Bo

פרשת בא

This week’s Parsha contains the first Mitzvah in the Torah – the commandment to renew the month every new moon.  This Mitzvah is so integral to the Jewish people, that the first Rashi in Chumash comments that the entire Torah really should have opened with it, but there were other factors which prevented this.  I feel that there are a number of points about this particular commandment which require further clarification.  Firstly, what is so special about renewing the month that it needed to be the opening commandment in the Torah?  Secondly, what is the connection between the exodus from Egypt, and the Pesach offering, which are also mentioned in the week’s Parsha, and this Mitzvah of renewing the month?  And finally, the Torah stresses the uniqueness of this directive as being exclusive to the Jewish people.  What is so exceptional about setting up a lunar calendar which precludes the non-Jewish people from being a part of it?

The Sefas Emes explains that the primary lesson that we are meant to learn from the Mitzvah of renewing the month is the lesson of innovation.  Every month the moon first waxes until it is completely full, and then begins to wane.  It continues to diminish until it has disappeared completely, and then all of a sudden, it reappears again.  It is precisely during this “reappearance” that we sanctify the moon and pronounce the new month.  This process was meant to be a message to each and every Jew that we have the ability to renew ourselves and change our lot for the good, and improve our relationship with our creator at all times.  Hashem purposely gave us this commandment just as we were leaving Egypt in order to demonstrate its elite nature to the Jewish people.  The non-Jews of the world use the sun as their celestial body to determine the calendar.  This is because the sun never changes and remains more or less a constant figure in the astronomical field.  This demonstrates the non-Jews’ ability to rely on the constant forces of nature with absolute certainty.  However, with this luxury, comes a tremendous inhibition.  The non-Jews can never get out of their box.  Once they are born a certain way, or have chosen a certain path, they are more or less locked into that path.  The Jews, on the other hand, have no such limitation.  We were chosen by God to live above nature, and to rely solely on Him.  Of course the difficulty with this mode is that we cannot buy a toaster from the store and rely on the notion that it will actually work.  The icon of this type of life is the moon. It seems to fluctuate in a somewhat erratic pattern, and can go from being full to disappearing completely within a relatively short span of only two weeks.  This exhibition of variance must show us that we as Jews can rise or fall and release ourselves from any of our confines quite rapidly depending on the choices we make.

What is the Jew’s secret?  How does He utilize this power of change for his benefit and live above the forces of nature?  I think King Solomon gave us a clue when he said, “There is nothing new under the son”.  Under, there is nothing new, but the Torah, which exists above the sun, does in fact contain newness to it.  The way to access this awesome power is to study the Torah with great diligence, and to give oneself over to its laws completely, and then one will attain a true mastery of that hidden world which exists beyond the façade of the natural order.

Perhaps this concept could be best illustrated with a story.  There was a young man learning in R’ Shach’s Kollel in Benei Brak, who decided that Kollel life was a bit too ascetic for him, and he and his wife desired a slightly more comfortable situation.  This being the case, they asked R’ Shach permission to leave the Kollel and to get a job.  R’ Shach agreed, but he mentioned to them that he wasn’t sure if it would work.  Not sure what his Rebbe meant, the young man went out into the big wide world to begin to make a name for himself, and earn his fortune.  After around a year, the young man came back to his Rebbe completely baffled.  R’ Shach asked him what the matter was.  He responded, “Rebbe, I don’t understand.  After I started working, I became even more in debt then I was while I was in Kollel”!  R’ Shach explained to the young man that since he and his wife had such a meager income, there was no way they could make it in the “real world”.  But while they were in Kollel, they enjoyed the special Heavenly aid that a person receives when he dedicates himself to the Torah, and got to live above the law.  But the minute he left the Yeshiva, and chose to enter the world of “natural order”, he was hit by the full brunt of the financial burden that any other Jew in Israel would be hit with, and in that world, there was no feasible way he could actually sustain himself and his family based on his income.

However, the Rabenu Yonah in Berachos asks a powerful difficulty on all that we have said.  He points out that at the end of the day, the moon truly does work on a natural pattern.  Granted that it waxes and wanes, but once you know the system, it is still just as predictable as the sun!  He answers cryptically by saying that although this is true, since the moon appears to human perception to renew itself monthly, it is a valid teacher of all the principles we have mentioned.  R’ Gedalya Sher explains this answer by pointing out that we find that although many things are true objectively, the Torah nevertheless gives us subtle outward signs of their voracity.  For example, Pesach always comes out in the spring time, hence it is called the “holiday of Spring”.  Every Jew who begins to see the snow melt off the trees, and the flowers begin to blossom, is immediately triggered to embark on the formidable task of cleaning his home.  Succos is called the holiday of harvest.  We see clearly that Hashem built into the creation physical signs as reminders for the truth of what is taking place in the upper realms.  Renewing the month is no different.  Although it is true that this process is a “natural” one, the moon’s monthly rejuvenation is a continual reminder of the Jews’ ability to renew themselves and live beyond the routine of nature.

It is interesting to note that the month in which we find ourselves – the month of Shevat – is a particularly demonstrative time of renewal.  Chazal teach us that before the 15^th of Shevat, all the trees derive their sustenance from last year’s rains, and after this point, the blooms that grow on the trees are from the current year’s rains.  R’ Gedalya also mentions that there is a verse in Devarim (1:3) which says that on Rosh Chodesh Shevat, Moshe began explaining the Torah.  Based on what we have said about the Torah’s ability to generate newness in us, it is perfectly appropriate for the Torah to be explained in Shevat which is a month of renewal!  How befitting would it be for us to revamp our own dedication to the Torah on this month and merit in changing our lot for the good.

I would just like to conclude with a short biography of the Ponevitcher Rav.  The Rav was an enigmatic character who came from the ashes of Europe with nothing but the clothes on his back.  Having had his entire family slaughtered in front of his eyes, including his wife and children, he immigrated to Israel along with many other survivors.  When he got here, he had a dream in which he was shown the verse, “And in Zion there will be refuge”.  He interpreted this dream that it was incumbent upon him to construct a Yeshiva in Israel.  People thought he was insane, as times were very chaotic back then in Israel, but he persisted, and ultimately had the Chazon Ish lay the cornerstone for the Ponevitch Yeshiva only six years after he arrived in the then desolate Benei Brak, on the top of an abandoned hill.  Today, the Ponevitch Yeshiva is home to thousands of young students, and has produced Torah scholars numbering in the tens of thousands.  As the cornerstone was being laid, he made a festive feast, and spoke a few words amongst copious tears to a select few of his close students.  He said, “You think that this dream began six years ago, and the cornerstone was laid only now, but this is not the case.  When my brothers and I were young sixty years ago, we only had one pair of boots in the house.  So every time there was a storm, we would argue over who gets to put those boots on and go to the Cheder to learn.  One night, after a particularly nasty snow storm, we went to sleep wondering which one of us would be the lucky one that our mother would choose to go learn in the Cheder.  But in the morning, our mother surprised us by getting up before all of us, putting those galoshes on, and carrying each one of us individually through the snow all the way to the Yeshiva on her back so that we could all learn.  It was that day, because of my mother’s incredible sacrifice and yearning for Torah, that the cornerstone for this great Yeshiva was laid.

May we all merit to study Torah with dedication, and see Hashem’s miraculous treatment of us above the laws of nature!