Thoughts for Parshat Bo

‘This month is the head of all months for you, the first of all the months of the year.’

In the context of the Torah and halacha, the year begins from the month of Nisan.  When we talk about the cycle of the holydays, we start from Pesah.  When a king is appointed, the particular year of his reign begins at Nisan.  If he begins his reign in Adar, for example, then only thirty days later in Nisan he is considered in the second year of his reign.

Moreover, this verse is in fact a mitzvah from among the 613 commandments of Torah.  Sefer Hahinuch notes the mitzvah is “to sanctify the months and extend leap years in the court greatest in wisdom (that would be the Sanhedrin) ordained in Israel, and to establish the holydays of the year according to the sanctification (of the month)...”  In other words, it is a Divine commandment, a holy act, to establish and operate according to a unique calendar.  This is the mitzvah noted by Rabi Yitzhak in the midrash and quoted by Rashi at the opening of the Torah, as “the first commandment that Israel were commanded.”

One of the points that Rav Tzvi Yehudah Hacohen Kook would mark here is that Rabi Yitzhak’s comment highlights that Torah is intended for Israel as a nation, an historic entity.  The first commandment that ISRAEL were commanded.  And when did this happen?  When Hashem took us out of the Egyptian exile; when we first appear on the world stage as a nation.

I would like to ask, why a calendar?  Why is the first mitzvah to a new nation to establish a calendar?  A calendar which is emphasized in the halacha, as seen in the words of the Hinuch, as a holy thing?  What is so special about a calendar?

A calendar is the practical framework for a culture.  A society plans events, the rhythm of public life, through a calendar.  A calendar is the context in which a society recalls and marks its history.

By commanding us to begin a unique calendar, God was telling us to establish from the outset that we are a unique culture.  We aren’t meant to frame our lives, individually nor as a society, by another culture’s context.  The purpose of the makot/plagues in Egypt was to make a clear distinction and separation between Israel and Egypt.  The purpose of the calendar, it seems to me, is to formalize and ensure that separation continues in our societal/historical life as a nation and culture.

It is vital that Israel as a people, and Jews as individuals, mark the events of the day and of a life in the context of the Hebrew calendar.  The calendar creates the framework in which we really see ourselves.  Try it out.  Ask yourself when something occurred, or when a holyday is, or when you will go on a trip or mark an important date.  How often do you say things like ‘Passover comes early this year’?  Do you have trouble making Shabbat fit into the notion of the week?  Whose terms dictate the framework of your daily life?

The calendar is a way that we sanctify our individual and national lives.  The Hebrew calendar is a holy thing; a commandment.  And through it we create the framework for carrying out all the rest of the Torah on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, historical basis.  There is literally no other way to mark the holy passage of time as God commands us, and as he relates to us through unique moments in time.  The Hebrew calendar is the context of our culture.