I always felt bad for Cheshvan – even more so because it’s my birthday month. When I was younger, it made me nervous. Why couldn’t I have been born in Tishrei, with all its sparkle and simcha? Or maybe in Nissan, the month of redemption and springtime? But Mar Cheshvan – it felt so still, so uneventful. Like the world took a deep breath and exhaled all its energy right before my birthday.
Mar Cheshvan.
That’s the name I grew up with -—Mar, the “bitter” month. On the school bulletin board, Tishrei always got the sparkle -—apples dipped in honey, scales for our good deeds and bad deeds, Torahs twirling in bright-colored construction paper. And then came Cheshvan: a single umbrella, a few lonely raindrops, and the sense that the party was over.
But as I got older – and especially as I started learning more Chassidus – I began to realize: Cheshvan’s quiet isn’t empty. It’s deep.
After all the ohros – the revealed light of Tishrei – we step into something quieter. The holidays fade, the shofar’s echo settles, and we put away the lulav and sukkah. It’s darker earlier, colder too. The clocks turn back, and even the heavens begin to pour.
But Chassidus teaches us that Mar Cheshvan isn’t bitter at all. It’s pnimius – inward, essence-deep.
If Tishrei is when we dance with the King, Cheshvan is when we live with Him. Not in the palace, but in the everyday – in the rain, in the laundry, in the carpool line, in the stillness of our own hearts.
It’s the month of connecting to Hashem with Atzmiyus, where Hashem is not found in the thunder, but in the quiet.
No fanfare. No rituals. Just Him. And maybe… that’s the deepest connection of all. We’re told that one day, Cheshvan will be repaid for its silence. That davka in this month will come the Chanukas HaBayis – the dedication of the Third Beis HaMikdash. The same month that once carried the Flood, the cleansing waters of renewal, will one day carry the pure waters of redemption.
And in the middle of this quiet, yearning month, on the IIth of Cheshvan, we meet Mama Rochel.
Rochel Imeinu – the mother who never stops crying, never stops waiting. She isn’t buried in Chevron with the others. She’s on the side of the road, in Beis Lechem. Waiting for her children to pass by. For us.
The Medrash tells us that when the Yidden were exiled from Yerushalayim, all the avos – Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, even Moshe – pleaded with Hashem to bring us back. And Hashem stayed silent. Until Rochel stepped forward.
Ribbono Shel Olam,” she says softly, “Do You remember what I did for my sister Leah? How I gave her the signs, how I let her marry Yaakov in my place, just so she wouldn’t be shamed?”
And suddenly the Heavens tremble. Hashem turns to her and says: Mini kolech mi’bechi v’einayich midimah – stop your tears, Rochel, for your children will return home.’
The Geulah began with her tears.
With one woman’s quiet bitul.
With love that chose another’s joy over her own.
Chassidus teaches that Rochel and Leah aren’t only our mothers – they are two worlds, two forms of revelation. Rochel is the Olam d’galya – the revealed world, the Shechinah in exile, crying for her children. Leah is the Olam d’istakliya – the hidden world, the root of redemption. Together they represent Moshiach ben Yosef and Moshiach ben Dovid; two streams that will unite in one everlasting light. Rochel allowed for Malchus Beis David to be born.
Rochel’s tears – the rain of Cheshvan – are not tears of despair, but of hope. They water the seeds of Geulah. Each drop says: “Don’t give up. Don’t stop believing. Hashem is still here – in the waiting.””
The power of Geulah has always been carried by women.
B’zchus nashim tzidkaniyos nig’alu avoseinu miMitzrayim, u’b’zchusan asidin l’higael.
In the merit of the righteous women, our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt, and in their merit, we will be redeemed from this exile.
In Mitzrayim, it was Miriam who waited and waited – her emunah so strong she packed her tambourines before the sea even split. She knew there would be reason to sing.
That’s the Energy of Cheshvan.
To keep singing quietly. To believe before the redemption comes.
To find Hashem in the rain, in the stillness, in the gentle hum of daily life. Mama Rochel – the akara, the barren one – waited for years, and yet she never stopped davening. Her tefillos weren’t a lack; they were her connection. Her oneness with Hashem.
When a woman davens, she creates life – even before she can see it.
So maybe this Mar Cheshvan, the“”bitter” month, is really the sweetest. The month of whispered tefillos and unseen miracles. The month where our quiet becomes the song of our redemption.
And the month that will one day bring us the Beis HaMikdash, built not with noise – but with the soft, steady prayers of every Jewish woman who never stopped believing.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 56.