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dvar Torah

by Tamar Brown

P arshat Bo we Jews are like the moon.

I

n this week's parshah, Parshat Bo, in the midst of the retelling of the story
of Exodus, the Torah explains that God gives the Jewish people their first
round of commandments. Their first task is to make a calendar based on
the new moon. This raises the question: Why is this mitzvah the first given to
the new nation? What special significance is there in sanctifying the appear-
ance of a new moon every month?
In slavery, the Israelites' Egyptian taskmasters controlled when they worked
and when they didn't. They ate when they were told to eat and ended their
probably inadequate meals when they were told to stop eating and return to
work. Time didn't belong to them. But when God commanded them to create a
calendar, He was telling them that they owned their own time. Of course, God
was the one dictating the structure of the time marked by the cycles of the moon,
but the very act of creating a calendar is the act of free people, not slaves.
Our sages tell us that the Jewish people are similar to the new moon in sev-
eral ways. Just as the moon waxes and wanes, so, too, is Jewish history in a state
of flux with times of oppression and times of glory. On a more spiritual level,
the moon has no light of its own, only getting its source from the sun. God is our
source of energy and sustenance. In that respect, we hope to reflect God's radi-
ance to light the world and perform tikkun olam (healing of the world).
The moon also appears to be more symbolic of the life of
a Jew. The moon has phases: growth, decline, disappearance
and rebirth. Even though we have moments of spiritual de-
cline in our life, we eventually have the power to revive our
spirit, and continue to strive to perfect the world.

Tamar Brown, 15, is a sophomore at Frankel Jewish Academy in West

Bloomfield.

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