A version of this sermon was delivered on Friday, March 16 at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow.
Happy New Year!
I know, it’s not Rosh HaShanah or January 1, or even Tu BiShevat, but according to the Torah, today, Rosh Chodesh Nisan, when there’s no moon in
the sky, is the first day of the first of the months. During this month, in 14 days’ time, we will
celebrate Passover. And the special
Shabbat we celebrate tonight and tomorrow, known as Shabbat haChodesh, the
Shabbat of The Month emphasizes the importance of this New Year ’s Day. Each year on the Jewish calendar, the Shabbat
preceding the first of the month of Nisan gets this special treatment. It just so happens that this year, the first
of the month falls on Shabbat. So, again, Happy
New Year!
Now a question, Mah nishtanah ha Shabbat ha-zeh mikol hashabbatot? Why is this Shabbat different than all other
Shabbats? Well, on all other Sabbaths,
we read our Torah portion, but on this Sabbath, traditionally, in addition to
our weekly Torah reading from Vayikra, the first verses of the book of
Leviticus, we also would read 20 verses from chapter 12 of the book of Exodus
where God commands Moses and Aaron to tell the people that this month is to be
the first month of the year. [Don’t worry,
Josh, we’re not asking you to learn any more Torah for your Bar Mitzvah at the last minute; I’m only
going to talk about it tonight.] We read
in these 20 verses from Exodus, the basic rules for Passover. It’s like a Rabbinically programmed reminder
popping up on your smartphone: Ding! Passover is coming soon. Ding! Remember
don’t eat leaven for 7 days. Ding! Don’t
forget to prepare your lamb for the sacrifice. Ding! Don’t
forget to get yourself ready for the freedom that is imminently at hand.
So, as we begin this new month, this
first of the months, we recognize that our calendar begins with a call from God
to get ready for freedom. Our new year
begins with a sense that God’s redemption is close at hand, but requires our
participation. Our year starts with
preparation for an intimate encounter with God. The message of the call,
therefore, is much more than it seems on its face: “This month shall mark for
you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the
year for you.”[1]
It’s especially fitting when
this special Shabbat HaChodesh falls on the week we read from the first verses
of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah which outlines primarily the
sacrificial system among other laws.
This confluence of Torah and Shabbat HaChodesh won’t happen again until
the year 2029 or 5789, for those keeping count. Like the verses
from Exodus which are traditionally read for the special Shabbat, this week, we
read of a call from God to Moses, and a call which has underneath it a lot more
than it may seem at first glance. Like
the call to Moses and Aaron announcing the new month, this week’s Torah reading
begins with God calling out to Moses, but in a special way.
וַיִּקְרָ֖א אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יי אֵלָ֔יו
מֵאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵ֖ד לֵאמֹֽר׃
“The Eternal called
to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying...” (Lev. 1:1) The first word, Vayikra is important, and
worth mentioning. Whereas many times in
the Torah God calls to Moses or Moses and Aaron the use of Vayikra
emphasizes a special call, a call of divine purpose. Rashi teaches us that, “The word Vayikra
precedes all [Divine] commandments and statements, which is a term of
endearment used by the heavenly angels.”[2] Here, Rashi points out that the Angels in
heaven also use this term when calling out to one another, as we hear in our Kedushah prayer, thus emphasizing the special nature of this word.
But Rashi also teaches that this
moment, the Vayikra moment for Moses, was special. No one else heard this call from God, just Moses. It
allowed Moses a personal moment with God before he was then told what he needed
to focus on in terms of the sacrifices.
As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, the literal translation of the verse
seems to be redundant in terms of God’s speaking to Moses: “[God] called to
Moses, and God spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying …” Why does the Torah need to tell us that God
called to Moses and then God spoke to Moses? Sacks answers: “God’s call to
Moses was something prior to and different from what God went on to say. The
latter were the details. The former was the summons, the mission – not unlike
God’s first call to Moses at the burning bush where [God] invited him to
undertake the task that would define his life: leading the people out of exile
and slavery to freedom in the Promised Land.”[3]
This is an important notion in
Judaism: a call before the details.
Judaism has always been a religion that focused on a sense of being
divinely called to perform commandments, and act ethically in the world. It is that pull inside of us which draws us
to the side of good and right, and the side of compassion and consideration
rather than the alternative. The call
comes from within, but that piece within us is divine. Like the Vayikra in our portion that only
Moses could hear, only we can hear the divine voice in our souls calling us to
goodness and chessed, lovingkindness.
We all can hear the call from God,
the call to action, the call to make things better. Without the call, the drive from deep within
our soul, the details of creating a Divinely-inspired existence on Earth cannot
come to be.
This week, and in the last few
weeks, it has been wonderful and moving to see so many young people across
this nation answering a call, as they walk out of their classrooms and schools
to protest the violence in their schools and in our nation, and the sacrifice of their safety
that our politicians have made in order to appease the gun lobby and
manufacturers. These young people have
started a movement for change that seemed impossible just a month ago. Whether
they feel they are called by God or not, they are answering a drive deep within
themselves to demand change, to demand that the nation live up to its ideals of
life, liberty, and pursuing happiness.
They rightly claim that they are being denied their right to life in
order to ensure others’ rights to guns.
These young people are showing, and
will again on March 24 as they March For Their Lives, the greatness in America,
that people can feel compelled and called to demand a change for the better, and then use
their voice, their feet, and their vote to work to make it happen.
For the first time in a long time, many feel
like the tide has begun to turn on this issue.
It frustratingly didn’t happen after Sandy Hook. It didn’t happen after the Pulse or Las Vegas
Massacres or after Charleston, or any of the others for which we have mourned and wrung our hands. But now, a wave of change
seems afoot. New laws restricting gun
access are being passed. More people
than ever are engaging in the issue. We can attribute this shift to many reasons; among them, we see within
these young people a drive to say out loud that the way of the world, the way of allowing all these guns, is not ok with
them.
The nation was crying out for
someone to answer the call. We adults
had seemingly given up. We adults had
given in. We had been beaten down. “Who will I send? Who will go for me?” God demands in the book of Isaiah. And Isaiah answers the call: “Here I am, send
me!”[4] These young people, thank God, the March for Our Lives
movement, the #NeverAgain movement, have stood up and responded like the prophet when the adults around them did not. Here we are! Send us!
We didn’t answer the call previously. Now, they are leading the way. They need our support. They need our prayers. They need our feet marching alongside
them. I will be with them in Westbury on
the afternoon of the 24th.
You are welcome to join me.
Our support can commence by hearing
the divine call within our souls.
Listen…Vayikra, and God will call us to do the right thing. Listen…Vayikra, and God will call us to
compassion, to justice, to life.
Listen…Vayikra, and God calls out to us, reminding us that we know what
we need to do. We just need the will.
May the divine call give us that will. May this New Year of our freedom beginning
tonight be filled with our hearing God’s call.
May it be filled with the freedom to live without fear in our schools, at our concerts, our movie theaters, our places of worship, and our dance
clubs. May we hear God’s call and
respond, and work to make this year a year of peace and of life.
Shabbat
Shalom and Happy New Year!
