Rabbis’ Message, April 14, 2026
By Rabbi Lauren Ben-Shoshan
There is a quiet shift that happens as we welcome the new month through Rosh Chodesh Iyyar. It is almost imperceptible at first. The peak of Passover — its urgency, its expansiveness, its miracles — begins to soften and recede into memory. The sea has parted, we have crossed to the other side, and for a brief moment we might be tempted to pause and simply catch our breath. But the Torah, in its wisdom, does not leave us standing still for long. Instead, it gently turns us toward a new question, one that does not arrive with thunder or spectacle, but with a quieter kind of invitation: Who am I becoming?
Our tradition offers us a simple but profound framework for this season of the year. Nisan, the month in which Passover falls, asks what we are ready to leave behind. This new month of Iyyar asks what we are ready to integrate. And Sivan, the coming month that also celebrates Shavuot, is waiting just on the horizon, asking what we are ready to receive. If Nisan is the moment of liberation itself — the breaking open, the leap into possibility — then Iyyar is the practice of freedom. It is where inspiration meets the steady, sometimes challenging and tender work of becoming something new.
It is no coincidence that every single day of this month is counted. The Counting of the Omer draws us into a relationship with time that feels almost countercultural. We do not rush through these days, nor do we treat them as interchangeable. Instead, we mark them, one by one, as if to say that each day matters, that each day carries its own potential for awareness and transformation. In a world that often celebrates change as sudden and dramatic, Iyyar reminds us that the deepest forms of growth are often cumulative, built slowly through attention, intention, and the willingness to return again and again to what matters most.
This is precisely the terrain we are exploring together through our Mountain Mussar Omer Journal series. In this season, we are not reaching for perfection or chasing an idealized version of ourselves. Instead, we are practicing the art of putting one foot in front of the other along our journey. This is the tricky work of living in balance, learning to navigate the dynamic tensions that shape a meaningful life — between structure and flexibility, discipline and spaciousness, effort and rest. Iyyar invites us to walk this middle path with compassion, to recognize that transformation is not a single moment of arrival but an ongoing practice of awareness. As we move through these days, we might gently ask ourselves what it would mean to grow at the pace of trust, to take one small step today, and then another tomorrow, trusting that even the smallest acts of intention can begin to reshape the landscape of our lives. (You can continue along with us here.)
There is also a deep current of healing that runs through this month. Our tradition teaches that the very name of Iyyar can be understood as an acronym for the phrase Ani YHVH/Adonai Rofecha—“I am your healer.” This is not the healing of quick fixes or dramatic reversals, but something gentler and more enduring. It is the kind of healing that comes from steady attention, from the willingness to tend to what has been opened within us, and from the recognition that repair often unfolds gradually, in its own time. It is striking that this month contains within it Pesach Sheni, the “second Passover,” a moment that affirms with great tenderness that it is never too late. If we missed the first opportunity, if we were not ready, if life intervened, we are not shut out. The door opens again. We are invited back in.
As we enter this new month together, we might allow ourselves to trust this slower, steadier rhythm. We might notice the small ways in which we are already changing, the quiet shifts that signal growth beneath the surface. And we might meet ourselves with a measure of compassion that honors both how far we have come and how much still lies ahead.
Chodesh Tov. May this month of Iyyar bring healing to what is tender, steadiness to what is uncertain, and a deepened capacity to walk through our lives with presence, courage, and care.
