Tazria
Shabbat HaChodesh
Leviticus 12:1-13:59
Exodus 12:1-20
Ezekiel 45:16-46:18
There are times in our lives when things begin to bloom. Some of these times follow the predictable course of the lifecycle, when children begin to walk, speak and become individuals, when young adults discover their gifts and passions, when love relationships are born.
But sometimes, new things begin to emerge in our lives for no apparent reason.
We notice that a long-repressed part of ourselves begins to blossom, that long hoped-for capacities are suddenly at our disposable, that a personal limitation that has long plagued us loses its grip on us.
With a drama akin to springtime in the natural world, so too in our inner lives: New possibilities are now visible where before there was only gray.
The Maftir (additional) Torah reading for this special Shabbat, Shabbat HaChodesh, dramatically announces the upcoming month of Nissan, signaling the beginning of spring and the coming of Pesach two weeks later.
Spiritually, it is a time of newness, when against the natural background of springtime, we prepare to recall our collective birth as a people.
The Torah announces: “This month is for you, the first month of the year.” (Exodus 12:1) The Sefat Emet, in his commentary on the symbolism of Shabbat HaChodesh, draws a striking contrast between this springtime “New Year,” the first of the month of Nissan, and Rosh Hashanah.
Quoting a rabbinic tradition, he teaches that the two “New Years” are different. The first of Nissan is the “New Year for Kings,” that is, the human, institutional start of the year, while Rosh Hashanah is the New Year according to nature. (This is counterintuitive; we would have thought of springtime as the start of the natural year, but read on to understand his wonderful perspective.)
The “New Year for Kings,” he says, refers to the Israelites, newly freed — not only from slavery in Egypt, but from their own dark side, their own inner demons and struggles.
Such liberation does not come at predictable times of the year or the lifecycle, but when the “King” desires it.
It is beyond the ordinary rules of nature — unpredictable, uncontrollable, simply a gift.
This is why the announcement of spring, “This month is for you … ” appears in the Torah just after the story of liberation from Egypt has begun, to teach us that inner liberation is possible at any time, whenever it is given to us.
In this subtle piece of commentary, the Sefat Emet offers us a stunning and hopeful vision of the possibility of change in our lives.
Because we are free, because we have been led by God’s outstretched arm from Egypt to Sinai, from enslavement to enlightenment, we, in some way like God, are beyond the ordinary laws of nature.
We can generally only begin to walk and to speak at predictable times of life.
But we can do tshuvah, or repentance, at any time.
We can heal relationships and make peace at any time.
We can change our attitude toward life at any time.
And even when we have become convinced that our situation is beyond hope, something can mysteriously burst into bloom, and we are renewed.
The magnificent rituals of Pesach invite us to contemplate the possibilities of transformation — for our own people, for other peoples and in our own personal lives.
The story of the Exodus from Egypt challenges us to cry out when we suffer, to dare to believe that we will be heard and ultimately, to dare to hope that help may come and that a new kind of life awaits us.
The world has been through a very long, dark winter, enslaved to hatred, violence and despair.
May this spring and our celebration of the festival of transformation inspire hope that something new may soon be born.
Rabbi Amy Eilberg is a spiritual director in private practice.