החודש הזה לכם ראש חדשים
“This month will be to you the first of months”
The first Mitzvah given to the Jewish people while they were still in Egypt, was a directive to the Beis Din to sanctify the new moon and determine the months of the calendar.
Why this was chosen as the first Mitzvah. Surely Mitzvos such as belief in Hashem and the Oneness of Hashem would have been more appropriate.
Our calendar is based on the cycle of the moon. The word Chodesh used for month, comes from the word Chadash, new. The renewal of the moon known as the Molad (birth), when the first crescent reemerges, marks the start of each month.
The Sfas Emes explains the centrality of this Mitzvah. The verse can be read as "this renewal (Chodesh) shall be to you". The Mitzvah exhorts us to emulate the moon and its newness. Our sages teach that the Jewish people count by the moon because we resemble the moon.
In Torah law, after a lapse of 30 days something becomes old, static and status-quo. For example the blessings recited on seeing certain things such as the ocean, or a friend, are only said if one has not seen them in the last 30 days.
The Molad – the birth of the new moon, takes place every 29 days, 12 hours and 793 parts of an hour. The moon is in a constant cycle of renewal, never reaching a state of inertia represented once the 30 day threshold is crossed.
Complacency is the ultimate form of slavery, one which is not imposed upon us by others but self-inflicted. Like the moon, Hashem is telling us that to live as Jews and to experience true freedom, we must be like the moon, the perpetual born-again, exercising our choice to supersede the constraints of stagnancy.
