Solaluna

Well, Rabbi, it is, I believe, Rosh Chodesh tomorrow. Correct. It’s Shvat, it’s Shvat is correct. And you are in Australia and I am in London. So the stars are aligned for us. The moon is about to start a new month. And here we are discussing what we have to realize is the first commandment of the Torah. So we’re starting fresh all over again. And because it’s something that has to do with time and the calendar, I thought I would remind myself and our listeners that if you look at the difference between Christianity and Judaism and Islam, I think the first thing they’ll say is the day of the Sabbath. Islam is on Friday. The Jews celebrate it on Saturday. Christians celebrate it on Sunday. One of the demarcation lines that religions make are always calandrical. And here we are. The first commandment has to do with much more than when we keep the Sabbath or the seventh day. It has to do with how we keep time, how we mark our calendars. And so in a sense, it’s surprising because it might seem to many of us as trivial. But on the other hand, it shouldn’t be surprising because Demarcating the calendar is something that historically has divided people. What thinks you?

Adam Mintz: Yeah, the calendar is the most important thing. That’s why it’s the first mitzvah, because you have nothing without the calendar. So we’re about to have Pesach. But Pesach isn’t worth anything unless you have a calendar to know when it falls and what the first month is. So this is. This is no question that this is the beginning. It’s not the beginning of the Torah. It’s the beginning of the story of the Jewish people.

Geoffrey Stern: And just to hammer the nail in. In my studies and preparation for today, I came across a Ketubah. You’re going to be marrying a couple on Friday in. In Australia. It’s a ketubah found in the geniza, and it’s a marriage between a karaite, those that kept, that followed the letter of the law, they were formalists or literalists and a Jewish fellow. And in the Ketubah, it has a condition, and it says that they will observe the holy festivals according to the sighting of the moon and the finding of the barley in the land of Israel, not according to the laws of the Gentiles. Already you see that the way you keep the calendar can divide people. I think of the Christian church, the Eastern Church and the Western church celebrate Christmas on different days. That totally divides them. So this is really a Rubicon, if you will. And therefore it shouldn’t surprise us, as you say, that it is the first law, but to remind us. So let’s start in Exodus.

Adam Mintz: Well, let’s go back for a second to the calendar. Why is it that in Russia they celebrate a different Christmas? You know, in 1582, Pope Gregory IX saw there was a problem with the calendar, and he eliminated 10 days from October 5th to October 15th. And the Russians, the Eastern Orthodox, never accepted it. So literally, it’s a different religion. Because if you don’t celebrate Christmas the same day, can you imagine if we celebrated Yom Kippur on one day and in Israel they celebrated Yom Kippur on another day? That would be crazy.

Geoffrey Stern: I mean, this.

Adam Mintz: We couldn’t have a religion that way.

Geoffrey Stern: It sets up the stakes of the discussion that we’re going to have. And as you know, there were instances in Judaism where different sages, maybe different communities had those notions and we could have gone down that path. Fortunately, we didn’t.

Adam Mintz: We avoided that path. Right.

Geoffrey Stern: So here we are in Exodus 12:1, and God said to Moses and to Aaron, in the land of Egypt, this month shall mark for you the Beginning of the months. It shall be the first of the months of the year for you. Chodesh hazeh lechem Rosh chadashim Rison hu l’chem L’hodshei Hasanah. So, Rashi, first of all, I go back to the first Rashi in all of the Bible. And Rashi asks the question, why do we have all this narrative of Abraham, of Adam and Eve, of the tower of Babel? He says, why don’t we start with the first commandment given to Israel, which is Hakodesh hazeh Lahem? It seems to be, while there may be disagreements when we count all of the 613 commandments which they are, there seems to be a consensus that this in fact is the first commandment given to the Jewish people.

Adam Mintz: Right. That. That’s correct. There are two things. One is, this is clearly the first commandment that’s given to the people. The people, not individuals. Not the Mitzvah of circumcision, not the mitzvah of Gid Hanasha. This is given to the people. But, you know, Rashi makes an interesting point in that first Rashi. He says, the Torah should have started with this chapter. You know, Geoffrey, that’s not so obvious. Who says that the Torah is only a book of law and that we should only have law in the Torah? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a pretty good time with you since the week after Simcha’s Torah. You know, studying the stories. Isn’t that an important part of the Torah? So Rashi makes a huge jump by saying the Torah should start here.

