Bo

פרשת בא

This week’s Parsha contains the first official Mitzvah in the Torah, the commandment to sanctify the new month at the beginning of each lunar cycle. This Mitzvah is so integral to the Jewish people that Rashi at the beginning of Sefer Bereishis says that in truth, the Torah should have started with it and the only reason it didn’t was in order to tell the story of the creation of the world so that all future generations would be aware that the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people by virtue of the fact that the undisputed creator of the world deemed it theirs. In any event this Mitzvah of sanctifying the new moon and establishing all the Jewish times and holidays based on that sanctification is clearly an integral and lofty directive in the Jewish religion. Let us attempt to explain why this is so.

I would like to begin by pointing out that the Mitzvah of sanctifying the new month is unique in that it is completely in the hands of the wise leaders of the Jewish people. The judges are required to hear testimony from the witnesses who saw the new moon, and afterward they are required to verbally announce that they are sanctifying the new month. We see from here that Hashem did not want to rely on the fact that the celestial bodies move in a certain pattern and use that pattern to determine the calendar, rather, He wanted specifically for the Jewish people renew the month manually with an oral declaration.

When the Chochomim go ahead and declare the new month, this declaration has so much power that even if it is incorrect according to the heavenly bodies, it is still binding in every way. For example there is a Gemorah in Rosh Hashana in which R’ Yehoshua is convinced that R’ Gamliel has made a mistake in his decision on when to establish the new month. Although R’ Yehoshua is very upset by R’ Gamliel’s decision, he eventually capitulates and accepts it, reasoning that since R’ Gamliel had decreed it to be so, it is so. At the end of this episode, R’ Yehoshua accepted the Beis Din’s ruling so thoroughly, that he actually walked into the Beis Din of R’ Gamliel with his Muktze items in hand on the day that, according to his own calculations, fell out on Yom Kipur.

Similarly, there is a Yerushalmi in Nedarim (6:8) which goes even further and says that although we know that a young girl who has had relations under the age of three normally has the membrane of her virginity grow back, after three it does not. If the chochomim have not yet declared the first new month of her third year, her membrane will still grow back! It comes out, according to this Gemorah, that the scholars of each generation have the ability to even dictate nature! If they decide that the month, or the year, have not been renewed, then we as the Jewish people abide by their decision even in matters that contradict the human body’s biological clock. Such is the power of the sages concerning the Mitzvah of sanctifying the new month and perhaps this is one reason why this Mitzvah was chosen as the first Mitzvah in the Torah – to demonstrate the incredible strength that devout Torah study and observance will endow on a person.

Indeed, this power is true by any Mitzvah in the Torah. The Zohar says that the Torah is the blueprint for the world and that Hashem looked into the Torah in order to create the world. This means that whatever the Torah establishes as the truth governs what will be in the physical world and not vice versa. If according to the Torah one reality exists, and according to our understanding of science and nature, another reality exist, we are taught by the Torah that the Torah’s reality is the correct one. There is a well known incident in which a man once approached the Chazon Ish to ask his advice about a certain medical procedure, whether it should be done in Europe or in Israel. The Chazon Ish advised the man to do it in Israel, and thank God, everything was fine. When asked on what grounds the Chazon Ish had made his decision, he responded that the ailment that the man was suffering from rendered him a “Treifah,” (an animal that will surely die from its sickness) according to the Rama, but according to the Mechaber, would still live. So the Chazon Ish reasoned that since the Mechaber was the chief Rabbi in Israel, and the Rama was the chief Rabbi in Europe, as long as the man stayed in Israel, under the jurisdiction of the Mechaber, he had the best chances of living. We see from this interesting incident that the Chazon Ish gave a Halachic ruling based on the notion that the Torah’s truth governs our physical reality.

The Sefarim bring down that there is another profound message in the Jewish peoples’ responsibility and privilege to renew the month each month. They explain that the new month brings with it the unique ability and blessing to renew ourselves. Each and every month we are rejuvenated and are completely new creatures. Every person embarks on a certain way of life which at the beginning, is full of excitement and the unique exhilaration of the unknown. But we all know that all too soon, this excitement rapidly fades and is replaced by the monotonous routine of daily life. So it is in our nature to constantly seek different refreshing innovations in our daily routine. The Jews were granted this unique gift in the commandment to sanctify the new month. Just as the moon constantly waxes and wanes, as opposed to the constant of the sun, and the seasons come and go bringing with them the gradual thrill of the new, so too the Jewish people are exclusively granted the ability to renew themselves on a daily basis through their Torah and their Mitzvos. As we learn the Torah, and seek better, more effective ways to serve Hashem, we unwittingly tap into what the entire world seeks – a constant, dynamic way of life which can never become stagnant because by definition, it forces us to constantly reevaluate our actions and determine whether or not they are in line with God’s will and how we can renew our dedication to Him and improve that service. No Jew who wishes to keep the Halachah on a consistent basis can ever go into autopilot because he can never rely on his righteousness from yesterday to still be valid today because the circumstances may have changed and he may be more accountable today to reach a higher level. This is the gift that the Jewish people were granted with the commandment to declare the new month – the gift of never becoming dull or stagnant and always maintaining a fresh outlook on life.

I would just like to conclude with an interesting story which once happened to me and illustrates this point beautifully. A man once approached me who looked very distraught. I asked him what the matter was. He explained to me that he had recently been to a certain guru who claimed to be proficient in the art of palm reading and this magician had told him that based on what he saw, the man was destined to live a life filled with terrible calamities, one after the other. I offered to take the man to a great Rabbi who was not necessarily proficient in these sciences, but was very righteous nonetheless, and he agreed. The Rabbi told him that while there was indeed substance to what this guru had had predicted, a Jew is not subject to these sciences and that every month, he receives a completely new set of circumstances along with the renewal of the month, and by performing the Torah and Mitzvos correctly, has the ability to ensure that his luck will be changed for the good each and every month just as the moon renews itself each month. Thank God this person took the Rabbi’s advice and although he was in numerous circumstances where he saw that his luck could have gone as the conjurer had predicted, to date many areas of his life have changed for the good as the wise and great Rabbi had hoped and believed they could.

May we all merit to constantly renew our service of Hashem in all that we do!