Holidays: The Month of Turning Sins into Merits

by Rav Yosef Naveh, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

We have entered into the great light of the month of Nissan, which is the month of Redemption both past and future. I saw written in the work HaLekach v'HaLibuv in the name of the Avnei Nezer that these days are considered "very precious, in which each hour is considered a day." How so?

Given that these days are so exalted, every hour of Torah study, good deeds, and prayer is counted in the Heavenly court as a complete day of service of G-d. Why? Because on these days, great light and abundance of spirituality, and of closeness between ourselves and Hashem, descend to the world.

We know that the month of Tishrei – the High Holy Days and Sukkot – is a time for repentance, teshuvah, that stems from fear and awe of G-d, and of the day of judgement. On the other hand, Nissan is a time for repentance based on love of G-d. The latter type of teshuvah is so sublime, the Gemara teaches, that even purposeful sins can turn into actual merits – as amazing as that sounds

It occurred to me that these two concepts can be connected, as follows.

The first concept is truly astonishing, in that when a person spends an hour or so in the month of Nissan preparing for the holiday, collecting mitzvot, etc. – G-d counts this time as a full day of mitzvot! That is, He sees the abundance of holiness of this person - but He also sees the many hours of the past year in which he did not do mitzvot, and might have actually done purposeful sins!  What does G-d then do?

With His great compassion, He spreads the merits that the person created in Nissan, and uses them to fill in all the hours and days of the rest of the year in which he did not do good deeds! That is, all the hours of Nissan that became full days of merits, now fill in for the missing hours and days in which sins were committed – and thus the sins become merits!

These days of Nissan are very exalted from another angles as well. The Rebbe of Lublin said that specifically the first 12 days of Nissan are aligned with the 12 months of the year. That is, the first day of Nissan corresponds to the entire month of Nissan, the second day is aligned with the month of Iyar, and so on. 

What this means is that a person can make a difference and can determine what will be each month of the year – according to how he behaves on the corresponding day! That is, if he increases extra Torah study, mitzvot, and prayer, spiritually and physically, on the fourth day of Nissan, for example, then the fourth month – Tammuz – will be accordingly successful for him.

May this be a catalyst for a good and blessed month!