Parasha Thoughts
By Rabbi Avraham Moeinzadeh
“This month shall be for you the beginning of the months. It shall be for you the first of the months of the year.â€
Chachamim tell us that the difference between a slave and a freed man isn’t comparable to the level of difference between an individual before and after he accepts the Torah and mitzvot upon himself. There is no doubt that nothing can be a unifying factor among the Jewish people greater than their faith that is shaped based on the commandments and teachings of the Torah. If one has to choose a month to be the prime month of the Jewish calendar, Sivan should be chosen for it being the month that Bnei Yisrael were officially declared as Hashem’s nation which has it’s independent mission and constitution.
Yetziat Mitzrayim is definitely one of the most important chapters in Klal Yisrael’s history because of the great visions of the might of Hashem that Bnei Yisrael experienced. At the same time, one shouldn’t forget about the main purpose of the redemption of the Jewish nation which was accepting the Torah. Having said this why does Hashem command us to acknowledge Nissan as the first month of the calendar?
Harav Moshe Feinstein asks this question and in response he writes that the reason Torah emphasizes this point is to teach us a lesson that every Mitzvah is actually a process that starts as the person prepares himself for it. Since Bnei Yisrael started the process of preparing themselves for Matan Torah and counting the days immediately after they were freed in the month of Nissan, the Torah counts Nissan as the starting point of Jewish months.
We are often so busy with our mundane lives that we barely make it to just perform the mitzvah and don’t have a chance to stop a few minutes beforehand to contemplate and comprehend what a great privilege it is to be able to serve the creator of the universe. Parashat Hachodesh is coming to remind us that the first inseparable (and maybe most important) part of every mitzvah is the preparation for that mitzvah.
Shabbat Shalom.