New Years, Again, Already? – Shabbat HaChodesh 5779
Years ago, when choosing a house to buy and planning the renovations we would make, we had a list of priorities: plenty of sleeping space, a dining room that could hold a lot of people, a kitchen big enough to accommodate not only the everyday dairy and meat pots, pans, and utensils, but also storage space for the special sets for Passover use. In fact, a main concern in our requirements for a house was its capacity to help us welcome as much family as possible to spend Pesach together. From an outside perspective it may seem strange to buy a house based on the way we would want to use it for only one week out of the year, but there is something about Pesach that inspires us to do things that might seem crazy to an outside observer.
Americans who are not Jewish are likely to know about chanukah, because of its proximity to Christmas, or about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the High Holy Days, but if they know of Passover, they may not realize just what a big deal it is. A 2013 Pew Research study on American Jewish life found that participating in a Passover Seder was the most commonly observed Jewish practice that they asked about. Large percentages of Jews, 42% of even those who consider atheist or agnostic, participate in a Seder.
My eldest asked me this week, as we get deeper into Pesach-prep mode, why this is the holiday that we get together with so much family, and I had a few quick answers at the ready. Traveling to spend Pesach with family has been my family tradition for as long as I remember. It makes sense to do this because the Seder, the core of what we do to celebrate Pesach, typically happens at home and is so focused on the interaction between those gathered around the table.
This Shabbat, as we formally welcome the new Jewish month of Nisan, we will read a special section of the Torah, in addition to the regular cyclical weekly parsha. This week is Shabbat HaChodesh, where we recap the first mitzvah that Israel receives as a whole nation, just before leaving Egypt. Parshat HaChodesh, offers another take on why Pesach is a particularly good moment to come together with family and friends, and maybe as to why Jews continue to feel connected to and maintain this tradition, even when others may not feel meaningful and important.
Parshat HaChodesh presents the month of Nisan to the emerging Jewish people as the first of the months for you. It goes on to give instructions for preparing for the night of the Exodus, for slaughtering the paschal lamb, roasting it, marking the doorposts, and eating the lamb in a state of readiness to flee. Then, Pesach is declared a holiday for all time, essential for every member of the Jewish community.
On that first Pesach, there was no synagogue, no temple. There was only each family in their own home, with their own family, or maybe with their neighbors. This is the climactic moment in the foundational story of the Jewish people, and as such, the Torah tells us. This is now your beginning even if the rest of the world counts by another day. From here on out, you count your time starting at Pesach. This moment is so critical to Jewish identity that it must be re-lived each year, remembering what it is like to stand on the precipice of freedom and sharing the story and the experience with your children who do not know yet what it is all about. It is a moment which, more than any other in the cycle of the Jewish year, reaches back through the generations and calls for connection with relatives who can transmit their own stories of journeys, liberation and transformation.
The mishna in tractate Rosh Hashanah refers to four new years. Tishrei brings the Rosh Hashanah that we think of as the Jewish new year, which is designated for sabbatical and jubilee years, and for planting, Elul, one month earlier, is designated the new year for tithing cattle. Tu Bishvat is the new year for fruit trees. But first and foremost, the mishna designates Nisan as the New Year for kings and for festivals. To this day, Jewish life maintains a dual sense of beginning again both in Tishrei and in Nisan.
For me, the time leading up to Rosh Hashanah in the fall feels significant as an important time for self reflection, and it’s close proximity to the beginning of the school year lends it a practical new year feeling. But in another very real way, I count my life from Pesach to Pesach, remembering important milestones and moments of change and growth for those close to my heart but geographically far by our gatherings each Pesach.
It is difficult to make time for quiet soul searching and reflection in the frenzy of preparing for this holiday of freedom, but somehow amidst the physical work of purging chametz, leaven, and shmutz from my home, and the intellectual work of planning engaging ways to relive liberation for my family at home and my students at school, I wind up doing the spiritual work of purging some of the metaphorical chametz from my life, the parts that have been overinflated to the detriment of what really counts. Each year I find myself looking back at where I was, at how I felt before and after last Pesach, at how far I come, or how far back I have slipped over the year, as I prepare to reach for freedom again.
This Shabbat we get the reminder. Nisan has arrived. There is work to be done. But with hard work, a little help, and a little luck, we will arrive again in just two weeks time, bags packed, shoes on our feet, walking sticks in hand, families at our sides, on the precipice of freedom.