Geoffrey Stern: Maybe I should rephrase, Rashi, because obviously he has an answer to that question. But I think if he were to say, if you think that the Torah is a book of law, then it should have started with this first commandment. Good, good. And then he answers, but it actually is more than a book of law.

Adam Mintz: good. Okay, good. That’s probably the right way to say it, because the other way to say it is, you know, that isn’t fair to the book of Bereshit.

Geoffrey Stern: But I love the fact that you reference circumcision and some other ordinances that were given to individuals like Abraham. That’s what one of some of the commentaries talk about in terms of speak unto Moses and to Aaron. This is a kind of a threshold. All of a sudden, God is not talking to Pharaoh. He’s talking to Moses and Aaron, and he’s commanding the people of Israel who were born. Moments, ago with the Exodus. From Egypt.

Adam Mintz: Right.

Geoffrey Stern: I just.

Adam Mintz: One little thing that’s related to all of this is last week we talked about the, the beginning of the plagues and, and, and Moses and Aaron. You know the Torah in last week’s Parasha, Someone pointed this out to me last Shabbat morning. The Torah in last. In last week’s Parasha says that the father of, of Moses and Aaron, Amram, married his aunt Yocheved. That’s what the Torah says in last week’s Parasha. Do you know that in the Torah later in, in, in Leviticus, the Torah says explicitly, you’re not allowed to marry your aunt? So Moses and Aaron come from an illicit marriage. I mean, nobody makes a big fuss about that. You have to say somehow, and this is your point, that what happens before chapter 12 is not really Torah in the legal sense. It’s stories, but it’s not really Torah. That’s super interesting.

Geoffrey Stern: Great. In any case, this is a pivotal moment. And the fact that the moment, the first commandment that was chosen was about this Rosh Chodesh, this beginning of the chodesh, we typically translate that to be month here or the next. Rashi. Rashi begins to get into a little bit of the nuance of the word for chodesh. He says that he showed him meaning Moses, the moon in the first stage of its renewal. And he goes, the tradition, therefore, is this stage of renewal shall be the moment of the beginning of the months. There’s something here about beginnings. There’s something here about this ability to renew oneself. And it all comes, it’s starting to color in and reflect this concept of not only is this something that relates only to the calendar, it might have something to do with the Exodus itself. And before you comment, I have to make one kind of admission that I was thinking this week to find a correlation between all the astrology that we came across in the book of Genesis and Exodus, which starts with the astrologers not being able to interpret Pharaoh’s dream of seven good years and bad years. And all of a sudden Joseph coming and doing that the astrologers couldn’t do. And then we have the astrologers who are trying to mimic the plagues and the tricks, so to speak, of Moses. And then we have the astrologers who predict the birth of the savior of the Jews, Moses, and therefore determine that all the firstborn should be killed. I was trying to see kind of a contrast, a departure here, that the Jews were, in a sense, rejecting a little bit of the set rules of astrology and Looking at the moon, didn’t find anything. I’m curious to know what you’re thinking.

Adam Mintz: I mean, I think that’s very good. It seems to be, from the way the Torah presents it, as if this is a big innovation, right? The Torah presents it like, wow, we’re going to declare the month based on the moon and our whole calendar is going to be based on the moon. That seems to be a big deal. Doesn’t.

Geoffrey Stern: Certainly does. There is this sense of renewal, There is this sense of something fresh. There is this correlation that the first Rashi in Genesis kind of triggers, which that was the creation. And this is the creation. This is the beginning of this amazing journey. And Cassuto, who I just love that Sefaria has used him. I do have to provide my own translation.

Adam Mintz: I was going to say, I’m surprised they translated. That’s great that you translated.

