The Philosemitism Of Hans Christian Andersen By Saul Jay Singer and The Calendar In Egypt And The Modern Workplace By Rami Nordlicht and The Talmudic Encyclopedia Reaches 75 and photography jokes
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE PHOTOGRAPHY JOKES OF THE WEEK
What kind of photos do lobsters take the most? Shellfies.
Why didn't the jury find the photograph guilty of his wife's murder? They thought someone had framed him.
I was the photographer at a vegan wedding this weekend. They kept getting mad when I told them to say cheese.
Two seminary girls walk into the local Jerusalem Sushi store. They request a tray of sushi, please." The waiter asks them is this to eat or to post photos of on Instagram?
What do you call an unpredictable, out of control photographer? A loose Canon.
Why was Cinderella so hopeful about her photos? She knew her prints would come one day.
A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
Zelda, a little silver-haired lady calls her neighbor and says, "Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get started."
Her neighbor asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished?"
The little silver haired lady says, "According to the picture on the box, it's a rooster."
Her neighbor decides to go over and help with the puzzle.
She lets her in and shows her where she has the puzzle spread all over the table.
She studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says,
"First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a rooster."
She takes her hand and says, "Secondly, I want you to relax. Let's have a nice cup of tea, and then," she says with a deep sigh, "Let's put all the Corn Flakes back in the box."
As a professional photographer, Judy Salzberg takes a lot of pride in her pictures. Wherever she goes, she brings her pictures with her, to show off her work. She and her husband Harold were invited to the Epsteins for Shabbat Dinner and Judy brought her pictures along. "Wow," said Mrs. Epstein, "these are really nice pictures. You must have a great camera." Fuming mad at the implication that her whole talent came from her camera. Judy waited until the end of the meal and then thanked her host, "Thank you, the Shabbos meal was delicious," and then as if an afterthought added, "you must have a great oven."
Why did the camera stop dreaming about a career in photography? He couldn't remain focused.
What did the woman think about her friend who was a photographer? She wished someone would shutter up.
Why did a man always rave about how great his digital camera was? He couldn't think of any negatives.
What did the photographer say to his assistant at the photoshoot when he was frustrated? I feel like I will snap at any moment.
What did the photographer say to his wife before they were married? I can really picture us together.
Why should you never try to start an argument with your child on picture day? They are not in the right frame of mind.
What's the fastest way to earn money as a photographer? By selling your camera.
Editor's note from Yehuda Lave--I am privileged to pray each day with Rav Steinberg
Photo Credit: Courtesy
President Isaac Herzog and Rav Avraham Steinberg
An event honoring the 75th anniversary of the Talmudic Encyclopedia took place on December 30 at the residence of the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog. It was especially moving because it also marked three generations of involvement of the Herzog family in the project.
The event was also to honor Rabbi Hershel Schachter, the leading rosh yeshiva and rosh kollel at Yeshiva University, halachic advisor for the Orthodox Union, advisor and mentor for the Rabbinical Council of America, and world-renowned posek. The Talmudic Encyclopedia will dedicate a future volume to Rav Shachter.
The 48th volume was released just a few days before the event. It is hoped that the project will be completed by 2024.
One doesn't usually give special mention to the MC of an event like this, but in this case it was significant, as the person introducing the chief rabbis of Israel, the chief rabbi of the IDF, and Rabbi Professor Avraham Steinberg, head of the editorial board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, all of whom addressed an audience that included rabbinical judges and roshei yeshiva, was a woman.
Sara Beck
Sara Beck, a Torah-observant journalist, mentioned that it was Rav Yitzhak Hacohen Kook who first raised the idea of such an encyclopedia, though he wanted such a project to include agadah as well. According to various sources, he talked about this in 5681 (1920 or 1921) in a lecture he gave about the importance of creating a number of Torah initiatives. The lecture was called "Toward a life of Creation" and was delivered in memory of the yahrzheit of the Rambam, before "The chachamim [wise men] of Mercaz Harav [Yeshiva]."
Beck quoted from one of her two websites, "Zusha," a site on Chassidic stories: "Once a renowned talmid chacham came before Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, and asked to be accepted as a chassid of his. The rabbi asked him, 'What have you learned?' The man replied, 'I already learned and completed the entire Shas – the Talmud Bavli.' The Rabbi replied, 'You didn't understand my intention. I asked what did the Talmud teach you?' The Talmudic Encyclopedia, to a great extent, answers that question: What did the Talmud teach you?"
The History
In 1942 Rav Meir Bar Ilan, who lived in Israel, got word of what was happening to the Jews of Europe. In addition to the horror of their annihilation, there was a fear that not only would the Jews be destroyed, but so would their Torah, everything they had studied and preserved throughout the centuries.
