“The voice of HaShem is in strength, the voice of HaShem is in beauty.” (Psalm 29:4)
Welcome Chodesh Sivan, as we arrive at a spiritual elevation point: the time of Matan Torah—the Giving of the Torah at Sinai.
Sivan is ruled by the planet Mercury (Kochav), symbolizing travel, movement, and communication. It's entirely appropriate that the Torah, the direct communication from G*d to the Children of Israel, was given during Sivan.
This year, as in all regular (non "leap" (pregnant)) Jewish Years, Shavuot - the holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah - falls with the Sun in Gemini and the Moon in Virgo; both the Mercury-ruled Zodiac signs.
As the Talmud tells us, "Mercury is the Sun's scribe" (BT Shabbat 156a).
Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, is associated with writing. The image of tiny Mercury following the gigantic sun around with a notepad comes to mind. The Sun is the “King” and Mercury is the “Scribe” – relaying the information / data / words of the King (the thoughts) via words (written and spoken) to the “people” – the immediate environment.
Gemini's Mutable Air energy reflects the dynamic dance of duality: body and soul, earth and heaven, Self and Other. Each twin has a twin, who has a twin, and so on and so on...
Chodesh Sivan's Tribe, Zevulon, is known for his ability to navigate journeys and support Torah learning (ostensibly through his brother Issachar) through worldly engagement with those he encountered in his travels around the eastern Mediterranean - his "neighborhood", so to speak. Sivan's tikkun is travel—not just geographic, but the inner voyage of integration. Without the goal of integration of all the disparate parts of this diverse "neighborhood", Gemini is left to flounder in unhealed fragmentation.
Gemini's Mutable Air energy transforms thought—it’s the sacred breath that carries ruach, spirit, and speech. In Sivan, we rewire our mental circuitry through a Divine data download: the giving of the Torah was not a one-time event, but a perpetual broadcast—cosmic WiFi, always available, always on.
The broadcast is always on, 24/7/365. But what about the receiver?
Are we tuned in?
This Sivan is cosmically complex. The New Moon in Gemini just before Rosh Chodesh sets the tone: Mercury trines Pluto, urging us to speak powerfully from the depths of what we know in our very kishkes. The planetary choreography unfolds rapidly: Mercury conjunct Sun, Venus conjunct Chiron, and powerful Jupiter aspects that shift the tides of both personal and collective consciousness.
The Full Moon in Sagittarius (June 11) brings truth into technicolor. The Mutable Fire - Transformative Inspiration - of Sagittarius makes meaning out of the Data Download / Information overload of Gemini.
The Summer Solstice / Tekufat Tammuz (June 21–22) calls our attention to light—its source, its cost, its purpose - as we turn the corner into the season of Summer, " קַיִץ " in Hebrew, meaning the end part of the year. The Sun is the highest and casts the shortest shadow of the year. For a moment we stand illuminated - can we retain what we've seen when the light begins its descent down the months ahead?
With Jupiter, Mercury, and the Sun all entering Cancer mid-month, we’ll feel the pulse of our inner lives rise to the surface. It's all about feeling our feelings - and that can bring out woundedness and vulnerability. With Chiron in Aries square to all those planets in Cancer, it's time to take action in regard to healing - and part of that is taking personal responsibility!
The planetary tensions—Mars square Uranus, Sun square Saturn, Jupiter square Neptune—are not obstacles, but opportunities. Cracks in the vessel where more light can enter. In the words of Chazal, “There is no place devoid of Him”—even in confusion, even in contradiction, there is Divine Presence.
For Claal Yisrael, this month speaks to our collective tension: between tech and tradition, between dispersion and rootedness, between the noise of incessant media and the quiet truth of meaning. How do we balance the external noise of modern life with the inner stillness required to hear the Celestial Covenant via Kol HaShem—the Voice of God?
Ask yourself:
What am I saying? What am I receiving? What am I transmitting?
Do my words build the world—or blur the truth?
Remember: the Torah was not only given once, but is given to you, through you, every day. "The Torah has 70 Faces" and one of them is YOURS.