Geoffrey Stern: So he’s lyrical. What he says is. And he follows a little bit on the higher biblical critics who make a distinction between the few verses that we just read, a whole bunch of body that lies in between, which talks about the Exodus, the passover of the Exodus, and then goes back to the Exodus of the generations. What we just heard a second ago, Rabbi, was not only for the people of the Exodus, the moment in Egypt when the slaves were freed, it was forever. And what he says is, this is a momentous change in paradigm. He says, after the end of the previous episode comes a break. And after the pause, as mentioned in the description of events change, the story takes on a new form. Pharaoh is forgotten, his servants are forgotten. Pharaoh’s palace and the entire environment where which we stood during the entire previous episode seem to have disappeared before our eyes. The center of the plot is now in the midst of the people of Israel. And the commands given to Moses and Aaron are directed towards the people of Israel. This is people pointed. And whatever needs to be done towards Pharaoh, God’s going to take care of it. They, Moses and Aaron have nothing but to take care of their people. And the first command given to them is the command to prepare for the day of the redemption, which will come soon on the one of the first months of the year. This is the beginning of a new period in people’s lives. So he really is almost leaving.

Adam Mintz: This is a remarkable Cassuto.

Geoffrey Stern: It’s poetic. I never saw him to be so poetic, but really, really great. It’s a new chapter. It’s a mind change all of a sudden. So what happens is after we skip the in between verses that talk about the exact requirements for that particular passover, the passover of those people who were being redeemed. It comes back to the Yetziat Mitzrayim. shel hadorot wrote, Moses said to the people in verse 13:3, remember this day in mind on which you went out from Egypt from the house of serfs, for by the strength of God brought you out from here. No, Chametz, no fermentation is to be eaten. He says, today you are going out in the month of Aviv, which Fox correctly translates as not spring, but a particular aspect of spring. This grain, this first grain to blossom. And what’s important here is that all of a sudden, Hayoma tem yotzim bechodesh Aviva, before it said, you have to keep this month, and this is the month of the Exodus. Now you have to follow the Chodesh, the lunar calendar. Now it adds something more. And now it says, but even though you follow the lunar calendar, it has to be linked to the time when the barley blossoms. And this, Rabbi, is where things start to get complicated. Because up until this point, we could have easily said we were going to have a lunar calendar. But guess what? Lunar calendars need to be corrected. Because if, as Islam, as we’ll see in a second, you have a strictly lunar calendar, Ramadan can happen any month of the year. If you have a solar calendar, Christmas is always going to be December 25th. If you have a lunar calendar, we get into the old question of are the holidays early this year or are they late this year? It has to be fixed.

Adam Mintz: So let me just say that the Chodesh Aviv introduces. Of course, you’re right, and that’s going to be fascinating about the calendar, but it introduces the agricultural feature means, you know, the. The idea that we left Egypt during the spring somehow was important as we go forward in terms of the agricultural connection.

Geoffrey Stern: Absolutely. And of course, in prior years, when we’ve looked at the kibbutzim haggadot, they really emphasize the spring, seasonable and agricultural part of this. But here I had never realized that Aviv doesn’t really mean spring. It’s so linked to agriculture. It has to do with the first blossoming of barley.

Adam Mintz: And I think that’s in the Torah. The fact that the word Aviv means that I think is from the Torah somewhere. So that point is really good. By Fox.

Geoffrey Stern: Absolutely. And so one of the things that Rashi brings that is linked to this is that this is not a coincidence. The idea in the rabbinic texts is She hu Kashar l’tzeit that this time of spring is actually connected. It is fitted for this redemption. So, again, along with Cassuto and along with what Rashi said earlier about seeing it, not necessarily seeing the moon, but seeing the renewal of the moon, everything here is about renewal. It’s starting to fill in the blanks quite nicely.

Adam Mintz: Fantastic. I just want to say you need that, Rashi, because otherwise it seems kind of random that you have to go out in the spring. Why don’t we have a calendar like the Muslims? So Rashi is kind of sensitive to that.

Geoffrey Stern: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And just to give you. And again, I always say this when we do our podcasts, there are. Sefaria notes that go along with our podcast that have all these texts in full length. We just quote a little bit from them. So the Rabbeinu Bachaya actually says something that’s fascinating for our liturgy. And he says that the blessing that we say is Mekadesh Yisrael VeHazmanim, we bless Israel and its timing v’lo haMoadim and not the festivals. In other words, what takes precedent is you can’t have Passover without the season of the spring. You can’t have Sukkot without the season of the harvest. It’s the season that comes first. It’s the calendar that comes first. I would venture to say that in the eyes of the rabbis, in the eyes of the text itself, what we’re seeing is the radicalization of this lunar calendar that’s being introduced here. It really is packed and pregnant with meaning about renewal, about seasons, about the change of history, if you will.

