Weekly Dvar Torah: The Lunar Cycle
Preparing for Passover we learn about Rosh Chodesh = the New Moon.
Hashem is telling Moshe, you will be going out of Egypt, it will happen miraculously, you will be a free people, a new nation, so here is what you are all about.
The Moon!
The moon?
When Hashem created the world, He created nature, the cycle of nature, seven days is a week, the sun is the dominant light, the cycle of the sun is 365 days which makes a year, four seasons to the year, spring, summer, autumn and winter, and so it goes, day after day, season after season, year after year, and this comprises the cycle of existence, any tiny change throws the world into chaos.
Abraham came and he stood up to this entire system, Avraham Haiivri, Abraham from the other side, the world on one side and Avraham on the other, he challenged the system, Avraham discovered the creator, and a new nation was born.
Then Hashem made a covenant with Avraham, G-d did not promise Avraham peaches and cream, Hashem said “your children will be enslaved for 400 years, they will be tortured and persecuted, but then they will have an exodus with much riches.”
When exodus is about to happen, Hashem says to Moses, the redeemer, this is all about renewal, until now you were in doldrums, the people of Israel weren’t even people, they were slaves, at the bottom of the pit, no hope, no future, well, now is time for renewal.
Where do we see renewal?
The moon!
The sun is strong and steady, shining brightly, illuminating the world, when the sun is out it’s day, but when the moon is out it’s dark and night.
But even then, the moon has its constant monthly cycle, it starts as a sliver, grows to full moon, and in only 15 days it’s a sliver once again.
Unlike the steady cycle of nature, the moon defies nature, it doesn’t succumb to the dark, it doesn’t settle to being just a sliver, it constantly keeps renewing and defying its miserable state.
So too the Jewish people, never much of a major power, forever the tiny sliver of a persecuted nation, but somehow they always renew, they defy all odds, and against all rules of nature they’re still around and serve as a light upon the nations.
No, rules of nature do not apply, rules of defiance and renewal are the nature of the Jews.
No, thousands of years of persecution do not succeed, perseverance and growth is what Jews are all about.
There’s no need to innumerate thousands of years of history to make this point, from Egypt to Babylonia, from Persia to Rome, from the crusaders to Hitler and Stalin, nobody succeeded in their plans for a final solution, because our solution has always been about renewal.
Even when we are only a sliver, our cycle takes us to full moon, and this is what Hashem told Moses, now you are slaves in Egypt, but renewal is really what you are about, you will renew and the world will see who you really are.
And how does this renewal happen? Through a miraculous exodus, a splitting of the sea, seeing G-d at Sinai, eating Manna from heaven, and on and on, nature has no idea what this is all about, and has no clue how to make it happen.
But Jews under the worst of circumstances, stand up to the world and declare; nature you can’t control us, we are all about renewal, we will never fade away into the oblivion.
We are about miracles performed by G-d, the same G-d who created nature is the same G-d who created an alternative path for His children, for His chosen people, and our mere existence is testimony to that fact.
Nature won’t control us, we rise above it.
So, let’s sing the luny tunes, we are all about the moon.
Have a Shabbos of renewal and reinvigoration,
Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
