognize the weight of history, the expectation of divine service, and the responsibility to be an unwavering moral beacon in a world that resists absolute truth.

Vashti, as the granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar, inherited a legacy of brutality. Her grandfather was one of the most ruthless oppressors of the Jewish people, responsible for the destruction of the First Temple, the exile of the nation, and countless atrocities, including the blinding of King Tzidkiyahu after forcing him to witness the murder of his sons. Vashti’s removal from power was not a tragedy—it was a necessary precursor to salvation. Just as Haman’s downfall secured Jewish survival, Vashti’s fall paved the way for Esther’s ascent.

Yet today, rather than celebrating our true heroines, many fixate on figures like Vashti, contorting our history to fit contemporary ideological frameworks. Why, when we have Esther—a woman of extraordinary intelligence and fortitude—do we seek role models elsewhere? Why, when we have Devorah, a prophetess and military leader; Ruth, the matriarch of the Davidic dynasty; Bruriah, the brilliant Talmudic scholar—do we fabricate feminist icons rather than embrace the ones that are already ours?

This phenomenon reflects a deeper crisis: the erosion of historical integrity. When we distort our stories, we distort truth itself. And when we relinquish truth, we enable the spread of falsehoods on a global scale. The same intellectual dishonesty that recasts Vashti as a champion of justice is what allows terrorists to be rebranded as freedom fighters.

The consequences of these distortions are not abstract; they are devastatingly tangible. On October 7th, the Jewish people witnessed unspeakable atrocities—the massacre of entire families, the brutalization of women, the slaughter of children. Yet within hours, the global narrative shifted. Instead of universal condemnation, there was justification. Instead of moral clarity, there was equivocation. The very world that reimagines Vashti as a victim is the same world that dares to frame terrorists as revolutionaries.

We are witnessing a betrayal of moral order, a collapse into the abyss of relativism, where even the most horrific crimes are rationalized. The massacre of civilians, the targeted murder of infants, the sexual violence against Jewish women—these are not acts of resistance. To excuse them is to strip humanity of its last vestiges of decency.

The same world that idolizes Vashti emboldens those who see themselves as iconoclasts, those who mistake revisionism for rebellion and moral inversion for sophistication. But in reinterpreting history to suit ideological convenience, they empower the forces that seek to obliterate not only Jewish truth but truth itself. A society that cannot distinguish between Vashti and Esther is one that cannot distinguish between justice and barbarism. And we, the Jewish people, are not passive observers in this unraveling of reality—we are complicit when we fail to assert the truth.

To abandon our own stories is to surrender our power. To reclaim them is to reclaim our destiny. When the Jewish people embrace the full truth of their history, they will witness the restoration of clarity and, ultimately, Redemption—just as in the story of Purim. It is time to stand firm, to declare our truths without apology, and in doing so, to illuminate a world increasingly shrouded in darkness, and through unwavering commitment to truth, we finally will merit to bring about salvation.

The story of Moshe Rabbeinu is a story of miracles, transformation, and divine magic. From the moment he was saved from the Nile to the splitting of the sea, his life was infused with the mystical forces of redemption. His birth in Adar, the month of hidden miracles, signals that his journey was always one of divine orchestration.

As we transition from Aquarius to Pisces, we are invited to step into this magic consciousness—one that demands surrender, trust, and deep connection to the divine flow. And now, as Neptune nears the end of his long journey through Pisces, the final sign of the zodiac, we are reaching a climax in this cosmic cycle. The illusions, dreams, and spiritual revelations of Neptune are completing their full cycle, inviting us to dissolve all boundaries and step into an era of deeper unity and divine consciousness.

Aquarius, ruled by Uranus, is the sign of disruption and revolution. Moshe embodies this energy as he shatters Pharaoh’s illusions of control, brings divine knowledge to the world, and leads an enslaved people toward freedom. The waters of Aquarius are the waters of revelation—pouring forth wisdom, innovation, and change.