Adam Mintz: Yeah, no, I mean, that’s really good. Let’s just think about that for a minute. I never thought about it, but Mikadesh Yisrael v’hazmanim That’s not really correct because we say Mikadesh Hashabbat. It should be Mikadesh Yisrael V’hamoadim ha’moadot So hazmanim the importance of time. That’s a very, very good point by Rabenu Bachaya. I like it.

Geoffrey Stern: Yeah, yeah, fascinating. But it’s even more fascinating in the context of the discussion that we’re having, because we’re talking about time and we’re talking about calandrical time. So, of course, the cornerstone of the last verse that we need is in Leviticus, where it says, Elu Moadei hashem. These are the set times of God, the sacred occasions where you shall celebrate at its appointed time. So if there was ever any question that this lunar calendar had to be calibrated so that even though it misses 10 days every year, it will be calibrated. So Passover is always in the spring. This is explicit requirement that our calendar calibrates itself. And of course, we had some of this when we were looking at Genesis. In Genesis 1, we actually mentioned this where it says, God said, let there be light in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night. They shall serve as signs for the set times, the days and the years. It was clear that the sun and the moon, both of them, were going to be used in calibrating holidays and serving as signs for mankind to kind of go through the cycle of life.

Adam Mintz: Just take one second on that. And that is that you see that this idea of the moon and the holiday days goes back to breishit, goes back to creation. You know, that’s a little trick that the Torah plays, and that is that everything is found in creation. God doesn’t change things. God just allow, you know, kind of pulled out from creation at different points in history. The Mishnah in Pirkeo Avot talks about the talk. This is out. Out of context a little bit, but he talked about the. The talking donkey. Like, where’s the talking donkey? We never had a talking donkey. He says that also was created at the time of creation, and God kind of pulled it out of creation. So here too, Genesis 1:14, and now finally in chapter 12, God takes it out. That’s very good.

Geoffrey Stern: Look, it’s a general statement. It was the world that people lived in. They didn’t take out their calendar, they didn’t look on their watch. It was derived from nature, from the stars. And so I think even at the most basic level, what it’s saying is ancient man, but the Jews were no exception. Looked up to the stars, looked up to the moon. I mean, I think the word for month is chodesh, which definitely comes from renewal, which the scholars argue argues against a solar system where you don’t really have renewal, you have cyclicality. And then the other word for month is yerech. Yerech means moon. So you can make a compelling case that the core of the Israelite calendar was the moon. But nonetheless, we’re going to see that the sun enters into it. So I think what we need to share now is what is absolutely unique about the way the Jews counted the months. And we noticed a little bit before that some of the commentaries focus on the fact that when in our Parasha, God said to Moses, it’s the new moon, he said Hazeh, he was like pointing to the moon. And the way our tradition took that is, that the new moon is something not to be calculated, but is to be seen by witnesses. Witnesses were to go out. I would argue that this is the humanizing of the calendar, that the calendar was dependent on society and members of the society. But the way the rabbis took that really made that concept that I just said on steroids. Because what they said was, is even if you have a witness who comes in. And in the case of the Talmud, in Rosh Hashanah, where witnesses come in and they say, we saw the moon at its earliest phase on Monday, and then on Tuesday, they come in and say, we didn’t see it today in the same phase. And what the Talmud says is. What they’re saying is scientifically unacceptable. And so these witnesses should be rejected. The example they give is to say about a woman that she gave birth on Monday, and then you look at her and her belly is between her teeth. On Tuesday, it’s clear that she’s still pregnant. And what Rabban Gamliel did, and he was the Nasi, he was in charge, he says, we don’t follow science in this regard. We’re not that interested. In fact, we’re much more interested in the process. And so he said, the new moon will be when these witnesses determined it would be. And Rabbi Joshua came and argued with him. And the famous story is that he told Rabbi Joshua, I want you to come to me on the day according to which you believe Yom Kippur is. And I want you to have your staff in hand, which is not permitted on Yom Kippur. I want you to walk to me and desecrate what you believe to be Yom Kippur. And the idea is that it was more important, this process of man and society seeing when they believed the moon was in its phase than what was in reality. And what Rabbi Akiva did to calm down this Rabbi Joshua is literally talk about this verse from Leviticus that we just mentioned. And he says, these are the appointed seasons of the Lord. He says, whether they are declared them or not at the right time is not important. It’s when they are appointed. And I think this is one of the radical aspects of the way that Jewish and rabbinic tradition took this concept of declaring the new moon.

