From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 1:54
AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Bo, 5765
Shine
On
By
Rabbi Joshua (reflectively known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With gratitude to
the Almighty for sustaining me, and a prayer that He continue to do so, this
week's message marks the completion of seven years of Netvort. Thanks to my
readers for their comments, questions and suggestions, and a special tip of the
Hoffer cap to my editor / distributor for his continued assistance.
In this week's parsha, the first mitzvoh of the Torah, that of
sanctifying the new moon (Kiddush HaChodesh), whereby the advent of the new moon
is witnessed and the beginning of the new month is scheduled, is communicated by
God to Moshe and Aharon. Immediately after that mitzvoh is given to them, the
mitzvoh of slaughtering the Pesach sacrifice is given, along with the many laws
ancillary to it. Thus, we read : And God said to Moshe and Aharon in the land of
Egypt, saying, 'This month shall be for you the beginning of months, it shall be
for you the first of the months of the year. Speak to the entire assembly of
Yisroel, saying, 'On the tenth of this month they shall take for themselves -
each man - a lamb/kid…' " (Shemos 12:1-3). Why are these two mitzvos juxtaposed
to each other? A simple answer could be that since the Pesach sacrifice needed
to be separated on the tenth of Nissan and slaughtered on the fourteenth of that
month, there was a need to know when those dates would actually occur. This,
however, is a very technical answer, and I would like to find one which teaches
us something about the essence of the two mitzvos, in order to understand their
messages more fully.
Rabbeinu Ya'akov ben Asher, the author of
the halachic compendium the Tur, writes, in his longer commentary to the Torah,
that God commanded the people to take a sheep for their offering because the
mazal, or astrological sign, of the lamb, is at its height during the month of
Nissan, and, so, by slaughtering the lamb, the nation would show the
Egyptians the powerlessness of the god that they worshipped. Thus the Torah
first mentions the mitzvoh of sanctifying the new moon and declaring Nissan as
the first month, and then commands us to slaughter the lamb, which was a god of
the Egyptians, during that first month, to sharpen the message that was to be
delivered to them. Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Lunshitz, in his Keli Yakar, gives a
somewhat similar answer. He says that since the Jewish nation was redeemed from
Egypt in Nissan, that month was made the first month of the year, so that the
miracles of the redemption will be before our eyes constantly. However, since
the mazal of the lamb is regnant in that month, and we don't want people to
think that it was because of the importance of the mazal of the lamb that Nissan
was made the first of the months, the nation was commanded to slaughter a lamb
on the tenth of Nissan to show that the mazal of the lamb has no absolute power.
They were commanded to take the lamb on the tenth day of Nissan, because that is
when the mazal is at its strength, and, thus, by taking it then for the purpose
of slaughtering it, they would demonstrate that its mazal has no independent
power at all, and that there is a God in the world Who is above all other
powers, and controls them. In order for the nation to know when the tenth of the
month occurred, they were given the mitzvoh of sanctifying the new moon. While
these explanations do give us some insight into the deeper meaning of the
mitzvos of Kiddush HaChodesh and Korban Pesach, they focus on the significance
of the mazal of Nissan in the mind-set of the Egyptians, which may not be as
meaningful for us today. Therefore, I would like to suggest another explanation
for the juxtaposition of these mitzvos.
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 42a) tells
us that whoever blesses the new moon in its proper time is considered as if he
received the divine presence. The rabbis derive this from a 'gezeirah shaveh,'
an equivalence of expressions, between two verses, namely, "'This month shall be
for you the beginning of months, it shall be for you the first of the months of
the year," in our parsha, and "This is my God and I will beautify Him" in
parshas Beshalach (Shemos 15:2). In both verses, the word 'this' occurs, and the
rabbis explain that just as, in parshas Beshalach, it refers to the experience
of the divine presence, so too does it refer to such an experience in parshas
Bo. Most commentators explain the blessing of the new moon referred to by the
rabbis in this passage as meaning 'Kiddush Levonoh,' the monthly blessing and
prayer said upon seeing the new moon. However, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher, in
his intriguing work, "HaAdam Al HaYareach" (Man on the Moon), written shortly
after the historic 1969 moon landing, argues that it is difficult to say that
this rabbinically enacted blessing has such tremendous repercussions, and,
therefore, he brings midrashic sources to show that the Talmudic statement
applies to the mitzvoh of Kiddush HaChodesh. Only later in that Talmudic
discussion, continues Rabbi Kasher, when Abaye says, 'therefore it must be said
while standing,' is the reference to Kiddush Levonoh. However even if we do not
accept Rabbi Kasher's theory, we can still argue that if Kiddush Levonoh is
tantamount to receiving the divine presence, then Kiddush Hachodesh certainly is
!
