Shabbat Shalom

As I sat down to write this d’var, I was struck by how much our calendar informs the extraordinary moment we find ourselves in, with the end of the war and release of the remaining living hostages. It’s a bit of a winding road so bear with me!

On the calendar- we have officially made it through the High Holiday season! We concluded the season on Tuesday with celebration of Simchat Torah- the day on which we restart the Torah reading cycle, by reading the final verses of Deuteronomy and then shifting immediately to the first few verses of Genesis. And this Shabbat, we read Bereshit “In the Beginning” in full. This Shabbat is a liturgical new beginning, and we mark it by telling the story of the ultimate new beginning- the creation of the universe and everything within it. 

Why would the liturgical new beginning come now? Why not on Rosh Hashanah, a new year? Well, when we dive a little deeper in the historic Jewish calendar, we find that Jews love new beginnings so much that we actually have 4 new years. 

For Jews of the biblical world, the first month of the year was Nisan- the month in which we celebrate Passover. It makes sense that in the ancient world, an agricultural society, they started the new year in the spring. Similarly, the 3 harvest festivals- Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot- were celebrated in that order. 

Later on, the holidays also took on new significance, commemorating important moments from the Torah- the Exodus, the reception of Torah, and the wandering in the wilderness. The Rabbis of the Mishnah, decided to keep the harvest order. The 1st day of Nisan is the New Year for the festivals. So even today, even though Sukkot is celebrated after Rosh Hashanah, it is the last festival holiday, the conclusion of last year’s festivals. We have just emerged from a moment in which Jewish time collides with itself and endings and beginnings overlap.

Then, the Rabbis of the Mishnah declared a second New Year- the 1st of Elul, the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah. This is the New Year for animal tithing. Since the destruction of the Temple and the end of animal sacrifice, this new year is not observed anymore.

Then we come to the big one that we all know- the 1st of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is not a big deal yet in the world of the Torah. It’s merely listed as a sacred day of rest and shofar blowing that occurs 10 days before Yom Kippur. It’s the Rabbis of the Mishnah, many centuries later, who declare this day to be a New Year for years. It’s a calculation of the time that has elapsed since the creation of the world. It’s used to date the age of the land itself. It’s the universal marker of time.

Finally, we have the 15th of Shevat or Tu B'Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, when fruit is just beginning to sprout on the trees in Israel. 

So, in summary, there are 4 distinct Jewish new beginnings:

-The 1st of Nisan: the New Year for the festivals

-The 1st of Elul: the New Year for tithing animals

-The 1st of Tishrei: the New Year of years

-The 15th of Shevat: the New Year of the trees

And the liturgical new beginning, the restart of Torah reading, coincides with none of them. Today is its own, separate new beginning. It doesn’t even overlap with Shavuot, the holiday that transformed from a harvest festival to a commemoration of receiving Torah. Why are we starting this particular new beginning now?

In the words of Reb Tevye, “You may ask: how did this tradition get started? I’ll tell you… I don’t know.” We really don’t know. Rabbi Gropper and I poured over some books on Wednesday and we don’t have a clear answer for how Simchat Torah came to be the day we start the Torah over. However Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld suggests a spiritual reason that I think is instructive for us. He notes, indeed, Shavuot is the commemoration of Moses coming down the mountain with the first tablets containing the 10 Commandments. But when Moses came down to the foot of the mountain, he saw the Israelites worshipping an idol and he smashed the tablets. Shavuot is the commemoration of our initial reception of Torah, but we didn’t keep it. We didn’t earn it. We can’t start reading Torah anew on Shavuot.

Moses descends again with a new set of tablets on the 10th of Tishrei- Yom Kippur, the day on which we repent our wrong doings and recommit to keeping the teachings and ways of Torah. But we don’t start reading Torah again on Yom Kippur.

It takes time to settle into that repair work, into that newfound closeness with God. We take 8 days to sit in our sukkot, to surround ourselves with nature, to gaze up at the stars, to shake the lulav and etrog in every direction, reminding us that God is all around. We let that repair work sink in. Then, we restart the reading cycle. Internal, spiritual work that allows us to accept the Torah’s teaching, is hard to calendar. It doesn’t occur on the dot. We need time and space to take in the lessons of the calendar and of the Torah, so we’ve given it to ourselves.

So, in the end, the cycle of Jewish life is not a simple, singular circle. The Jewish lifecycle looks like a clock. The four new years are the major quarters- 3, 6, 9, and 12, marking large-scale new beginnings. The many holidays are like the dashes in between those big numbers, each marking some kind of new beginning for the Jewish people throughout history and place.

The liturgical cycle is like the hour hand. It doesn’t always line up perfectly with the dashes, but it makes its way around, telling us the time, although sometimes we have to put in some study to see where the hour hand is pointing. 

And each of us, as individuals, are sitting on the minute hand. A special minute hand. This minute hand is not a straight stick, but a curly Q. It makes its way around the clock in a squiggle. Each of us is constantly undergoing a cycle of awe and reception, mistake and loss, repentance and recommitment, reflective indwelling, and starting anew. 

Which brings us back to this moment. We will need to tightly embrace that squiggling, non-simple cycle more than ever in the coming weeks, and months, and years. Because we are standing on the precipice of an extraordinary and complicated new beginning. The ceasefire and return of the remaining living hostages has brought a kind of relief and hope that I can’t quite put into words. It’s another new beginning- for Israel, for the Jewish world. We need to take time to sit in and soak up that relief and hope. It’s essential.

But, we mustn't lull ourselves into thinking that the path forward from here will be straight-forward nor a simple, singular circle. There is major repair work to be done:

There is physical repair: feeding the children and hostages who are sick and malnourished. Repairing the many Israeli homes that have been badly damaged by rocket fire. Gaza is mostly rubble.

There is political repair: Gaza needs a government that respects the sanctity and dignity of all human beings, most certainly including Israelis and Jews. The State of Israel is going to have to repair its relationships with the rest of the world.

There is psychological repair: those who are burying loved ones will have to go through the long, hard process of mourning and grief. The hostages will need intensive treatment for trauma. The entire nation will need to finally process the endless fear and instability of the last two years that will likely have lasting ramifications.

There is spiritual repair: The Jewish people have never been more divided in living memory. The question of who we are is no longer simple. 

None of this repair work will be easy and things will not simply return to how they were on October 6th, 2023. This repair work may well extend beyond any of us in this room. I don’t know any specifics of what the future holds, but it will definitely feature many moments of hope and joy and defeat and fear overlapping; ends and beginnings colliding. We’ll have to hold both.

This week, we’ll read how unformed chaos was the setting for new beginnings- new beginnings that God repeatedly labels “good.” Not perfect, not complete, but good. Essentially good, good enough to build upon. That’s our work. And when the work seems futile, and we’re struggling to see that good, we must remember that Jewish life is a curly Q. It dips down, but it circles back up too. Let’s give thanks for this moment of upswing- the return of hostages and end of war.

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, matir asurim. Blessed are You, God, who frees the captives.

Shabbat Shalom