January 10, 2008
Defining the boundaries of time and establishing the rhythm of the calendar are prerogatives of power. Enslaved people have their time determined by those who rule over them; liberated people define their time on their own terms.
This week’s Torah portion, which narrates the conclusion of the Ten Plagues and witnesses the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, reflects this concern with the calendar: “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” (Exodus 12:1-2)
Among the remarkable occurrences that attend upon the Exodus, this simple yet powerful gesture of redefining time as a consequence of liberation is among the most significant. Writing in his current commentary on Exodus, Professor Nahum Sarna suggests “the impending Exodus is visualized as the start of a wholly new order of life that is to be dominated by the consciousness of God’s active presence in history. The entire religious calendar of Israel is henceforth to reflect this reality by numbering the months of the year from the month of the Exodus.”
It is notable that this declaration regarding time comes from God to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, rather than after the Exodus. Put differently, the end of Israelite enslavement begins not with the redefinition of space — leaving Egypt — but with the redefinition of time. Even before they have departed, the Israelites have ceased to be under the slavery of a calendar beyond their control.
Although the month of the Exodus (Nisan) is reckoned as the first month from an ordinal point of view, the Jewish New Year begins in Tishrei, which is actually the seventh month. This may be a vestige of an ancient Israelite calendar in which two six-month cycles followed on each other, so that in effect there were “two” new year dates.
However, in terms of import, there is no denying that the season of the Exodus, the birth event of the Jewish people, commands our attention as the beginning of Jewish national history.
The reckoning of time is a central feature of the Jewish religion whose significance extends beyond the Exodus. The establishment of the fundamentals of the Jewish calendar occupies a good deal of the attention of the Torah, which no fewer than three separate times records the cycle of the holidays. The Sabbath is included among the Ten Commandments, indicating that communal calendrical consensus is essential to the identity of the Israelite people.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was among the most eloquent expositors of the Jewish fascination with time. In addition to his oft-quoted observation that Judaism is a religion of time and not space, Heschel taught: “Time is the presence of God in the world of space.”
Heschel’s insight is linked to this week’s portion. The biblical view of time as linear, purposeful, and redemptive is established with the Exodus. With the beginning of the redemption of the Israelites comes a new meaning of time. No longer is time to be viewed as the repetitive cycle of predictability; time itself now becomes the place where God enters the world to make possible new things.
There are records in the Talmud of debates about the beginnings and endings of holidays, and even about the dates on which they are to be fixed. This concern, even obsession, with determining the accuracy of the calendar confirms the importance that Judaism attaches to time itself.
The Exodus is both a point in time and a metonym for the spiritual meaning of time itself. It serves as both a historic inauguration of the Israelite nation and as a symbol of hope for the future redemption of all history. What has happened once becomes a confirmation of faith in what will happen again.
Judaism embraces time as a gift, as an opportunity to sanctify minutes, days, weeks, months, and years by filling them with acts that advance God’s hope for the world and those of us within it. In marking Jewish time as beginning with liberation, the Torah seeks to awake within us the awareness necessary to use our time wisely, both individually and collectively.