Rosh Chodesh celebrates the start of the new month. When the Temple stood, some people marked the sanctity of the day, and its special Temple sacrifices, by refraining from certain sorts of work. After the destruction of the Temple, some women still have that custom. Men don’t.
What’s the reason for this ongoing connection between women and Rosh Chodesh? Each month, the moon waxes and wanes; moving from receptivity to the light of the sun, to a moment of darkness, and back again. The ovulation and menstrual cycle echoes the moon, moving from receptivity to infertility, and back again.
Rabbi Chayim Vital suggests the relationship between Rosh Chodesh and women is a function of the relationship between the moon, the month, and the ovulation-mensuration cycle. But why does the moon, and the female reproduction system, wax and wane? Why couldn’t the light of the moon, and the fertility of women, have been constant?
The book of Genesis tells us that God created two great luminaries (1:16). Only then does it describe one of them as big and the other one as small. Initially, there were going to be two equal luminaries in the sky; and then God seemingly changed His mind, opting for a great big sun and a much smaller moon.
Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi explains: the moon approached God and complained. The sky was only big enough for one great luminary. God agreed and chose to demote the upstart moon. But, in the end, God felt so bad about what He’d done to the moon that each Rosh Chodesh, He would bring a sin offering to atone for it (Tractate Chullin 60a).
Did the rabbis really believe that the moon used to be a star like the sun? Did they really believe that God was a sinner; that He wronged the moon and needed atonement? No. The story must be a symbol. It needs decoding.
Judaism is a messianic religion. It believes that the best is yet to come. In the end of days, “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun” (Isaiah 30:26). In the meantime, the world is less than perfect.
It had to be. A perfect world would need no improvement. But a world without the possibility of improvement would be a world without the possibility of human growth; a world without the possibility of human partnership with God. We could certainly enjoy life in such a world, but we couldn’t be a part of improving and building it. Creatures that take part in their own perfection, earning their future reward, are better off in the end. And thus, paradoxically, a world that started out perfect wouldn’t be perfect at all. The philosopher, Saul Smilansky, calls this the paradox of fortunate misfortune.
Accordingly, a perfect God has to create a world that falls short. This is symbolised by God’s diminishing the moon. Rabbi Soloveitchick explains: “The creator of the world diminished the image and stature of creation in order to leave something for man, the work of His hands, to do, in order to adorn man with the crown of [co-]creator and maker.”
Cast in this light, there is something very dark about Rosh Chodesh, a day of atonement for God. The first high priest, Aaron, refused to eat the first Rosh Chodesh sacrifice. Moses was furious until Aaron reminded him that he was still a grieving father; Aaron’s two sons had only recently died (Leviticus 10:16-20). Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner explains: when people are suffering they have a right to be angry with God. God wants to atone, each month, for the fact that He couldn’t create a perfect world. But Aaron didn’t want to eat His sacrifice. He was still grieving; still angry.
Moses was silenced in the face of Aaron’s grief because anger against God is sometimes appropriate. If we resign ourselves to pain and suffering, then we forget that the world needs to be repaired. If it’s a choice between anger or apathy, then God prefers our anger.
The world’s imperfection is sometimes a cause for legitimate complaint, but it’s also calls for celebration. We even praise God, in our benediction after a snack, for “creating many living beings and their privations”. In other words: we thank Him for the fact that we lack certain things. This gives rise to hunger. Without hunger we wouldn’t strive to feed ourselves and the world.
The ultimate perfection of reality will come about through our efforts. Rosh Chodesh celebrates this fact. God has given us a lofty and valuable role to play.
Rosh Chodesh is associated with womanhood because women are more directly connected to the process of birth and rebirth; a process in which God makes space for humanity to be His co-creators. The themes of darkness, light, creation, and rededication, are never so pronounced as on a Rosh Chodesh that falls at once on a Shabbat (which commemorates the creation of the world) and on Chanukah (which celebrates the rededication of the Temple and the victory of light over darkness).
May the renewal of the moon this month inspire us to renew our dedication to the creation of holiness in our communities and justice in the world.
Rabbi Dr Lebens will be speaking at this month’s Limmud Festival where his topics include how far did the rabbis agree with Karl Marx
