The special portion which we read on this Sabbath of Parshat Hachodesh is centered about the Mitzvah of Kidush Hachodesh, sanctification of the new moon. Now, the moon and its revolutions about the earth have always held an important position in the Jewish scheme of things, all our holidays are identified, in the Torah, by a number of days in a specific lunar month. Therefore, all our festivals, all the ceremonies and sacrifices and devotions, depended and do depend on the beginning of the month as determined by the Molad Ha'lvanah, or the first appearance of any part of the new moon. Many years ago, before the preparation of the calendar by astronomic calculation, which was able to foretell every Molad almost unto eternity, the Jewish court announced the new moon and declared the Rosh Chodesh "al pi ha’reiah", by "sight". That means, that witnesses would testify in court that they had seen the appearance of the new moon with their own eyes. It was the era of intimate knowledge of G-d's world, when people would be witnesses to the birth of a month, and the Beis Din — the g-dfather of t the new moon. Kid a-p reiah, sanctification as a result of sight, of first hand, intimate observation.After the power of the courts was weakened, after exile struck at the roots of our people, after the beginnings of the advanced science of astronomy, a new method of KH was introduced — ״Kid a-p cheshbon" ; sanctification, not through observation, but by calculation. It was, as it is even today, a fool-proof method, intellectually conceived by using the tools of mathematics. No longer was it necessary, indeed possible, to perform kid a-p reiah. It was naw kid a-p cheshbon, an alternate route to sanctity.Now, my friends, I have no desire or intention of going into a mathematical evaluation of these two systems. But I do want to comment on the moral content of the symbols which Reiah and Cheshbon really are. What do these two represent to us, and what is the significance of the replace…

Modern man, having graduated from the Machine Age into the Atomic Age, has finally managed to conquer space. The expression “This is a small world” is more than a cliche repeated by two people who discover that they have common friends. It is an astute observation on the technological advancement of modern civilization. Radio and telegraph have reduced distances in communications. And jet aircraft have made the globe of Earth seem as ridiculously small as a basketball. Space has indeed been firmly mastered.

Midrash in Hachodesh Hazeh Lachem: עד שלא יצאו ישראל ממצרים הי' הקב"ה יושב ומחשב חשבונות, ומעבר עיבורים, מקדש שנים וחדשים. וכיון שיצאו ישראל ממצרים מסרו להם, שנאמר החודש הזה לכם, מכאן ואילך מסורה בידכם. Its literal meaning – Jewish calendar (and all observance dependent on it) determined by Jews. Its deeper meaning – that Religion made not for G-d but for man. That Torah not be left for angels but for us to do and obey. That Jsm genuine not when we talk about G-d and Time and Torah, but only when we live it and observer it scrupulously.

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 …

The month of Nisan is called by that name, according to the author of Benei Yisaskhor, because it comes from the word nes – miracle. Furthermore, the Hebrew word for miracle, nes, stands for the initial letters of the two words nofel and somekh – falling and supported or uplifted. The miracle of Jewish survival is that although we have often fallen and seemingly been crushed to death, nevertheless we have always shown remarkable ability to rise again. This, too, is the idea expressed in the Torah reading for parshat Ha-Hodesh, namely “this month is unto you,” which stands for the moon – and the moon goes through the phases, rising and falling, thereby symbolizing the very same thing.

The Jewish year has two peaks or high points, one coming in the Fall with the months of Elul and Tishri, and the other in the Spring with the month of Nisan, which begins today. The Fall peak includes Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succot, and the month of Elul preceding them. The Spring peak consists primarily of Passover and the preparations for it by means of the four special portions, the arba parshiyot, and especially the month of Nisan. Both of these high points are considered of the utmost importance; both are regarded by the Talmud as two kinds of “New Year.” Tishri is considered the Rosh Hashanah or New Year for shanim, in the sense that the year chronologically begins at that time, and Nisan is, as we read on this special Parshat Ha-Chodesh the rosh hadashim, the first of the months insofar as reckoning the holidays of the year. Each of these represents a complex of moods, associations, and attitudes that are deeply ingrained in the Jewish experience and the Jewish soul.What is the essential difference between them? One of the finest analyses was presented by Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak, the Rabbi of Lubavitch, who died 14 years ago, in a work called “Kuntres Hai Elul.” I beg your leave to present to you the gist of his ideas, together with some additions, elaborations, and modifications of my own.The story of man is essentially the story of his encounter with God, the confrontation of creature with Creator in the great dialogue between them. This dialogue does not necessarily consist of words that are exchanged; there are also deeds, feelings, and orientations that pass between the two in a state of mutuality.The Zohar regards this dialogue between God and man as similar, in many respects, to a human conversation: one side initiates it, and the other responds. The Zohar uses two terms, depending upon who initiates the dialogue. When it is opened by God, then it is called itra’uta di-le’ela – the impulse or initiative from above. When man begins this dialogue, it is …

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 …

In our traditional Jewish literature, especially our Kabbalistic literature, all of life, experience, and existence are conceived of as consisting of three dimensions: Olam, Shanah, and Nefesh. Literally, these mean: world, year, and soul; actually what is intended by these terms is: Space, Time and Man. One of the distinguished Rabbis of the State of Israel, Rabbi Shelomoh Yosef Zevin, sees this triadic structure in the opening verses of today’s Sidra. We read va-yakhel Mosheh et kol adat benei yisrael, that Moses assembled the entire congregation of Israel, and there he taught them the commandments of the Shabbat and Mishkan, the construction of the Tabernacle. The act of assembling all of Israel represents the element of Nefesh of Man. The mishkan is that which occupies a specific place. And Shabbat recurs every week, and hence represents the dimension of time. It should be understood that this is not merely a way of describing the world or experience. It is a framework that has high spiritual significance, for it means that Judaism considers that these three elements interpenetrate each other and are interdependent. This view teaches that, on the one hand, man needs the awareness of time and space; that is, he needs the spiritual implications, and the consciousness of the spiritual potentialities, of both history and geography, the realms of Shanah and Olam. Thus, Judaism speaks of kedushat ha-zeman, the sanctity of time, as in the celebration of Shabbat and the various festivals. And Judaism speaks too of kedushat ha-makom, the holiness of place, as, for instance, the mishkan or, today the synagogue. On the other hand, both time and space are significant in the divine economy only because of man, because of nefesh. Thus, Shabbat, which is a symbol of time, requires the participation of man (Nefesh) in order to make it meaningful. According to the Torah, on the seventh day of creation, God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; nevertheless man was commande…

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,…