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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