Torah portion

because it was a call to the entire nation that now was the time for spiritual renewal. One of the key teachings of the Torah is our capacity for renewal. We are not subjugated to the laws of nature. We can rise above our own instincts, our own nature. We can make ourselves into the people we were meant to be and live lives of greatness, and it’s in our hands to do that. Like God, Himself, who created the world from nothing, we, too, have the power to generate newness. And that power to transcend our circumstances comes directly from our Creator.

The Jewish calendar embodies this idea of renewal because it calls on us every month to renew ourselves. We don’t live our lives in cycles of years and decades. We live our lives in cycles of months, with the opportunity to renew ourselves every 29 or 30 days. This is what Rosh Chodesh means. The word for “month,” chodesh, comes from the word chadash, which means “new.” This was God’s message to the people enslaved in Egypt — that we have the freedom to renew ourselves and achieve spiritual and moral greatness with the Torah’s guidance, renewing not just ourselves but the world in which we live.

PARTNERS IN CREATION

There is another idea here. We see that this mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh was really setting the tone for the entire relationship that God has with the Jewish people. And what is that relationship all about? In the words of the Gemara, we are called upon to be “a partner with God in the creation of this world.” This mitzvah that we are given right at the outset exemplifies that partnership. God says the Jewish calendar will not be determined by Him alone and by the laws of nature He has created; rather the calendar will be forged as a partnership between God and the Jewish people. When the Sanhedrin declares that it is Rosh Chodesh, the new month, then that’s what it is. They have the discretion to move it, and even to add a month to the calendar, thereby determining when the festivals fall and infusing those days with holiness.

Rosh Chodesh is a reminder to us that our relationship with God is based on partnership. It’s for this reason, also, that God asked us to put the blood on the doorposts. It’s as if He was saying to us, “You want to be redeemed from Egypt? Become active in this redemption.” We weren’t just passively freed from Egypt by God’s miracles; we made ourselves worthy of the redemption by slaughtering the gods of the Egyptians — the lambs — and sprinkling their blood on the doorposts as a bold declaration to the Egyptians that we are loyal to God and His Torah.

To live a Godly life is to be His partner in making this world a better place. And that is why God predicated the journey of the Jewish people and their liberation from Egypt on this mitzvah of the new month, this representation of renewal, this declaration of Divine partnership.

Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, who has a PhD. in Human Rights Law, is the chief rabbi of South Africa. This article first appeared on aish.com.

Hearing God’s Voice

In the midst of our Torah portion today, we read (Exodus 12:1): “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt.” At first glance, this verse seems very common; we read numerous times in the Torah, “The Lord said to Moses …” or “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron …” But here, in our reading today, there is an additional phrase: “in the land of Egypt.”

These words might seem innocuous; after all, the Torah often identifies a particular location where God speaks to Moses and Aaron, such as in the Tent of Meeting, on Mount Sinai or in the steppes of Moab.

Today’s verse comes between the telling of the first nine plagues and the 10th plague. Because we know that Moses didn’t leave Egypt during the plagues, why does the Torah bother to add the phrase, “in the land of Egypt”? Is it not perfectly clear to us that Moses and Aaron are still in Egypt?

Commentators have approached this phrase in differing ways. Rashi says that Divine words were not uttered in the capitol itself, which was full of idols; so, Moses went out of the city to receive this revelation from God. Nachmanides says that the location is specified because all the other commandments of the Torah were given at Mount Sinai. Rahmbam agrees but takes a more liberal approach

and says that the rest of the commandments of the Torah were given at Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting or on the plains of Moab. I believe that revelation is always here, in our present moment. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in God in Search of Man, “God is not always silent … Rabbi Robert There are moments in

Gamer which … heaven and Earth kiss each other; in

Parshat which there is a lifting Bo: Exodus of the veil at the horizon 10:1-13:16; Jeremiah 46:13-28. of the known, opening a vision of what is eternal in time. The voice of Sinai,” concluded Heschel, “goes on forever. (Deuteronomy 5:19): ‘The Lord spoke these words to your whole congregation at the mountain, out of the fire and the dense clouds, with a great voice that goes on forever.’” For Heschel, revelation is both a moment in time and eternal. If God is always talking to us, how do we hear that message? I believe that we have a chance to hear God’s revelations through study, prayer and living a life of mitzvot. Torah is both eternal and personal, meaning that we study the texts of our tradition “as if it were given to us today.” As the Talmud teaches, every one of us stands at Sinai; and every one of us has the obligation to receive God’s revelation of Torah in our day. Rabbi Robert Gamer is the rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park.