Living with Light: Kiddush Levana/Blessing on the Moon

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Hillel Shaps’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

So today's topic is going to be kesh lavana the blessing that we make on the new moon at the beginning of each month and certainly we're following uh we started with Friday night shabas candles we went to mozzy shabas Saturday night havdala and talked about bisim and then commonly although we'll we'll touch on it kdesh lavana is recited on a Moz Shabas song on a Saturday night after Shabas. Now Friday night we make kdesh we sanctify the shabas. Um certainly on Friday night the blessing is shabas. Hashem sanctifies the shabas and uh and so we're kind of declaring that sanctity. So we call it kdesh kush but kdush levana where we make a blessing over the moon. Are we sanctifying the moon? Does the moon have holiness that we are sanctifying it? Seemingly not. Um I don't think that that fits well in with our religion to to uh give the moon sanctity. In fact, the Mishna Bura in his commentary, he brings down that he once heard that the reason why at the end of kdesh lavana we say alenu. So traditionally at the end of davening at the end of each tila we say alenu and uh there's a couple other places where we say eleno one is at after a bris after a circumcision and another is kadesh lavan at the end of kadeso we say alenu and thea brings down that he once heard a nice idea why the custom is after after kadeshana to say alenu and that is because we don't want anybody God forbid to mistakenly think that we're going out to the moon and we are serving it or worshiping it, giving it any honor. Um,

Jump to a moment

1. 0:04So today's topic is going to be kesh lavana the blessing that we make on the…
2. 5:01Eleno after kadeshana and uh according to that it's a a very uh just you know…
3. 9:51salivana the blessing over the moon usually we for example we make a blessing over the…
4. 14:15uh when we do kushing at our wedding when the husband sanctifies the wife with kushian…
5. 19:08significant light. That's why we have to wait till 3 days in. You have to be…
6. 23:46study hall of uh if the Jewish people married to greet the face of their father…
7. 28:39see sort of the creation process repeated um in a certain way every month the moon…
8. 32:57have to say it between the third again for ashkanazim the third day after the mad…
9. 37:50redemption so after tishabove is a good time to say kadesh lavana because that's when we…
10. 42:24could represent Hashem when we move towards the light of Hashem when we move turn in…

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