TORAH PORTION 57th InternCongregational Men's Club Dinner hosted by Temple Israel Brotherhood Thursday, February 8, 1990 6:00 p.m. Cocktails 7:00 p.m. Dinner at Temple Israel 5725 Walnut Lake Rd. West Bloomfield This unique dinner brings the Men's Clubs of the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform congregations in the Detroit area together to show the solidarity of the Detroit Jewish community. ' Rabbi David Saperstein Religious Action Center, Washington, D.C. Leonard Trunsky, Dinner Chairman Tickets may be obtained at your individual synagogue Dietary laws will be observed ATTENTION HUNTINGTON WOODS RESIDENTS HUNTINGTON WOODS MINYAN invites you to Explore the world of the Talmud through A Weekly Course using the Steinsaltz Edition of the • Talmud - Baba Metzia Instructor: Rabbi Yehoshua Marazov Wednesdays 8 p.m. - 9 p.m. 1st Lecture begins February 7th For more information, call: David Morrison at 542-7200 or 542-1491 42 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1990 How The Jews, Like The Moon, Constantly Change And Renew SHLOMO RISKIN Special to The Jewish News T he commandment given to the Jewish peo- ple by God must not be seen as a commandment which "just happens" to be first. Rather, it must have special significance and have been chosen as the cardinal commandment. It also must reveal basic philosophic truths about who we are as a nation. We read in Bo, this week's portion: "This month shall be head month to you. It shall be the first month of the year." (Exodus 12:2) The Midrash tells us it is necessary for God to actually guide Moses' gaze toward the sky so that when the new moon looks like "this," he should sanctify it. Even though the calendar , has long been fixed, since the third century by Hillel, there are many traces in our halach- ic ritual of the ancient prac- tice for witnesses who first saw the new moon to rush to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, even desecrating the Sabbath if necessary, for the religious court to declare: "The month is sanctified; the month is sanctified." The first day of the month is a minor festival. On the Sab- , bath before a new month, the moon's appearance to a frac- tion of a second is announced after the public Torah reading, echoing the Sanhedrin's public declaration. On Rosh Chodesh itself, during the Amidah and the grace after meals, we add a special prayer and chant the half-Hallel dur- ing the morning service. There is a special scriptural reading, just like any festival, and we add additional Musaf prayer, a reminder of the extra sacrifice in the temple. Women are freed from certain domestic tasks, and fasting and eulogizing are forbidden. During the first days of the new month, generally on Saturday evening, special prayers are recited and Jews even dance in a circle while gazing at the new moon in a ceremony called "sanctifying the moon." Thus, we still need to understand why, out of so many possible command- ments, the Torah chose this one to introduce the Jewish people to their future destiny, and why there is so much fascination with the moon. There are many possible answers, but this week ours begins in Egypt, a land where the calendar followed the sun. The Maharal of Prague points out that when the Jews were given this first command- ment, they were actually given more than just a law telling them to start counting months according to lunar cycles. It emphasized a new way of life that would stand in sharp contrast to Egypt. The sun is symbolic of con- stancy and power — the very image of Egypt. But under the moon, there is something new at least 12 times a year. It is forever changing, going through its phases, getting smaller and then bigger; ' mutability is its character. When it seems to have disap- peared completely, there's a sudden turnaround and re- birth. lb the ancient imagina- tion, the permutation of the moon in its 28 day journeys were a constant source of heavenly wonder and speculation. The holy Zohar compares the Jewish people to the moon because both the moon and the people of Israel go through phases, disappearing little by little until it seems that it's the end — a centuries-long ex- ile climaxing in Europe's death factories. Suddenly, a new moon is sighted and the messengers run to Jerusalem. The repetition of a monthly cycle, this law of change, firm- ly established within the Jew- ish psyche the inevitability of renewal. Built into the Jewish pattern of history is the moon's disappearing and reappearing acts. We, too, seem to disappear, but we don't. We can't. Our sanctity as a nation is tied to this potential of renewal, and our history attests to the disap- pearing of a Jewish culture in one land and the almost simultaneous appearance of a new Jewish culture in a dif- ferent land. Like the moon, our disappearance is never forever. The first Torah command- ment is given when it's clear that pharoah himself cannot change. After nine terrifying plagues, one might expect him to have a change of heart, but the leader of Egypt cannot relent! Despite all that he has witnessed, he refuses to let the Jews go. The message of this first commandment is that in con- trast to the blind Egyptians (darkness is the ninth plague) the Jews can, and do, change, emerging again and again out of the fangs of evil to enter the gates of redemption. Rabbi Kook, Israel's first chief rabbi, often wrote of the old being made new and the new becoming holy. Egypt , was an old, great civilization but it allowed no room for change or renewal. Atro- phying, its ruling families encouraged brother-sister marriages; thus, they died young. Israel, as it receives the first commandment in the very shadows of the 10 plagues, is being told that its potential for survival will be based on the understanding of this commandment which looks toward every new month as a new birth. I have a good friend, Yehuda, from Kibbutz Ein- Tzurim. Years back, a parent of one of the kibbutznikim, a resident of Kfar Chassidim near Haifa, died and several of us from Ein-Tzurim headed' north. Before the funeral started, the head of the town's yeshiva, a man dressed in the typical Shabbat Bo: Exodus 10:1-13:16, Jeremiah 46:13-28. black hat and coat of a rosh yeshiva from the old world, stepped outside with several , students, the clothes in sharp contrast to the light shirts and summer shorts of the kibbutz residents. I sensed that the rosh yeshiva looked disdain- fully upon these men, though they wore kippot and were from a religious kibbutz. All of a sudden, his eyes fell on my friend Yehuda, and he cried out to him in Yiddish: "Yudke? Yudke illui (genius)? Is that you?" Yehuda looked up and smiled bashfully, re- sponding in Hebrew: "Yes, that's what they used to call me at the yeshiva." It turned out that the two men had been students together in a yeshiva in Petach Tikva. The rosh yeshiva then asked the kibbutznik why someone as brilliant as he had been in- terrupted his talmudic studies and left the yeshiva world. "I wouldn't think that our rosh yeshiva, Rav Shach, would have let you go." "You're right. Rav Shach wrote many letters trying to dissuade me." Thundered the head of the yeshiva: "And those letters will be the prosecuting at- torney when you stand before the heavenly throne."