The Moon’s Journey1 min read

“This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.”

In parshas Bo, the Jewish nation receives their very first mitzvah: to sanctify the new moon in its return to fullness. While the calendar of the world follows the sun, the Jewish nation marks time using a lunar calendar which follows the moon. This points to a deep and inherent bond between our holy nation and the nature of the moon. Indeed, the tzaddikim spend many pages discussing this relationship. Here, we will focus here on two basic ideas.

Firstly, unlike the sun which has a light of its own, the moon merely reflects the light of the sun, thus rendering it accessible to the world. Our holy nation is tasked with a similar function. The brilliant and transformative light of faith contained within the Torah and mitzvos is beyond the world’s current capacity to grasp. Our task is to inculcate this tremendous light through our avodah and transmit it to the world via the elevated behavior, moral standards, and quality of life that flourish as a direct result of healthy involvement with the Torah.

Secondly, while the sun shines with equal and uninterrupted brightness, the moon isn’t static; it constantly undergoes an erratic cycle of growing and shrinking, rising and falling. In the same way, our holy nation has experienced the exile-redemption roller-coaster throughout the centuries, constantly rising and falling to again rise once more.

On an individual level, every true oveid Hashem experiences this pattern as well; times of closeness and times of distance, ups and downs, running and returning. Instead of bemoaning this model, we are mikadeish the levanah, we sanctify the dynamic journey toward closeness with our Source. Ultimately, as Yeshaya prophesied, “The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun,” we will soon merit individual and communal stability in d’veikus for all eternity with the coming of Moshiach, speedily and in our days!