Therefore, he decided to organize the vast Talmudic and post-Talmudic literature as an encyclopedia so the essence would remain. He asked Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin to join him. Rabbi Zevin commenced the collection of information and concepts for 2,500 encyclopedic Talmudic entries. The work included the entire written Torah and the oral Torah – Mishna, Gemara, Rishonim, Acharonim, and shutim (halachic questions and answers) throughout the ages, and including all the gedolei Yisrael – the great scholars of the Jewish people – from eastern Europe through to North Africa. Their feeling was that perhaps the Nazis could destroy the bodies of the Jews but not the Torah and the soul.
Rav Yehoshua Hutner was the first director of the Encyclopedia. The first volume appeared in 1947. Rav Steinberg accepted the position after him, in 2006. He has his own connection to the Shoah. His parents were refugees who fled from Galicia to Siberia and from there to Uzbekistan. He was born in a DP camp in Germany after the war.
Four Rabbis, a President and a Judge
At the event, President Herzog spoke first.
Beni Gur, Rav Professor Steinberg and Rav Hershel Schachter
"I am proud to host this important event not just as the president of Israel – and this is the place to say that the Talmudic Encyclopedia has a place of honor among my books – but also as the grandson of my grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, who in 1949, after the death of Rav Meir Bar Ilan, joined with others to continue the establishment of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, and as the son of my father – the sixth president of Israel, Chaim Herzog – who through the years also supported and encouraged others to support the Encyclopedia. And it is no wonder, as this is an enterprise of an entire cultural life of the Jewish people.
"From the wise men of the Talmud we learn how to carry on a debate and still demonstrate 'These are all the words of the living God.' From them we drew inspiration and with their help we succeeded in keeping the basic commandment of every mother and father, every grandmother and grandfather in Israel, 'And you shall teach it to your children,' the passing on of the Jewish tradition from one generation to another." He also quoted from the warm praise that the Lubavitcher Rebbe had given to the project, upon receiving the seventh volume.
The Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said that his father, Rav Ovadia Yosef, zt"l, was a close talmid of Rav Herzog and that he would go to him for a number of years every Friday. They were a group of rabbanim who would learn together; his father emulated Rav Herzog.
"This magnificent project, the Talmudic Encyclopedia, gives students the breadth of the Torah…I read the entry on 'chazaka.' Anyone who learns in the world of the yeshiva knows this is a very difficult topic, there is a lot of lamdanut in it. But if one reads this entry in the Talmudic Encyclopedia, it is so clear, it is so organized, all the intricate details, it's astonishing. One who learns with the Talmudic Encyclopedia, he sees what our Torah is, and his mind becomes clear…I bless Rav Steinberg and everyone who is working on this project…Continue with it, I think we should strengthen it, and fortify Rabbi Avraham Steinberg – may you continue to spread your wellsprings of Torah."
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau, son of Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, who is president of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, addressed the president by his full name, Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, after his grandfather, for whom he was named. He said that in the 18th century, there was an expression used for people who were writing encyclopedias called "the encyclopedists," but that it took on a negative connotation because they wrote entries according to their personal viewpoints. He said they distorted reality.
In contrast, he spoke warmly of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, of the many great rabbis who worked on it through the decades, whose wisdom was to define things accurately, "Not as things appeared to them personally, but according to darkei avot, the ways of our forefathers. They would define things according to the truth…
"We are nearing Tu B'Shvat, and we know about the tree, that the deeper its roots are, the stronger it will be." Referencing Sara Beck's story of the rabbi of Kotzk, asking what the Torah has taught us, he asked, "What has it done to one's character? Has it taught you compassion? The Talmudic Encyclopedia enables one to see a wide view of the entire Torah, and to understand what, and where, and how, and to define things in a precise way. It is a masterful work for every rav and researcher."
Rav Eyal Crim
Brigadier General Eyal Crim, chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, by way of demonstrating the complexities of modern day halacha, gave a fascinating short talk on the halachic status of the placenta. The connection to the IDF was a question he received that week, asking if placentas could be used in training dogs to locate body parts of soldiers who have fallen in battle (whereas until now they have been trained by identifying bits of pork), as it is so important to bring them to a Jewish burial.
A midwife had also written to him once asking about what use, if any, could be made of placentas after birth, for example for homeopathic remedies that would improve the medical condition of the newborn, any of these situations of course with the permission of the mother. He also addressed the issue of the burial of placentas, whether or not it was required, and other related issues, concluding with a blessing that, "May all those involved in this enormous enterprise, all those who sit before me, have the zechut to raise up the Torah and make her splendorous."
