"Time is a Valuable Gift!"
Time is one of the most valuable gifts we have.
The very first mitzvah God gives to the Jewish people as they are about to depart from Egypt is the gift of time; of Rosh Chodesh:
“This month shall be for you the beginning of the months. It shall be for you the first of the months of the year.” (Exodus 12:2)
The renewal of the moon becomes a marker of time by which we establish the Jewish calendar with all its festivals and celebrations.
This is the first of the months of the year,
since this begins our time of freedom.
Slaves are by definition not free.
When we were enslaved, we had no control over our time.
Time is exactly what a nation of slaves needed.
Freedom means being able to formulate one’s own timetable.
From now on these months will be ours, to do with as we like.
The mitzvah of sanctifying the moon was an involved process;
When someone saw the sliver of a new moon
they would run to the Sanhedrin (high court) in Jerusalem to testify.
The Sanhedrin would then convene a court to corroborate what the two witnesses saw, declare the new month and send messengers with torches running across the land, to alert everyone the new month had begun.
The determination of the Jewish calendar was placed squarely in our realm.
We, not God, are the ones who make the holidays holy.
God thereby made the Jewish people partners in Creation.
Rosh Chodesh reminds us that our relationship with God is based on partnership.
The Jewish people were about to enter a new phase of life,
where they became masters of their own time,
free to choose how to spend it.
In Hebrew, the word for year is Shana—
which has the same root as meshaneh (to repeat).
The sun rises and sets each day without change.
The year is the same, day after day after day.
It is the moon that sets the months, the Chodesh,
from the Hebrew word chadash (new).
The moon has the power of renewal.
The moon as the reference for the passage of time serves to emphasize the association with novelty.
The moon waxes and wanes, renewing itself each month.
There is never a new sun, but there is a new moon every month.
God reminds the Israelites that they have the ability to change,
to rejuvenate and
grow big again after being diminished.
How we shape and use our time is up to each of us.
Every one of us can tap into this infinite power of renewal.
We identify personally and dynamically with the moon;
with revival from an almost nonexistent state,
with illumination returning from a state of darkness.
Judaism is a religion aiming for the sanctification of time.
The key, however, is not to become a slave to time.
It is one of our most valuable assets.
May we use time well.
May we constantly renew ourselves.
May we be agents of bettering the world in partnership with God.
Shabbat shalom
Elissa
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