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Synagogue Sermon

March 14, 1953

Jewish Meanings, Part 7: The Meaning of Time (1953)

Parshat Hachodesh
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Novelty and Renewal (1965)

Ours is an age characterized by an insatiable appetite for the new; we literally live by the news. We jump with glee at the latest headlines, the newest models, the most recent designs, and the most up-to-date fashions. We abhor the old and the tried, and we treat with studied contempt the set and the stable. We speak derisively of the “same old thing” – it is so uninteresting! – and we greet the word “brand new” with the eager delight of a five-year-old embracing a new toy. No wonder that our childish penchant for novelty is exploited by industry for profit, so that, no matter what the true facts are, the word of the manufacturer cometh forth from Detroit every year blaring, “new, new, new!” No wonder that our cities are becoming progressively uglier, and as those immense boxes with the shiny tinsel-like facades go up, they displace old historic landmarks, which are wrecked indiscriminately, thus destroying whatever charm and character our new cities have. Even in religion, we are given the kind of spiritual adolescence which condemns all that is old to obsolescence, so that Jewish modernist deviationism, for instance, has substituted vacuous new ceremonies and empty and artificial rituals for the landmarks of kashruth and Shabbat and family purity which have been thoughtlessly destroyed. We who are Orthodox Jews, however, take exception to this fawning worship of the new. We are committed to tradition, to a sense of reverence for the glories and the sancta of the past. We do not believe that the truth and values and holiness should be treated in a fickle manner as the style of hats. Yet it would be wrong to let the matter rest there. For, after all, does not our tradition too speak lovingly of the new? The Psalmist proclaims: שירו לה’ שיר חדש, “sing ye to the Lord a new song.” In the Haggadah, in several weeks we shall say: ונאמר לפניו שירה חדשה “and may we recite before Him a new song.” And every day we pray: אור חדש על ציון תאיר, “may You cause a new light to …
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Renewal (1971)

The emphasis on and the quest for the new is often considered a modern phenomenon. Traditional societies are said to be past-oriented, and modern societies future-oriented. That is largely true, but it is not completely accurate. Thus, two hundred years ago, in Eastern Europe – which, in its cultural isolation, was for all practical purposes in the Middle Ages – there arose the movement of Hasidism which laid claim to being a “new way” in the “service of the Lord.” Furthermore, one of the distinguished personalities in the galaxy of saints produced by the early generations of Hasidism, the Gerer Rebbe (known for his great work, the “שפת אמת”), finds the appreciation of the new in the Bible itself. In his comment on the verse which begins the special portion of this morning, החודש הזה לכם, “This month is unto you the first of the months,” the Gerer Rebbe points to the word חודש, month, and comments on its root, חדש, new. Thus, the Lord not only gave to Israel the month of Nisan as the first in the order of counting of the months, but He granted to Israel both the privilege and challenge of התחדשות, renewal. “This month is the beginning of your renewal.”It is worth pondering, therefore, the role of the new and of novelty in Judaism as we read the portion of החודש הזה לכם.At the very outset, let us determine that we shall stay away from extremes – both the extreme that declares that all that is new is bad, that חדש אסור מן התורה, and the one that looks upon the new as invariably good. Life itself offers ample evidence to invalidate these extremes. Thus, hatred, intolerance, and cruelty are all old; vaccines, artificial limbs, and education rather than incarceration for the retarded – are all new. At the same time, poison gas, the hydrogen bomb, and industrial pollution are all new, while Spring and love and sunset and friendship are all very, very old. Newness itself is neutral, and it needs further definition and understanding in order to form a value judgment. Thus,…
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This Month and Every Month (1962)

It is appropriate on Parshat Ha-Chodesh to recall that the Jewish calendar is based upon the lunar year. By this we mean, that each month begins with the birth of the new moon; rosh chodesh, “the first day of the new month,” commences with the appearance of the first sliver of the new moon. No wonder that the Hebrew word for month is chodesh, which derives from the Hebrew chadash, which means “new.” Because the length of the revolution of the moon around the earth is not a full number of days, an integer, but a fraction – a little over 29.5 days – therefore the length of each individual month varies; sometimes the month is thirty days (called malei, or full) or twenty-nine days (called chaser, or incomplete.) Today, if we want to know on what day rosh chodesh falls, whether the month is malei (thirty days) or chaser (twenty-nine days), our task is very simple: we refer to the Jewish calendar, which is based upon very precise astronomic calculations. When we sanctify the new month in this manner, this is called kiddush al yedei cheshbon – sanctification based upon calculation. It is scientifically precise and contains no errors or doubts whatsoever.But the original method for sanctifying the new month, the one practiced in the days of the Bible and during the time of the Temple, was not sanctification by calculation but rather kiddush al yedei re’iyah – sanctification by observation. There was an elaborate ritual prescribed and followed for the sanctification of the new month by visual observation. Two valid witnesses had to observe the birth of a new moon. They had to testify before a competent court of three expert judges who examined the witnesses carefully and, if they were satisfied with the veracity of the two people, would join in a rising declaration that the month was mekudash, sanctified. Then messengers would bring the news to the outlying areas, informing them of the length of the past month and what day must be observed as rosh chodesh.Some people have …
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