Adam Mintz: Yeah. Now let me ask you a question. Why do you think you did a very good job in summarizing that story about Yom Kippur? Why do you think there’s a need for that story about Yom Kippur?

Geoffrey Stern: Because I think what we’re going to see is that the alternatives to the Israelite calendar were calendars that were trying to be perfect. We are going to see and we might as well move to this right away. In the Dead Sea Scrolls they found something called the Book of Jubilees. And of course, Jubilees we know, is something that’s calendrical. It has to do with the calendar. And it’s clear that there was at least part of the sect and part of the reason the Essenes broke away from Rabbinic Jews is they believed that the year was 364 days. Interesting. Not 365. 364. And they say that the reason that that is so important, in other words, a solar year is so important, is that everything will fall in according to the way it’s supposed to be. And they looked at the rabbis and a story like the one we just heard and they said they are disturbing the feasts. They went on to say, for I know for henceforth shall declare it unto them is not of my own devising. In other words, we can’t make up a calendar. We can’t decide when a month begins. For the book that is written before me is on the heavenly tables. The divisions of days is ordained. And what they are saying is that any calendar that can be adjusted by man, and I think that we saw in that story of Rabbi Akiva and Joshua, cannot be pure, cannot be holy, cannot survive within a religious context. And I’ll quote one of the scholars who talks about it, is they were looking at time in heaven is precise and unchanging, a heavenly based system. And it’s interesting, Rabbi, why they wanted 364, because 364 is actually divisible so that every date in the calendar is therefore can be assigned a specific day. 91, 13 weeks of seven days. It all was perfect.

Adam Mintz: Now, you know that, Geoffrey, right? You know that from your birthday. If your birthday this year is on a Monday, next year it’s going to be on a Tuesday. It’s one day off. I just want to say one thing, and that is we’re coming to the end. So before you finish this up, I just want to say one thing. And that is, of course, the argument between the rabbis and the Essenes and the book of Jubilees is whether or not the calendar should be man made or God made. We believe that man, that the Oral Torah is man’s contribution. That’s why the calendar is so important, because it’s man’s contribution. But they didn’t believe that. They wanted everything to come from God.

Geoffrey Stern: And to show you that this was not me in 2025, presupposing what other people thought of the Jewish calendar, the Islamic calendar goes in the opposite direction. It follows a purely, and I emphasize the word pure, purely lunar calendar. And they say a calendar that can be adjusted to address the marketing season, to address the harvesting season. They call it Al Nasi. And most scholars believe that al nasi is literally referring to the rabbinic calendar where the nasi determined. So I think what you have to understand is the Jewish calendar was redical,, but it was radical and self understood to be radical. Radical and understood by its neighboring religions and cultures to be radical. And at the end of the day, I think we live in a society where people believe they have facts and they dive into their facts. And anyone who believes in their facts are correct and anyone else is a heretic, is a liar, is a criminal. And I think that’s how you could look at perfect calendars, whether it’s lunar or solar. And I think what the radical context of what the Israelite and later Jewish calendar was saying was just calm down. We can have a calendar that is imperfect because humanity is imperfect. And dare I say the world is imperfect. We might not understand our God created world as being imperfect, but it is so. And that the importance of the message for liberation is that society. And that’s why this Cassuto was so beautiful when he says we are switching gears here and now we’re talking about not miracles and not politics. We’re talking about society and the calendar and the time that they will make work. And I think it’s a radical message.

Adam Mintz: It’s great. This is amazing. I’m going to share it this week in Melbourne at the shul. This is a great message about the calendar, about what the Torah comes to say. Fantastic. Shabbat Shalom, everybody. This was really, really good this week. Next week we’ll both be back on the east coast in New York. Kind of boring, but we will continue learning Parshat B’shalach. Be well, everybody.

Geoffrey Stern: Shabbat Shalom.