Perashat Tazria 5776

Perashat Tazria 5776

A very special Shabbat is upon us. The occurrence is rare – to take out three Sifrei Torah used to read three different portions, namely Tazria, Rosh Hodesh and HaHodesh. The connection is very clear; all deal with birth. Tazria is of a baby; Rosh Hodesh is of a month; and HaHodesh is of a Nation. Perashat HaHodesh describes the first commandment given to the Children of Israel as a nation; the establishment of a calendar, thereby giving them mastery over their time. Once a nation is able to establish its own calendar and determine its own time, then that nation has achieved true independence and mastery over its own destiny.  HaHodesh comes from the word “Hadash” – new, and “Hodesh” – month; alluding to the renewal and re-birth of the moon every month. As the moon waxes and wanes over a period of 29 days and as it renews itself, so too the People of Israel as a nation, wax and wane throughout history. This last reading is a call to the entire Jewish people to prepare themselves for the celebration of the Festival of Passover. It is obvious that this month of Nisan is special because the Israelites achieved their freedom from slavery. During their period of servitude, “time” did not belong to them. Rather, slaves spent their time fulfilling the will of others. A slave had no time which he could consider his own. He lacked freedom of choice due to his subservience to his master, who determined his complete schedule. In contrast, freedom grants the individual mastery over his own time, enabling him to decide the most effective way for its use.

However, are we really free to do with time as we see fit - or are we slaves to time? We all carry watches, and we have clocks in every room of our homes and offices. New Minyanim come into existence just to save some time from the old and established Minyanim. People look at their watches when the speaker is taking longer than the expected time. We have deadlines to meet, expiration dates to be aware of. We have rush hours, peak hours, happy hours and off hours. We have shifts and turns. So, I ask again, are we really free of the limits that time imposes upon us?

I must concede that we might be slaves to time, but that is not the greatest problem; the greatest problem is that we are slaves to the times in which we live; to the events which take place as a result of the “times”. These occurrences have a permanent influence upon individuals and nations resulting in their rise and fall.

We, the Jewish People, were given the gift of time; the ability to subjugate the events of time and transcend them so that they have no effect upon our spiritual and communal development. The only way we can reach the height of spiritual and communal development, is by freeing ourselves from all masters, even from the dictates and absurdities of the events associated with the times in which we live; the fashion of the times, the fads of the times, the news of the times, etc.

Because true freedom is defined as the ability to free oneself from all of the absurd constraints that society imposes and dictates upon us, especially when they contradict Jewish Torah Values, our Sages state: “There is no free man other than the one who lives by the teaching of the Torah.” The secret to the eternity of our people, in contrast to the many nations who have disappeared from existence, is that the rest of the nations followed the times and its dictates - unlike our people, who were subservient to the teachings of the Torah and were freed from the fashions of the times.

In New York, this concept of “The Times”, has a special meaning; it is “The New York Times”, where you can read all the dictates and absurdities that are, “fit to print”; that serve to subjugate and enslave our minds. Although we may be slaves to time, that’s entirely different than being slaves to, “The Times.” True freedom is not defined as having enough time to read the New York Times, but rather, true freedom is defined by how much free time we are going to have by not reading the New York Times.

As we celebrate Rosh Hodesh Nisan this Shabbat, let us celebrate the renewal of our People as a Nation.