Why is an encounter with the new moon of such significance? Rabbi
Kasher connects this Talmudic statement to another Talmudic statement, that
bringing in guests is greater than receiving the divine presence (Shabbos 127a).
He explains this by saying that a human being, who is made in God's image, is a
reflection of the greatness of God. In the same way, the moon, which is a
creation of God and was given, by God, control over certain aspects of the
world, is a reflection of God, who gave it those powers. Rabbi Yechiel Michel
Epstein, in his commentary to Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 426:2), Aruch
HaShulchan, writes that the moon which has no light of its own, but only
reflects the light of the sun, symbolizes the Jewish people, who are a
reflection of God's light in the world. On a wider level, Rabbeinu Bachya, in
his commentary to parshas Bo, writes that someone who sees the moon when it is
at its monthly point of renewal, after its period of invisibility, is, through
it, able to discern that God created the world. Rabbi Moshe of Premesla, in his
halachic work, Mateh Moshe, writes, in the name of Rabbeinu Hertz, that this is
the meaning behind the midrash, cited by Rashi in the beginning of his Torah
commentary, which says that the Torah, by right, should have begun with the
mitzvoh of Kiddush HaChodesh, since this mitzvoh has the ability to teach us
that God created the universe, just as the Torah's account of the actual
creation does.
We still need to understand, however, how the
sanctification of the new moon, with all its religious significance, has any
relevance to the mitzvoh of Korban Pesach. The Midrash Tanchuma (Vayeira 4) says
that as a reward to Avrohom for using the word 'na' - please - when he said, to
his guests, "Let a little bit of water be taken, please" (Bereishis 18:4), his
descendants were given the mitzvoh of Korban Pesach of which it is said "do not
eat of it (in a state of) 'na'" (i.e., in a raw state) (Shemos 12:9). Rabbi
Ya'akov Shlomo Weinberg, a student of the late Rabbi Ya'akov Shmuel Weinberg of
Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore, explains this enigmatic midrash on the basis
of the approach of the Maharal of Prague to the mitzvoh of Korban Pesach, as
presented in his work Gevuros HaShem. Maharal writes that the major message of
the Korban Pesach is the unity of God. That is why the korban must be roasted
whole, and not cooked, since the cooking process tends to break up the animal.
The korban must also be eaten in one house, and no bones can be broken while
consuming it. The detailed laws of the Korban Pesach thus focus on the need to
maintain its unity, because through this korban we learn of the unity of God,
which was rejected by the Egyptians. Avrohom, too, taught his guests the unity
of God, as exemplified by his request to bring them water, with which, the
rabbis tell us, he washed their feet from the dust that he feared they had been
worshiping. On a wider scale, we can say that when Avrohom showed honor to his
guests, he was showing them that he valued them, because, as creations of God
made in His image, they reflected God's unity. Receiving guests is a dignified
way, moreover, gives the guests themselves a heightened sense of self-esteem,
and impresses upon them their own significance as creations of God and
reflections of His unity. This aspect of hospitality to guests was driven home
to me a week ago in Omaha, Nebraska, when I spent Shabbos at the home of a
long-time subscriber to Netvort, who was being honored, together with his wife,
by their synagogue, Beth Tephilah, for all the chesed they have done over the
years. This couple had a guest book, which they asked all who stayed at their
home to sign before leaving. I had never seen this before in any home where I
had stayed, and I felt it conveyed a sense that the hosts felt honored by the
presence of their guests in their home. When Avrohom treated his guests in a
dignified manner, then, he taught them of the unity of God, and, as a reward,
his descendants were given the mitzvoh of Korban Pesach and its surrounding
regulations, which also teach us of the unity of God.
Thus, the blessing
of the new moon, which is really directed to God, acknowledges God's control of
all the forces in the universe, and, thus His unity, just as the Korban Pesach
and its surrounding laws do. For this reason, these two mitzvos are juxtaposed,
as the first mitzvos given to the Jewish people, the bearers of God's name in
this world (see this week's Mioray HaAish - available at Aish.com - by my
friend, Rabbi Ari D. Kahn, who presents a different approach to the connection
between Kiddush HaChodesh and Korban Pesach).
Please
address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following
address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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