But Aquarius is only the beginning of the journey. Its waters, which quench the thirst for divine knowledge, lead us toward the deeper, mystical waters of Pisces.

Moshe was not only the bearer of divine wisdom—he was also the ultimate channel for divine will. If Aquarius is the rebel, Pisces is the mystic. The waters of Pisces are the waters of faith, surrender, and merging with the Divine. They are the waters that dissolve the self into something far greater, where logic and structure give way to trust and transcendence.

It is no coincidence that Moshe was born in Adar, under the sign of Pisces. His entire mission is one of dissolution—dissolving ego, breaking down barriers between heaven and earth, and allowing the divine to flow through him without resistance. His humility was his power. He did not seek leadership; rather, he became a vessel. The Torah describes him as the most humble of all men because he knew the truth: there is no self outside of G-d.

This is why Moshe was the only prophet able to speak to G-d face to face: because he had no self to get in the way. He had surrendered completely, allowing his being to become a conduit for the Divine.

And we are called to do the same.

Now, as Neptune completes his transit through Pisces, we are reaching the end of a profound spiritual cycle. Neptune, the ruler of Pisces, has spent years dissolving illusions, blurring boundaries, and calling us toward deeper faith. This is the ultimate invitation to surrender—to let go of old patterns, step beyond ego, and embrace the divine flow.

Just as Moshe led the Jewish people through the sea, we are now being led through a great parting of waters. The false separations between physical and spiritual, exile and redemption, self and the Divine are being dissolved.

Neptune’s last moments in Pisces ask us: Are we ready to trust the journey? Can we surrender to divine without fear? The era of concealment is ending; the final redemption is near. Right now, with the lunar nodes on the Pisces-Virgo axis, we are experiencing a collective initiation. Pisces calls for surrender, while Virgo demands devotion. Virgo is the path of humility—of refining the vessel, serving with purity, and dedicating oneself fully to spiritual work. Only through this devotion can one truly merge with the Divine. Moshe was known to be the most humble of man. It was through his humility (VIRGO end of the AXIS) that he was able to achieve surrender (PISCES end of the AXIS).

One must be humble in order to surrender. One must cultivate deep trust in order to let go. This is why the Jewish people declared at Sinai: “We will do, and we will understand.” The doing—the daily practice, the mitzvot, the ritual—is the key. Through our actions, we become vessels. Through our devotion, we prepare ourselves for transcendence.

Virgo, ruled by Mercury, can very much get overwhelmed with mental energy. The doing, the act of practicing, and being in constant devotion to sacred practices can calm that anxious Virgo energy. The doing, will lead to an understanding that is more PROFOUND than the typical understanding of the mind.

Moshe delivered the Torah, but his role did not end there. He led the people through the wilderness, teaching them that the highest wisdom is not about understanding—it is about trust. Moshe’s story is one of miracles, but what is magic if not the Divine revealing itself in a new way? What is MAGIC but experiencing the Divine in a miraculous and transformative way.

The name Moshe means “drawn from the water.” His entire journey is marked by water—the Nile that carried him to safety, the blood of the first plague, the parting of the sea, the rock that gave water in the desert.

And now, in this unique Adar, we too are standing before the sea, the waters of PISCES, this time, waiting for it to split.

For just as the redemption from Egypt came through water, so too will the final redemption. The prophet Isaiah declares:

"For with joy shall you go out, and with peace shall you be led forth; the mountains and the hills shall break out before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." (Isaiah 55:12)

REDEMPTION happening this month of Adar, because ADAR is joyous, and so is Redemption.

“For the Jews there was light and joy, gladness and dignity.” (Esther 8:16)

In Adar, we dance because we know that the hidden miracles of the past are the key to the revealed miracles of the future. We step forward in trust. We allow the Divine to flow through us. And in doing so, we prepare for the greatest miracle of all—the final redemption, the geulah shleimah, when all waters will merge into one, and the world will be filled with divine light.

May it be now. And may it be with joy.