by Rabbi Richard Hirsh

April 03, 2008

In Jewish tradition, each Shabbat carries with it a burst of spiritual energy that is celebrated in the rabbinic concept that each Jew receives on Friday evening a neshama yetira, an additional soul with which to enjoy Shabbat.

Sometimes, the circumstances of the calendar result in an elevation of Shabbat even beyond its normal sanctity. In addition to the regular Torah portion, Tazria, this Shabbat is also Shabbat Hahodesh, the Shabbat that offers the Torah overture to the coming festival of Pesach through an additional Torah reading. And Rosh Hodesh Nisan, the first day of the new month of Nisan, begins at sunset Saturday evening, making this a spiritually supercharged weekend.

Despite the liturgical overload and the disparate nature of the events being celebrated, there is a theme common to the Torah portion, Shabbat Hahodesh, and Rosh Hodesh.

The Torah portion, Tazria, begins with a discussion of childbirth and the postpartum rituals of purification. While the classifications and rituals are largely archaic, the mythic wisdom embodied in the ancient Israelite system signifies the importance attached to the mystery of birth.

Our ancestors were not nearly as naive about matters of conception, gestation, and childbirth as we once presumed from our vantage point as educated moderns. They understood that the moment of birth creates a new history (that of a new life) even as it changes history, that of the life of the family into which a child is born.

Contemporary Jews chafe at the idea that childbirth renders a woman ritually impure — and cringe at the differentiation between the duration of impurity following the birth of a son (33 days) and a daughter (66). Nonetheless, we discern in this description an awareness that the celebration of the new always carries with it a concern about the future. Opportunity and anxiety often go hand in hand.

The second Torah reading again articulates the imagery of birth, albeit in a distinctive manner. The beginning of the third Torah reading states: “This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” (Exodus 12:2) To grasp the significance of the verse, we recall that it is spoken by God to the Israelites in Egypt on the eve of the 10th plague. The people are about to experience the long-awaited deliverance from slavery, and the beginning of the redemption is the redefining of time itself. Not the Egyptian calendar, but the new Israelite calendar shall determine the beginning of this people.

The month of Nisan is the month of birth and rebirth. Historically, it is the month in which the Israelite people are born as they leave Egypt and are delivered through the watery passage at the Red Sea. Seasonally, it is the time when winter recedes and rebirth begins, as vegetation begins to sprout. As Tazria speaks of childbirth, so Shabbat Hahodesh speaks of the birth of am Yisrael, the people of Israel.

And beginning at the end of Shabbat, we celebrate the new moon/month of Nisan. The Jewish calendar is a combined lunar/solar calendar, with the primary indicator of the counting of the months being the cycle of the moon. Each Rosh Hodesh is, in effect, the birth of the moon and the birth of the month.

It is hardly likely to be a coincidence that Rosh Hodesh has for generations been a special time of observance for Jewish women. The congruence between the monthly moon cycle and the monthly fertility cycle both speak of conception, gestation, and birth. As the moon waxes and wanes, so does the cycle of monthly fertility. In the reappearance, growing fullness, and eventual contraction of the moon we find a metaphor for the monthly possibilities of creation.

Each moment of birth — personal, celestial, and corporate — carries with it a sense of unlimited possibility and new opportunity. It is a time of celebration and expectation. But it is also a time of apprehension: Will the child thrive and prosper? Will the month bring security and blessing? Will the Israelites survive the trek to freedom?

In the prayer announcing the coming of the new moon we say: “May the One who worked miracles for our ancestors and redeemed them from servitude to freedom continue to redeem us…. May it be your will, Eternal One…that You renew for us this month for goodness and for blessing.”

As we celebrate this Shabbat, we too voice the hope that all moments of birth and rebirth will be blessed with the opportunity to grow to fulfillment, and that “the blessed Holy One will renew this month for life and peace, for joy and happiness, for salvation and rest.”

Richard Hirsh is executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Wyncote, Pa.

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