FINE ART

THE LETTER KUF AND THE

Month of Adar

By: Kalman Safrut

Aletter is a symbol that is commonly agreed upon to represent something. Each Hebrew letter is a symbol, but it represents much more than that symbol – also the depths of our tradition. It’s a symbol that represents a storehouse of information. Every Hebrew month of the year is associated with a Hebrew letter. The letter for the month of Adar is kuf. Let’s explore what the shape and name of the letter means.

The shape of the letter kuf is very rare. First of all, it’s two pieces. Only one other letter is two pieces – the letter hei. Both letters are connected to kedusha; the letter hei is connected to the kedusha of emes, but kuf has a lower level of kedusha. Here’s how. The word kof means monkey, to copy and can also mean imitation. So, whereas God creates, we imitate God, as if God were the letter hei and we were the letter kuf. For example, a child imitates a parent until a child learns on its own how to interact in the world. We start from a place of imitation – imitating role models and parents – and then we grow until we become a bar da’at, somebody that has intelligence who can then make the best decision possible. Kuf and Adar are about simcha - happiness. What does it mean to be happy? How can you have a commandment to be happy? We know that there are different levels of happiness – exterior and interior. For example, someone who smiles and laughs all the time, that’s the exterior. Interior happiness is when someone has deep happiness. Generally speaking, people who smile and laugh all the time may not be so happy. Or perhaps it is the body that desires to be happy, starting from the outside in. We start from a low level to a high level. So, the body imitates happiness until we experience some form of happiness. Like Rebbe Nachman says, “hamcha’at kaf verikkud raglayim mamtikim et haddin” in order to bring happiness. You can clap your hands, jump up and down and dance – doing external things that then reach an internal place. That’s the idea of happiness. It’s not “fake ‘til you make it”, but fake it ‘til you make it in a deep emotional way.

On a personal level, one experiences the two-way street of the internal and external. On one hand, you have your own personal things that you’re dealing with; on the other, who you are is manifested on what you do, but also what you do in position in opportunities you take to build yourself in an external way. It influences who you are, how you feel about yourself, and how you interact. What’s the external doing? What’s the

internal doing? One is influencing the other. What’s the point of external happiness in Adar? We make ourselves happy and make others happy. For example, every parent knows that going on vacation is not going to be fun for them. It’s fun for the kids, right? This type of happiness takes sacrifice in order to improve the world around you. That’s why there’s a mitzvah where you have to smile at people, “receive everybody with a smile”. Your face is public property.

If you don’t work on reaching internal happiness, it’s like keeping mitzvos but not having any intention or knowledge of what you’re doing. You’re just doing something by rote. It’s only having the external and nothing in the inside. Or, it’s like being connected to Torah, but never opening up the treasure chest that is Torah.

The fact is that Adar has the power of simcha, and simcha is what brings people together. So, we see that the external aspect of happiness is so important. Therefore, we don’t want to lose the letter, we don’t want to lose our tradition. We want to engage the tradition and we want to open up the treasure chest of Torah.

May we merit to manifest true happiness and reveal our deeper selves this upcoming Nissan.

M

Kalman Safrut is a contributing editor for Mochers Magazine.