Parasha HaChodesh: Taking Control of our Time

Here is a dvar Torah I wrote 10 years ago for Parashas HaChodesh, but it’s as relevant as ever today!

Also, excited to share that Shtark Tank, a phenomenal podcast about balancing Torah life with working life, has just launched a Substack. This is their first week publishing written content, and the piece below is up there as well. Feel free to check it out here and subscribe for free! :)

My piece is below, but you know the drill :) If you have internet access, please read it at the link below!
https://www.ijn.com/why-is-rosh-chodesh-the-first-mitzvah/

Taking Control of our Time

We read this week about Bnei Yisrael being given their first mitzvah as a nation, that of Rosh Chodesh, the new moon. There are a number of questions regarding this mitzvah, but I’d like to focus on two. First, why is Rosh Chodesh the first mitzva? Second, its placement immediately prior to makkas bechoros/(death of the firstborn) and the subsequent redemption from Mitzrayim/(Egypt) seems peculiar. Presumably, there’s a connection between the two-what is that connection? Of course there’s the famous discussion of why the Torah doesn’t start with the first mitzvah, but we’ll save that for a different time.

We’ll answer the second question first, and through that, hopefully come to an understanding of the first one as well. The Seforno emphasizes the fact that as slaves in Mitzrayim, we had absolutely no control over our time, and consequently, our lives. We were worked to the point of exhaustion and were always liable to have more demands made of our time. As such, the clearest, most central benefit of achieving freedom and independence was our newfound ability to do what we wanted to do, namely to live a life of avodas Hashem.

Fortunately, we too live in a world where the choice is ours to do what we want with our time. This of course demands a great deal of responsibility. It requires us to identify what is most important to us, what our values are, and to commit our time to the fulfillment of those goals and values.

In essence, Seforno sees the mitzvah as being representative of our status change.

In contrast, the Netziv views Rosh Chodesh as being an integral factor as to what changed from pre-slavery to post-slavery. He says that the thrust of the mitzvah is that it distinguishes us from the rest of the world. After having been in Mitzrayim for hundreds of years, we had, inevitably, been highly influenced by its culture. As we left Mitzrayim, we needed concrete evidence and a constant reminder that we were to no longer identify with that culture.

This was (at least one of) Hashem’s mission(s) in giving us Rosh Chodesh: whereas the rest of the world, as well as nature itself, is highly focused on the solar system, we were now the first to follow the lunar calendar. To clarify, the idea is not that there is something inherently special about the moon, but rather that it instills in us the realization that we have a higher calling than to simply imitate the rest of the world.

(In case anyone is thinking about Islam right now, here’s just an interesting tidbit I once realized while discussing this kind of stuff with my drivers ed teacher, who is Mormon. Besides the fact that subscribed to the lunar calendar first, the truth is we remain unique in our calendar system. While Christianity follows solely the solar calendar and Islam the lunar calendar, we actually employ a hybrid of both.)

We see how both Seforno and the Netziv attach significance to the mitzva’s timing of coming right at the redemption. As one of my Rebbeim, Rav Nechemia, explained, it is through this significance that we can answer our first question according to both of them. This was the first opportunity for us to be commanded as a nation, and since this was the way to address the most pressing issues of the time, it became the first mitzvah.

Personally, I remain a bit unsatisfied with the technicality of that answer; I would like to suggest a more fundamental possibility, (though I am unsure of how legitimate it is). Perhaps, in light of the Netziv’s explanation, Rosh Chodesh is the first mitzvah because it is only with an identity that we could move forward. It was only as a nation that we were able to receive the Torah and everything that came along with that.

Similarly, in light of Seforno’s interpretation, Rosh Chodesh provides the basis for everything we are to do as a nation. Without having the independence of our own time, how can we be expected to follow the Torah? When will be able to identify our values? How can we possibly commit to doing what is most important to us while some Egyptian is torturing us indiscriminately?!

Interestingly enough, I feel we are nowadays in the process of losing control of our time for the first time in thousands of years. While no one is beating us up, we silently submit to the dings and chimes of our iTouch, iPhone, iPad, and G-d knows what else we let control us. How can we possibly identify our values if we don’t take time to think for ourselves? And let’s say we do identify those values, how can we properly live those values if we can’t shake ourselves of our constant connection to a world that probably conflicts with many of those values?

My Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Amital zt”l, would often speak about how we need to look at Pesach. We don’t have the full picture if we only think about pyramids and Egyptian taskmasters when we attempt to figure out what our freedom is from. Rather, it is crucial we understand what we are enslaved to nowadays and become freed from that. (See Rav Hirsh Tehillim 81:6-7, Artscroll Tehillim for summary)

One of our main enslavements is technology. Pesach is then an opportunity to take a break, recalibrate, redeem ourselves from the constraints of facebook’s demands, and reconnect with the mission of Hashem and His Torah.