Two times during the year I promise myself I won’t let things sneak up on me; I’ll mark my calendar; I’ll budget my time so I can get ready for what is to come. But year after year I forget and let things get in the way, and suddenly the day is here, and though I’m where I should be physically, I’m nowhere near ready mentally or spiritually.
But in the last few years, I’ve done a bit better, and that is because of the moon.
Last night I sent my annual e-mail to my faculty colleagues at Catholic University, reminding them of the upcoming High Holy Days – I tell them a little about what the Holy Days are about, and explain why Jewish students will be absent and may be unprepared the day after. I glanced at the calendar and saw that Rosh Hashanah begins in a couple of weeks, and filed the information someplace in the back of my mind, as I have so often already this year.
Then I glanced out the window and saw the full moon and thought, “Wow! Two more weeks to the new moon – and Rosh Hashanah!” Suddenly the time left before Rosh Hashanah wasn’t just an abstract thought; it wasn’t just rows of boxes on a calendar. Suddenly it was real. Perhaps I was feeling, a little, what our ancestors felt when the moon was the calendar.
The moon has a similar impact on me in the spring: when the moon wanes and disappears at the end of Adar and the month of Nisan begins, I know, in a way that glancing at a calendar can’t begin to match, that in two weeks the moon will be full, and we’ll be sitting down to our first Seder.
That got me thinking: two holy periods, nearly half a year apart, “announced” by the moon but in different ways. Pesach, the holiday that begins when the moon is full, celebrates an historical event. Although there are many individualistic aspects to the holiday – each of us is to imagine that he or she was there at Sinai — the focus is on what happened to us as a people. Perhaps the fullness of the moon symbolizes the richness of our shared heritage and reminds us of how much we have to celebrate.
Rosh Hashanah, the holiday that begins when the moon has disappeared, and the Days of Awe that follow, have a very different theme, completely unrelated to historical events. Although we worship as a community, the primary focus is on individual relationships: how each of us can mend and repair and strengthen his or her relationship with God, and to other individuals. Perhaps the absence of the moon at the beginning of the period symbolizes our desire for a clean slate, a fresh start, a chance to start anew.
If, like me, you have difficulty remembering to take the time to get ready for the High Holidays, perhaps it will help to do what I do: make a point (if the weather cooperates) to look at the moon each night for the rest of the month. Seeing how it wanes each day reminds me that the time to get ready for Rosh Hashanah is also running out.
May each of us be written for a good year.
Cliff Fishman
