HaChodesh: Kiss Today Goodbye & Point Me Toward Tomorrow

The Talmud^[1] teaches that on the shabbos preceding Rosh Chodesh Nisan^[2], yet another special maftir and haftorah preempt the regularly scheduled reading.  This occasion, known as “Shabbat HaChodesh”, takes its name from Exodus 12:2, the assigned Biblical reading.

The Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,	וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ה֙ אֶל־משֶׁ֣ה וְאֶל־אַֽהֲרֹ֔ן בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם לֵאמֹֽר:
This month shall be to you the head of the months; to you it shall be the first of the months of the year.	הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחָדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה:

 

It is at this moment that HaShem instructed Moshe that – effective immediately – he was to begin using a unique, Jewish calendar to measure the passage of time.  After all, The Israelites were on the cusp of liberation.  New beginnings of such magnitude require that we recalibrate the very measure and concept of time itself.  Moving forward, instead of marking time by the sun – the methodology preferred by our oppressors –- the new timepiece would be God’s moon.

The moon, after all, has always been far more interesting than her daytime partner.  She is bright but not blinding.  She plays hide-and-go-seek with us.  She changes her mood and dances in the night sky in a rhythmic pattern of growth and contraction.  She also pulls on us, inviting our oceans to dance and sway.  She has lots of friends that keep her company.  We can stare at her; we can observe her and marvel at her beauty and imperfections.  And though ancient man did not know this, we can even dance on her, traverse her landscape, and be with up close and personal with her.

None of these things can be done with the sun.  When you look at the sun, all you can see is today.  Whenever you look at the moon, however, you see not just the present but also what tomorrow will likely look like.

Haftarot were selected because they are connected with the Torah reading or the special character of the day.  Why, then, did Chazal choose Yehezkel 45:16 – 46:18 as the prophetic selection for Shabbat HaChodesh?

Perhaps it is as simple as this:

So says the Lord God: In the first month, on the first of the month, you shall take a young bull without blemish, and you shall purify the sanctuary.

כֹּֽה־אָמַר֘ אֲדֹנָ֣י ה בָּֽרִאשׁוֹן֙ בְּאֶחָ֣ד לַחֹ֔דֶשׁ תִּקַּ֥ח פַּר־בֶּן־בָּקָ֖ר תָּמִ֑ים וְחִטֵּאתָ֖ אֶת־הַמִּקְדָּֽשׁ

[Ezek. 45:18]

The Haftorah, just like the Biblical companion text from Exodus, begins with the events that take place on or immediately before Rosh Chodesh Nisan.  The haftorah then quickly transitions to the sacrifices for Passover.  Both the maftir and haftorah mention Rosh Chodesh Nisan and Passover.

That was easy.  But it was a little too easy.  The superficial, parenthetical, mention of Rosh Chodesh Nisan and Passover does not do justice to the deeper connection between the maftir and haftorah.

Yehezkel, after all, was a prophet.  He was not envisioning a contemporary Passover or even a past, historic one.  He was describing a future Passover.  But Yehezkel lived in a foreign land in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash.  Indeed, the snippet we read in the haftorah is part of a much longer prophesy that kicks off in Chapter 40:

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, in the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year, after the city was smitten, on this very day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me there.	בְּעֶשְׂרִ֣ים וְחָמֵ֣שׁ שָׁנָ֣ה לְ֠גָֽלוּתֵנוּ בְּרֹ֨אשׁ הַשָּׁנָ֜ה בֶּֽעָשׂ֣וֹר לַחֹ֗דֶשׁ בְּאַרְבַּ֚ע עֶשְׂרֵה֙ שָׁנָ֔ה אַחַ֕ר אֲשֶׁ֥ר הֻכְּתָ֖ה הָעִ֑יר בְּעֶ֣צֶם | הַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֗ה הָיְתָ֚ה עָלַי֙ יַד־ה וַיָּבֵ֥א אֹתִ֖י שָֽׁמָּה:
In the visions of God He brought me to the land of Israel, and He placed me on a very lofty mountain, and upon it was like the building of a city from the south.	בְּמַרְא֣וֹת אֱלֹקים הֱבִיאַ֖נִי אֶל־אֶ֣רֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַיְנִיחֵ֗נִי אֶל־הַ֚ר גָּבֹ֙הַּ֙ מְאֹ֔ד וְעָלָ֥יו כְּמִבְנֵה־עִ֖יר מִנֶּֽגֶב:

In the outset of his prophetic dream that is not included in the haftorah, Yehezkel is transported from Babylonia to a future, rebuilt, Jerusalem.  There he experiences a revival of the ritual practices that now lay dormant.  Yehezkel was preaching to a recently traumatized community.  This was a people whose spiritual and political world had been crushed and shattered.  In some ways, these refugees had more in common with their Israelite ancestors of Egypt than with their own parents, who had been free and blessed with the opportunity to worship in God’s house, on God’s Mountain, in their God-given homeland.

There is no new calendar offered by HaShem in the haftorah because – unlike Moshe and his generation in Egypt – Yehezkel’s co-religionists were not standing on the precipice of a new world order. Redemption was still far away.  Nor would their eventual return rise to the level of the exodus from Egypt.

Still, Yehezkel’s vision foretold a time just close enough to their today that their hearts could flutter with hope.  Jerusalem reborn could not be seen with their naked eyes, but with a little imagination from a dreamer, it could be seen with their minds’ eyes.

Yehezkel’s vision to his displaced brethren was one of a hopeful tomorrow.  The essential message of Yehezkel’s prophesy was that yesterday’s Temple rites would be rekindled in a tomorrow soon to come.  Those “good old days” would be restored.  Normalcy would return in the form of a rebuilt Temple and the reinstitution of its offices and ceremonies.  “Have faith”, he preached.  “Be strong”, he proclaimed.  “Remember the details of what was once done in the Beit HaMikdash”, he declared, “so that it could be restored anew when the time comes”.

The stars that keep the moon company shine with light from the distant past.  The light from the North Star that guides sailors on their ocean voyages started out on its own journey from Polaris four hundred years earlier.  When we turn our attention to the night sky, we let yesterday’s light direct us to a better tomorrow.  When we look at the sliver of the moon, we appreciate that sometimes God hides from us in plain sight.

When HaShem spoke to Moshe on the eve of the exodus, He instructed Moshe to look upward and onward.  הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם.  “This is a new beginning for you”, God Said.  “This is a new era.  Today and tomorrow will be nothing like yesterday.”

Every generation since then has sought inspiration from that moment.  We set aside a shabbos each year to recall Moshe’s encounter with the Divine that redefined the meaning of time.  And from that time onward, we’ve look back at Moshe Rabbeinu’s first new moon.  We have imagined his confusion with God’s calendrical commandment.  We have reflected on his struggles and challenges and occasional failures.  And we’ve rejoiced in Moshe Rabbeinu’s vast accomplishments.

And then we find the strength to look upward and onward too.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] T.B. Megilah 30b.

[2] If Rosh Chodesh Nisan falls on Shabbat, then on that day is also Shabbat HaChodesh.