Over the last few nights the thin crescent of the new moon of Shevat has appeared, a sliver of light hanging low in the night sky. Have you seen it? It’s beautiful, full of potential. Night after night we will watch the moon grow to fullness before it wanes again. It is a powerful cycle of birth and disappearance. As Jews, we keep both a lunar and a solar calendar. We measure our months by the cycles of the moon but we add an entire month to the calendar every few years to ensure we have our holidays in their correct seasons. There’s a specific word for this, intercalation.
This week, in Parshat Bo, we encounter the first commandment ever given to the Children of Israel — an incredible moment. And hey, only 612 left to go! After years of exile and suffering, Hashem reached out to our ancestors and we entered into an eternal partnership of doing. Ours is a covenant of right action as much as fervent belief. What was it that God first asked of these suffering people? Perhaps, bless your children. Maybe, recite the Shema. Separating milk from meat might have made sense. But no, it’s a surprising request. Because God is never predictable.
We read in Exodus chapter 12, verse 2. “.החודש הזה לכם ראש חדשים” “This month will be for you the first of the months.” This first month was later to be known as the month of Nisan. But wait, what about Rosh Hashanah? Rosh Hashanah actually marks the beginning of the seventh month. No one said Judaism was easy. For the Israelites this first obligation was to be mechadesh — made new. The first mitzvah that’s given to the Jewish people was the mitzvah of being able to sanctify the new month. I know what you’re thinking. Couldn’t it have been something more beautiful or inspiring? We’ll get there, don’t worry.
The 18th century Chassidic rebbe, Rav Nachman of Chernobyl, teaches something beautiful about this commandment. He says that what’s special about this mitzvah is that they were slaves for such a long, long time. When you’re a slave, every day is the same. There is no time for rest, whimsy, adventure, or variety. You are condemned to grind out your days without change. Yesterday will be the same as today, the same as tomorrow. What about us? We live as free people in a free country. But we too can get trapped in this endless day after day mentality.
Have you ever thought “This is who I am today, this is who I have always been, this is who I will always be.” Or maybe “This is just who I am I guess. I’m set in my ways. I’m too old to change.” “I’m getting along ok.” “Starting over is for someone else.” Or even just, “I’m fine.” How many of us have heard those words, or said those words? How many of us have told others “This is who I am, I can’t change”? How many of us have convinced ourselves of that?
This mitzvah of counting a new month, of starting to mark sacred time, comes to teach us, “No, you are not just “fine.” You are no longer slaves, you can begin anew.” Judaism believes that every single day, each of us has the chance for a fresh start. We do not have to be the same people we were last month, last year, or even yesterday. There is a wellspring of newness infused into the essence of the world. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”
When a Jew wakes up, our first words are supposed to be, “Modah ani lefanecha.” “Thank you.” We recite these words before the morning ritual of washing hands or even saying any other words. We thank Hashem for returning our souls to us. Returning? Where did they go?
To the ancient mind, sleep was a kind of death. It makes sense, we look dead. We are still. The Sages taught that each evening our souls are literally taken from us by God. They are returned to us upon waking. We sing about this phenomenon almost every week in our closing hymn, Adon Olam, “Beyado afchid ruchi..” “Into God’s hand I entrust my spirit, when I sleep and when I awake.” We are freshly ensouled each and every day. Carry that. Hold onto it when you feel stuck.
Cheryl Strayed begins her autobiography, “Wild,” with a single hiking boot catapulting through the air into the forest canopy below, irretrievable. Strayed had been on the Pacific Crest Trail for 38 days at that point and had momentarily removed her boots. Now she was left with one boot and hundreds of miles to go. Before starting her journey, Strayed’s life was at a low point. She was divorced, an orphan, an addict. Her plan was to walk the PCT from the Mojave Desert to the bridge that crosses the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border. Some 2,650 miles. Alone. She walked the trail to save herself. “Each day on the trail was the only possible preparation for the one to follow. And sometimes even the day before couldn’t prepare me for what would happen next.” Like losing her boot.
Well, what good is one boot?
What would you have done next? Strayed chucked her remaining boot off the mountain and looked down at her pale and bruised bare feet. She looked north to where she needed to go. Looked back south to where she had been scorched and schooled by the wilderness. She considered her options. As she wrote, “There was only one, I knew. There was always only one. To keep walking.”
Look to where you’ve been. Look to where you need to go, wherever that may be. And keep walking.
Shabbat Shalom.