36 | JANUARY 6 • 2022 

SPIRIT

continued from page 35

panied our liberation from that exile.
In his commentary, Oznaim LaTorah, the 
great Lithuanian commentator, Rav Zalman 
Sorotzkin offers another interpretation for 
the significance of Nisan becoming the 
first month. We know that Nisan isn’t the 
only “first month” of the Jewish calendar. 
Tishrei, the month we celebrate Rosh 
Hashanah, also marks the beginning of the 
year. Put differently, Nisan marks the begin-
ning of the months, whereas Tishrei marks 
the beginning of the year. What happened 
to shift the focus of the beginning from 
Tishrei to Nisan?
Tishrei, we know, commemorates the 
physical creation of this world — a world 
made up of inorganic matter, plants, ani-
mals and human beings. A world that 
included the human soul, but nevertheless 
a world without Torah. The Torah only 
comes into the world after the Jewish peo-
ple are liberated from Egypt. God guides 
them directly from Egypt to Mount Sinai 
to receive the Torah. And that is when 
the world can now fulfil its ultimate 
purpose — because a world without 
Torah is devoid of that purpose. Indeed, 
the very reason the world was created 
was to bring the Torah into it. We see 
now why Nisan superseded Tishrei as the 
focus of beginnings. With the liberation 
of the Jewish people from Egypt, history 
is really beginning because this leads us to 
the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. And 
it’s at this point that the world can begin to 
achieve its ultimate purpose.

THE GIFT OF TIME 
So, the Jewish calendar is a lunar calen-
dar as established in this week’s parshah. 
Because lunar months are 29 or 30 days 
in length, a lunar year of 12 months is 
about 11 days shorter than a solar year. To 
bring it into sync with the solar calendar, 
and therefore with the seasons of the year, 
we add in an extra month every two or 
three years, in accordance with our Oral 
Tradition. In this way, we don’t lose track 
of the seasons.
Why was this mitzvah of the Jewish cal-
endar given before the other mitzvot that 
were given at Sinai? Says the Sforno, the 
great 15th-century Italian commentator, 
it’s because up until now the Jewish people 

were slaves. And what is the difference 
between a free person and a slave? Time. 
When you are a slave, your time is not 
your own. When you are free, your time is 
your own. The mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh 
was God’s gift of time to the Jewish people; 
the message that now their time was theirs. 
And that’s why, explains the Sforno, the 
verse says, “This renewal of the moon shall 
be the beginning of the months for you.”
It’s important to note, though, that tyr-
anny and enslavement do not come only at 
the hands of a dictator like Pharaoh. Even 
in a free society, we can lose our freedom 
when we become so overburdened with 
work pressures and the constant demands 
that are made on us. There’s a simple way 

to test whether we are truly free or not. We 
can ask ourselves, are we masters of our 
time or does time master us? Do we have 
the ability to allocate time to the projects 
that are important, to the people who are 
important, to mitzvot?
Sometimes, even when we are able to 
allocate time to the important things in 
life, we opt not to. This, too, is a form 
of enslavement. Someone once said to a 
rabbi that they didn’t have time to go to 
shul or learn Torah, and his answer to 
them was, “Well, then you are busier than 
God intended.”
How we allocate our time is often what 
determines who we are, and whether we are 
truly free. Do we truly live with freedom, 
proactively allocating time to the most 
important things in our lives, or are we 

rushed and hassled into mindlessly ignor-
ing the important things and running out 
of time for them? That is a test of freedom.

IN OUR HANDS 
We know that the lunar month is either 
29 days or 30 days depending on the cycle 
of the moon. What’s interesting is that the 
Sages of the Talmud, who were among the 
greatest astronomers of their day, knew 
exactly when the new moon was going to 
reappear — and yet they waited for two 
witnesses to come to Jerusalem to testify 
that they saw it. This system was unsus-
tainable when the exile came, at which 
point the Sages set up a fixed calendar for 
all future generations. But until that time 
nobody knew in advance which day was 
going to be Rosh Chodesh; the mitzvah 
was to wait for the witnesses. And, in fact, 
the Sanhedrin — the supreme court of the 
Jewish people — even had the authority to 
move Rosh Chodesh by a day at their own 
discretion if they deemed it necessary.
What’s the message here? Why wait for 
the witnesses when they knew when the 
moon was to appear? Why did the rabbis 
have the discretion to move Rosh Chodesh? 
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the great 
19th-century German Jewish philosopher, 
says that Rosh Chodesh is a time of meet-
ing with God. We also know that the date 
of Rosh Chodesh determines when each 
of our festivals occur. Pesach occurs on the 
15th of Nisan, Shavuot on 6th of Sivan, and 
so on. And these are times when we meet 
with God. The Hebrew word for festivals 
is moadim, which comes from the Hebrew 
word va’ad, which means “to meet.
” 
Says Rabbi Hirsch, when we meet with 
God it must be a choice that we make, 
rather than a forced meeting determined 
by the mechanical laws of nature. By being 
part of the process of setting up that meet-
ing, we are in a sense initiating it. And so 
the renewal of the moon becomes a sign 
that we need to renew our connection with 
God, and that it must also come from our 
own initiative. That’s why the Sanhedrin 
had that discretion, and why the setting up 
of a fixed calendar was not the ideal.
And Rabbi Hirsch says the reason why 
this mitzvah had to be given to the Jewish 
people while they were still in Egypt was 

APPTOPIA