Supreme Court Justice Noam Solberg, a graduate of the Hebrew University Faculty of Law who had also studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shvut, spoke about the machloket that has existed for many years between different judges regarding the value of having "Mishpat Ivri" – Jewish-halachic Jurisprudence – inform decisions in Israeli courts who operate by the Israeli law as enacted in the Knesset. He described it as an "argument of great men," and also as a "clash of civilizations."
"There is nothing that compares to Jewish-halachic jurisprudence, which is refined in the theoretical dimension, and applied on the practical plane; the Talmudic Encyclopedia proves this." He said that "Jewish-halachic jurisprudence should be part of the intellectual effort in arriving at everyday decisions. The contribution of the Talmudic Encyclopedia in this connection is invaluable. I claim that arriving at a legal decision after a deep reading of Mishpat Ivri can greatly enrich the Israeli judicial conversation, and Mishpat Ivri will also be challenged by the innovations of progress and will benefit."
Rav Professor Steinberg, head of the enterprise and recipient of the Israel Prize in 1999 for original rabbinic literature for his Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics, spoke last, and like Rav Crim, he gave a scholarly but short talk on current halachic topics. He spoke about the issue of IVF and noted that these eggs that are fertilized while outside of the uterus do not have the halachic status of being a human, until after the fertilized egg is planted in the uterus and then, also, the first 40 days have a different status then they do later.
Rav Steinberg described how a couple who have a high percentage of risk of giving birth to a child with a serious genetic disease can have an egg extracted and fertilized, have one cell checked for the disease, which would have the same problematic gene as every other cell in the egg, and return it to the womb if it is healthy and destroy it if it is not. "This is how we save thousands of families from the birth of sick children without going through any halachic problem."
He also addressed the possibility of using such eggs for stem cell research and the curing of certain diseases, such as Parkinson's.
"The Talmudic Encyclopedia provides a base to all who wish to know the basic halachic approach regarding almost every topic and issue with halachic implications," said Rav Steinberg. He added, in a TV interview, that they are working to digitalize the encyclopedia. He said that every entry is written by a team, not an individual, talmidei chachamim who also know how to write in an appropriate style, to ensure clarity, consistency and accuracy.
At the end of the event Rav Steinberg presented President Herzog the latest volume, #48, and emotionally presented the president with a photograph in which their grandparents appeared together after WWR II in Brussels 75 years ago, connecting them across the generations and marking the 75th anniversary of the Talmudic Encyclopedia.
Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg, zt"l, was the chief editor of the Encyclopedia till he passed away, a year ago.
Dr. Dov Friedberg, an outstanding and humble philanthropist, is the major contributor to the Talmudic Encyclopedia together with families Rohr and Ryzman and many devoted donors. Yedidut Toronto (Toronto Foundation), supported by the Friedberg Charitable Foundation, was represented by its director, Mr. Moshe Shapiro, who spoke eloquently on behalf of the organization.
Master pianist Paul Salter played a musical interlude during the event.
A prolific author of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875) is renowned for his beloved 156 fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages and are still much beloved, particularly by children. He has gained an unparalleled level of international acclaim, with his works representing a foundational element of classic Western literary culture.
Portrait of Hans Christian Andersen.
Although he viewed himself as a serious novelist and dramatist who disdained being known for his fairy tales, his best-known stories include The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Princess and the Pea, The Red Shoes, The Little Match Girl, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Snow Queen, and The Emperor's New Clothes, which was based upon a medieval Spanish story with Jewish sources. Many of his stories were semi-autobiographical; for example, The Ugly Duckling reflects his feelings as an outsider having to overcome obstacles to show his true inner nature, and The Little Mermaid is a reflection of his unrequited love.
Many authorities note that, unlike most fairy tales at the time – and, in large part, since – Andersen's stories do not all have a happy ending but rather reflect the reality of life where characters do not always "live happily ever after." As one conspicuous example, in The Little Mermaid, the mermaid commits suicide because she cannot be loved by the handsome prince but, reflecting Andersen's deep theological Christian beliefs, she rises from the dead, is transformed into a spiritual form, and works toward earning her salvation. Not surprisingly, the Disney version – which is how most people now know the story – ends very differently.
Less known, however, is that Andersen had deep affection for the Jewish people; that he was very familiar with Jewish tradition and culture; that Jews and Jewish issues played an important role in many of his works; and that he maintained very close relationships with Jews and with the Jewish community.
Etching of 1819 Danish rioting against the Jews of Copenhagen.
