The Meaning of the Mitzvah

Bo, 5784

Let’s talk about beginnings for a second. Beginnings are difficult. As someone who does a lot of writing for a living, knowing what I want to say or write is easy. Knowing how to begin is harder. Think about the beginning of the Torah for a second. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So famous you could probably complete the sentence in your sleep. But we take it for granted that the Torah begins at this point. The Torah could have begun anywhere. It didn’t have to begin at the creation world. So let’s have a little rewrite. If you had to guess anywhere the Torah would begin, or let’s say you had to place the beginning of the Torah anywhere else, where would you?

Now let’s narrow this down. You might have guessed based on the fact that I’m giving this dvar Torah today and not Parashat Bereshit that there’s something to do with beginnings in this portion. So, tell me, if you had to start the Torah somewhere in this week’s parsha, where would you start?

Believe it or not, Rashi, based on a Midrash, in his very first comment on the Torah, says that one might think that the Torah should begin with the following line: הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחׇדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה. This month shall be for you the head of the months, the first of them of the months of the year. From this line the rabbis derive two different commandments: the commandment to keep a calendar, and the commandment to celebrate the first of every month as Rosh Chodesh. But why start the Torah here? Well, if you pay very close attention, these are actually the first commandments God gives the Israelites as a nation in the entire Torah. Sure there is “be fruitful and multiply” in Bereshit, and the Noahide laws, but those are supposed to apply to all of humanity. This commandment here, to have a calendar, is unique to the Israelites.

But why would the rabbis have the hava mina, the idea in their minds, that the Torah might start with the first commandment? Well, if you view the Torah as a law book, that makes a certain amount of sense. Let’s get to the laws. Let’s learn what we need to do to live a Jewish life. Let’s start with law number 1: the Jewish calendar. Lets move then onto law number 2: designating a lamb for the Passover sacrifice.

This may make a certain amount of sense. But human beings don’t work like that. Law books are not compelling reading in and of themselves: ask any lawyer. The Torah is a document meant for  all of Israel, not just rabbis or lawyers. And documents meant for everyone, even those that are primarily about law, don’t just start off with law. Just look at the US Constitution. It does not start with Article I Section 1: Congress.  All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. No, it starts with “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” We need a reason for the laws, a story, a narrative to attach ourselves to. They don’t just come out of nowhere. In the case of America, we need to know that the Constitution was written to form a more perfect union. In the case of the Torah, we need to know about the history of our people, about Avraham’s travels, about our descent in Egypt, and about our slavery.

Why is the first commandment a calendar? It is not random. As the commentator Sforno explains, as slaves, the Israelites had no control over their time. Now, as free people, the first thing they are commanded to do is make their own calendar, to hallow their own time. The significance of being able to count our own months, to make our own holidays, is completely lost without the background of knowing that the Jews were slaves in Egypt.

So the Torah both begins and doesn’t begin here, in this parsha. It begins in that we have our first commandment Israelites. If you want to know the first law, start here. But the first law is not enough. We need the story to go along with it. We need the background information. We need the meaning.

We run a monthly skeptics class here at Agudath Achim-you can email Michael Konter after Shabbat for more information-and one of the most common questions I get is “I think these are all just rules made up by people. Why should I follow them?” I always find this to not be as challenging a question as it might seem. For one thing, we follow rules made up by people all the time—see the Constitution. But why do I follow those rules is the interesting question. We follow them because of the meaning they provide, the story they tell. We don’t start by thinking about the rule, but about its story, about where it comes from, about the meaning. Take Kashrut. The rule to not eat meat and milk together by itself—who cares? Why should I do that? But give it its backstory, that it is a way to encourage Jewish community, for Jews to dine together, to think about what they eat before they eat it—now that commandment has more meaning.

So here is my challenge for you this morning. As always, I encourage you to follow the mitzvot. But it is important too to remember the story behind those mitzvot. Not just what we do, but why we do it. Rosh Chodesh is not just one day a month when the service is longer and we read Torah. It is a day we celebrate being free, being able to make our own calendar. The story gives the commandment meaning. And I hope that we all can find meaning in the mitzvot that we follow.

Previous
Previous

True Magic

Next
Next

Taking Time To Hope