Nissan is both month and season. It is the month of Pesach and the season of ge’ulah. , Nissan, springtime of the earth, suggests spiritual rebirth and national renewal. We know Nissan well. Less known is that Adar too is a month of renewal and redemption. Purim appears in the very center of Adar exactly thirty days before Pesach. Purim and Pesach are jewels encased in their own vernal matrices, their springtime months. Like Purim itself, with its images of ayeles hashachar, of the transforms from Veho’ir Shushan novocho to vehoir Shushan tzohalo vesomeycho, the month of Adar is nexus of darkness and dawn, it is winter’s end and springtime’s promise. Adar is Nissan’s ayeles hashachar. Adar breaks our long-held assumptions and delivers us from our banalities and commonplaces. Adar insists that, in darkness, light is possible. Adar talks of change, of transformation. Adar denies us our inertia and demands that we begin to dream again. Adar teaches us not to be afraid to dream of ge’ulah. It is only after Adar’s initiation that we can embrace Nissan and accept ge’ulah’s gifts.

It is quite remarkable that HaShem has to coax the messenger who will preach the redemption. But this is what we read in Yeshayahu 40:9. Al har govo’ah ‘ali loch mevaseres Tzion, horimi bako’ach kolaych mevaseres Yerushalayim, horimi, al tiro’i, imri le’oray Yehudah hinei Elokeichem. Ascend upon a high mountain, O herald (fem.) of Tzion, raise your voice with strength, O herald (fem.) of Yerushalayim. Raise it, fear not; say to the cities of Yehudah: Behold, your G-d. Al tiro’i--do not fear. What is there to fear? The message is so precious, so wonderful, so luminous. The ge’ulah is here, Moshi’ach is coming. Imagine the red carpet that will be rolled out for the mevaseres! Why, then, will she afraid?

This mevaseres (note the feminine!) has an alter ego. In Yeshayahu 52:7: Mah novu al hehorim raglei mevaser (note here the masculine!) Mashmi’a sholom mevaser tov, mashmi’a yeshu’ah, omayr leTzion molach Elokoyich. How pleasant are the footsteps of the herald (masc.) upon the mountains, announcing peace, heralding good tidings, announcing salvation, saying unto Tzion: Your G-d has reigned! HaShem does not need to coax the mevaser, why is not the mevaser afraid? Why should the mevaseres be afraid?

The answer, I believe, lies in the roles of the mevaseres and the mevaser, respectively. They both announce the ge'ulah, but whereas the mevaser develops an already evident reality, the mevaseres must introduce, afresh, the idea of ge’ulah to a skeptic, tired people. There is a vast difference between: Hineh Elokeychem and Molach Elokoyich. Molach, He has reigned, is past tense. HaShem’s rule is a tangible, tested reality. The mevaseres calls forth from the darkness of golus that the ge’ulah is almost here, the mevaser comes after and says that the ge’ulah is changing everything.

The ge’ulah is coming? Haven’t we heard that before? Will it last? Is it really true? Can it be true? And it is so dark outside and Eisav is so menacing. Yes, there will be resistance and doubt. There will be doubt which the mevaseres must overcome, and there will be resistance which the mevaseres must ignore. The mevaseres knows there will be no red carpet, no reception committee. She will be lucky if a handful of enthusiasts greet her on the tarpaulin. So the mavaseres is afraid.

And what of those who refuse to be redeemed, who are so of a piece with their golus surroundings that they call golus home and build to stay. "What," queried the villager’s wife of her husband, "the Rabbi said that when Moshi’ach comes we have to go to Eretz Yisroel?" "Yes my dear." "And what about the goat?" "I don’t know. He didn’t say anything about taking the goat." "Go back and tell your Rabbi, if the goat stays, I stay."

So the mevaseres is afraid, and lonely. Alone in her knowledge of ge’ulah, trying to sell ge’ulah in the marketplace of false jewels and spurious charms, she will discover that her wares entice few, excite few. She is a harbinger, an ayeles hashachar. But for all her preaching it is still dark outside. And so she needs desperately the encouraging word of her Master. Horimi, al tiro’i. Say to the cities of Yehudah: Behold, Hashem is here! Do you not see Him? But He is here, and it is time. And you will see. You will grow new eyes and feel with a new heart. And then it will be so obvious, so eternally implicit. You will read your history all over again and it will be a different history.

When the mevaser comes, the path has been paved by that mevaseres, the light has dawned already, and he, this mevaser, gambols from hill to mound and excites everyone with the implications of a ge’ulah which they know and want.

The mevaseres, Esther, Ayeles HaShachar, she is the women of all our generations. She is the mother who waits with inner joy her nine month’s gestation, carrying the future in an adumbrating womb. She is the mother who suffers even more the pangs of life-giving labor. Al tir’i ki gam zeh loch ben. The mevaseres is a Miriam who refutes her father’s paralyzing pessimism and opens a window to yetzias mitrayim. The mevaseres is a generation of women who know that Moshe is coming and who refuse to succumb to the temptations of yi’ush. They will not join in the making of the golden calf. The mevaseres is the woman who hears the meraglim and laughs them off. She knows. HaShem has promised. They will not anguish in the meraglim’s panic, in the national despair. To this mevaseres HaShem says: horimi al tiro’i.

The mevaseres is the Adar to the mevaser’s Nisson. And it is Megillas Esther. Not megillas Mordechai. The mevaseres is a feminine perception. (See also Rashi to Yeshayahu 40:9.)

Purim itself teaches this message of a dawn still implicit in the darkness, of a ge’ulah that seems to come out of the most unlikely circumstances. Purim’s recipe for a redemption-torte seems to demand bitter ingredients. And on-the-brink, shifting-fortunes, elements of surprise are everywhere present in the megillah. The whole of the megillah seems to resonate with this one message: to see Me you must have faith! So HaShem’s name is not written into the megillah even once! It is the mevaseres’ message out of the darkness of near despair: Hineh Elokeychem! Nothing can be spelled out. It is all implication, all forcing the reader to be the careful student, the attentive explorer. The mevaseres is like the desperate sailor who shouts from high up on the crow’s nest: "Land ahoy." And we are like his mates below, who, because they are on the ship’s deck, see nothing but the endless sea. Now the test: If the mevaseres comes, will we say, with the mevaseres, Hineh Elokechem?

Sifrei Minhogim bring the custom of placing a plaque with the words Mishenichnas Adar Marbim Besimchah in one’s house, at the beginning of Adar. Exactly where should this plaque be placed? Over the amoh by amoh section of wall which every Jew leaves unfinished as a zecher lechurban. Though still in a profound golus, we mask the darkness that surround us by the light of our emunah and we march on to greet the mevaseres, eager to hear: Hineh Elokeichem. And when do we do this? Mishenichnas Adar. Adar, the month of ayeles hashachar, when all things are possible and yet to happen.