The early 19th century marked a dramatic turn for Danish Jews, particularly in 1819, when King Frederick VI instituted several reforms recognizing Jewish civil rights. Nonetheless, there were brutal antisemitic riots in Copenhagen that, ironically, commenced with the arrival there of the 14-year-old Andersen in 1819. Revolted by the hatred and cruelty of his own countrymen, the events of that day remained with him throughout his life, and thus began his great sympathy and affection for the Jewish people.
On September 3, 1819, leaflets circulated throughout Copenhagen disparaging Frederick VI as "King of the Jews" and urging citizens to rise up against the Jews. During this "Danish Krystallnacht," the most serious popular unrest and violent ethnic conflict ever seen in Denmark, rampaging rioters destroyed Jewish shops and homes. When the police and the military failed to quell the violence, the government blocked the dissemination of the antisemitic circulars, imposed a curfew, and announced the creation of a commission with authority to impose death sentences (which it never did). Finally, a state of emergency was declared and additional military troops were sent in with swinging swords, which wounded many citizens, including some Jews, but the uprising continued to the end of the month.
Although the brunt of the anti-Jewish rampaging occurred in Copenhagen, where most Danish Jews lived, the rioting stormed throughout Denmark, including in Andersen's hometown of Odense. The town had a small Jewish Congregation of 111 members, most coming from Germany and, as discussed below, a Jewish school that Andersen attended. In 1819, Odense, a hotbed of antisemitism, barred its Jews, who were primarily merchants, from membership in the local merchants association. In the wake of the bloody uprising that year, a seminal event in Danish history deliberately downplayed by its historians, many traumatized Jews converted to Christianity, including Mendel Levin Nathanson, the head of the Jewish congregation, who also baptized his eight children.
It is against this background and at a time when most Jewish characters in Danish literature were rendered through antisemitic caricatures that Andersen's remarkable philosemitism and his portrayals of Jews as moral and noble must be considered. Although Jewish themes and characters were not fundamental to his literary oeuvre, Jews and Jewish issues did play an important role in many of his works.
The most important example is arguably The Jewish Girl (1855), a story with some autobiographical elements in which Andersen successfully walks the fine line between fidelity to his own Christian faith and his deep respect for Judaism. The narrative tells the story of Sarah, an exceptionally bright little Jewish girl whose father enrolls her in a Christian charity school after the death of her mother, where she becomes eager to learn the Gospels. When the school advises him that his daughter must convert or be expelled from the school, he bursts into tears and says, "I know very little myself of our own faith, but her mother was a daughter of Israel, strong and steadfast in her faith, and on her deathbed I promised her that our child should never receive Christian baptism. That promise I must keep; for me it is like a pact with G-d."
Years later, Sarah becomes a maidservant for a Christian family. Although Christianity "penetrates like a sunbeam into my heart," she regularly reads the Old Testament, "the treasure of my people"; she is depressed about being unable to keep Shabbat; and she promises her departed mother, "I will not bring you sorrow in your grave and I will not betray the promise my father made to you." She decides that she can outwardly live the life of a Jewess while being true to her Christian faith internally.
When her master dies, Sarah kindly and voluntarily undertakes the monumental task of earning support for his widow and caring for her but, worn out by the burden of labor and nursing, she dies. Because she had rejected conversion, the community refuses to bury her in the Christian cemetery and a grave is dug for her outside its walls, but Andersen makes a point of observing that Christian words of resurrection can nonetheless reach the site of her grave from the church, earning her a place in heaven.
Because the story ends with Sarah's being included among the "blessed" only because she had taken Christianity into her heart, some commentators maintain that The Jewish Girl was "condescendingly tolerant of Jews." I strongly disagree because his extraordinarily sympathetic depiction of her – indeed, she is portrayed as noble, loyal and utterly heroic in both deed and spirit – and his admiration for her faithfulness to both a Jewish mother and a Christian master stand in stark contrast with the prevailing antisemitic ethos of the time.
It is also intriguing to note the similarities of the story to Andersen's own life. He had tender memories of the Jewish school he attended in Odense after he was beaten by a teacher at a state school. He left the Jewish school only because it closed in 1811, and years later, after he had already achieved fame, he wrote a letter of gratitude to Fedder Carstens, the headmaster of the school.
The experience of being an outsider who was treated so well by the Jewish school made an indelible impression on him and was an important factor in his becoming a passionate defender of the Jewish people. Some commentators contend that Andersen's experience at the Jewish school as "a stranger in a strange land" was, at least in part, the genesis for The Ugly Duckling (1843), who so desperately wants to be beautiful and fit in with everyone else. Finally, the young author fancied a young Jewish girl named – wait for it – Sarah Heimann who, ironically, broke off the relationship because she thought he was too wrapped up in his world of stories and fantasies.
