“I am G-d, your healer”
(אֲנִי י־הוה רֹפְאֶךָ )
Why is healing with light particularly relevant to the situation in Israel today? To appreciate this, let us examine the unique place the month of Iyar occupies in the Torah’s scheme of time.
In the Torah, there is only one holiday in the month of Iyar. It is known as the Second Passover (פֶסַח שֵׁנִי ), on the 14th day of the month. Normally, we are commanded to celebrate Passover on the 14th day of Nisan, a month earlier. But, in cases when a person was ritually impure or too far away from the Temple on the 14th of Nisan and therefore unable to celebrate Passover by bringing a sacrifice to the Temple on that day, the Torah provides a second chance, the Second Passover.
Although the Jewish year begins in the month of Tishrei, the months are counted from Nisan. Iyar is thus the second month of the year both in the ordinal sense and inasmuch as it is the month in which one is given a second chance.
Every holiday in the Jewish calendar teaches us a basic lesson in how to fulfill our purpose in life, how to serve God maximally year round. The message of the Second Passover, and the general message of the month of Iyar, is that it is never too late. No matter what situation we find ourselves in, no matter how low we have fallen, no matter how impure we may feel or how far away from our life's goal we are, we can always, with God’s help, rectify our situation.
And so it is with regard to the State of Israel. The fact that it was founded and its wars were fought and won in the month of Iyar teaches us that we must not despair. The power of light can overcome the darkness; it is never too late to rectify the situation. Our generation has been given the unique opportunity of joining the mind and heart of our people and the entire world together. By spreading Torah, the light of God, everywhere, we will eventually succeed in restoring it as the ultimate message of God’s greatest gift and blessing: peace and life. As Maimonides ends his discussion of the laws of Chanukah, a holiday commemorating an earlier attempt to establish Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, “The sole purpose for the giving of the Torah was to make peace in the world.”
From "Second Passover and the State of Israel," by HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh
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