Parshas HaChodesh[1] begins with G-d saying to Moshe and Aharon in Egypt: "This month (Nissan) shall be the head of the months to you; it shall be the first month of the year."
[2] We learn from here that it is a
mitzvah to "sanctify months, set leap years, and establish the festivals of the year according to the determined sanctification."
[3]
Our Sages note[4] that the entire Torah might well have begun with this commandment, "for it is the first mitzvah that the Jewish people[5] were commanded."[6]
The very fact that of all 613 commandments, the Torah chose to begin with this one indicates that this mitzvah contains an element fundamental to all the rest.
What is so special about this commandment?
The primary function of the mitzvos is to enable man to permeate the world with goodness and holiness. Thus all mitzvos involve the transformation of physical objects into mitzvah-objects, entities of holiness.
This, too, is the overall theme of the commandment to sanctify the new month: The court sanctifies[7] a certain day and declares it to be Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the month - a celebratory day and not an ordinary working day,[8] a day that establishes when the holidays shall be celebrated.
In addition to the above, this commandment is inherently first in theme and content: Although the world is a composite of both time and space,[9] and time is bound up with space,[10] nevertheless, time precedes space. For all of Creation, including space, implies an aspect of change - present conditions are compared to the past, i.e., to conditions prior to creation.
Thus, before anything was created, including space, there already existed an entity subject to change - time. Therefore the starting point of all creation is time.
This is true in terms of man's experience as well. First comes the actual day, and only then can man make an impact on that day by transforming physical objects into holiness throughout the day.
Sanctification of the new month is thus the first commandment, for sanctity is first imbedded in time - the beginning of existence - and only then comes man's interaction with physical objects - the aspect of space.
There is yet another all-encompassing aspect to this mitzvah: All of creation was brought about in order to be sanctified through the Jewish people's performance of Torah and mitzvos.[11] This is a theme that affects all of creation at all times and in all places.
A Jew's service consists of actualizing and revealing the ultimate purpose within all things. When a Jew performs a mitzvah with a particular object, he thereby fulfills the object's reason for being, and the object becomes a mitzvah-object.
For example, when a Jew transforms an animal's hide into parchment for a Sefer Torah, tefillin, or mezuzos, that animal's hide attains the purpose for which it was created - it was imbued with holiness.
Since time, too, is created, it is readily understandable that it too is meant to fulfill the same purpose as the rest of creation.
Herein lies the additional significance of this most important command: Through the Jewish people's sanctification of months - Rosh Chodesh and festivals - they reveal that the true purpose of time is to be sanctified.
For in reality, the sanctification of any one month affects not only the establishment of Rosh Chodesh and the festivals in that month, but alters the entire time continuum, so that all of time becomes permeated with the realization that it is to be filled with goodness, holiness, and mitzvos.
Based on Likkutei Sichos, Vol. XXVI, pp. 59-65.
Notes:
- (Back to text) The Torah section in Parshas Bo that is always read prior to the month of Nissan, describing as it does the Jewish festive calendar (that begins in Nissan) and the laws of Pesach.
- (Back to text) Shmos 12:1-2.
- (Back to text) Chinuch, beginning of Mitzvah 4.
- (Back to text) See Tanchuma (Buber) Bereishis 11; Yalkut Shimoni, Shmos 12:2 (Remez 187).
- (Back to text) "As opposed to milah and gid hanasheh... that were commanded to individuals and were not considered commands as long as all Jews were not so commanded." (Commentary of Reb Eliyahu Mizrachi on Rashi cited in fn. 6.)
- (Back to text) Rashi, Bereishis 1:1.
- (Back to text) See Shmos Rabbah 15:24.
- (Back to text) Yechezkel 46:1.
- (Back to text) Shaar HaYichud VehaEmunah, ch. 7 (82a).
- (Back to text) Likkutei Torah, Berachah, p. 98a.
- (Back to text) See Rashi, Bereishis, ibid.