In Lucky Peter (1870), a promoter – who we find out at the end of the story is a Talmud-quoting Jew – sponsors Peter, an extraordinarily talented young musician, in the debut of an opera that Peter composed and in which he played the lead role, but he dies on stage after taking his bows in response to the enthusiastic applause of the audience. Most telling here is that the promotor's religion is wholly irrelevant to the story and that Andersen's identification of his character as a Jew worthy of admiration and respect reflects his own personal esteem for Jews. In an intriguing parallel to real life, Andersen promoted a number of Jewish writers, including the German playwright Herman Mosenthal, whose works he not only personally translated into Danish, but also arranged to be performed on the Danish stage.
In Only a Fiddler (1837), Andersen movingly describes the dark and squalid Jewish ghetto in Rome and the pitiable conditions under which the Jews there are forced to live. When an old and frail Jew is attacked by a thug, the hero of the story comes to his rescue. Andersen tells the story of two characters: Naomi, a brilliant and beautiful girl whose abandonment of her Jewish roots and poverty to marry into nobility nonetheless leaves her an unhappy and rootless wanderer, and the poor tailor's son, a fiddler with prodigious musical talent who is smitten by Naomi and dies of heartbreak when she rejects him because of his lower class. Though Naomi is a highly unsympathetic character, Andersen does not emphasize her Jewishness and he refuses to follow the longstanding literary tradition of holding Jews in contempt.
In Ahasuerus (1847), Andersen narrates the infamous story of The Wandering Jew – the prominent antisemitic character of legend cursed to travel through the world for all time as punishment for jeering Jesus at the crucifixion – from the time of Jesus to the time of his arrival on the American continent with Columbus. Although the Wandering Jew is a damned figure in Christian theology, Andersen treats him as a sympathetic figure and empathizes with his eternal lonely ordeal through all of time fending off his never-ending succession of tormentors, perhaps an autobiographical reflection of Andersen's own loneliness.
In To Be or Not to Be (1857), Andersen tells the tale of Niels Bryde, an impoverished young man who, after the death of his father, becomes the ward of a benevolent pastor. He wants to become a pastor himself, but he loses himself in modern science, loses his childhood faith, and is rejected by his adoptive family as a heretic.
Niels marries the Jewish Esther, a religious pluralist who studies the holy books of all faiths and who, unlike Niels, believes in the immortality of the soul. When she dies young, he returns to his Christian faith, having learned from Esther that it is possible to be a religious man of science. Through Niels, Andersen examines the tension between science and faith with an emphasis on the concept of the immortality of the soul and attempts to harmonize faith and knowledge into a single non-contradictory theology.
The Tallow Candle, a previously unknown fairy tale believed to be the first one ever written by a very young Andersen, was discovered in 2012. It tells the story of a little candle that had been overlooked until a tinder box sees its inner beauty, lights it, and it provides light for a long time, pleasing everyone near it. Andersen wrote in the story in the years of his youth after he attended the Jewish school . . . and it sure sounds like a Shabbat candle to me!
Andersen's signature on the envelope of his letter to Dorothea Melchior.
Exhibited here is a very rare envelope addressed to D. (Dorothea) Melchior and signed by Andersen in the lower left corner. At the back (not shown) are Andersen's initials and a Copenhagen postmark.
Andersen was a frequent traveler who relied upon extensive correspondence to preserve his important friendships. He wrote many hundreds of letters to close Jewish friends, including Martin Ruben Henriques, a stockbroker, and his wife, Therese (nee Abrahamson), who were the first to open their door to him when he was a young struggling writer. When the much-respected Henrique would walk to the shul in Krystalgade with his ten sons every Shabbat, he would be greeted with calls of "There goes the King of Jews and all his sons."
Portrait of Moritz Melchior.
However, the recipients of at least 415 known Andersen letters were Moritz Melchior (1816 – 1884) and his wife, Dorothea (1823 – 1885), who was Ruben Henrique's daughter. She was descended from Portuguese Jews and was raised in a strictly Orthodox home and, although she was not herself a religiously observant adult, she married Moritz in a Copenhagen synagogue in 1846.
Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Copenhagen, Moritz joined the family firm just after his bar mitzvah and went on to become a successful Danish merchant who served in various important public offices in Copenhagen, including alderman on the Copenhagen City Council (1851 – 1869); a member of the Maritime and Commercial Court (1862 – 1883), and a member of the Upper House of Parliament (1866 – 1874). He was one of the founders and a director of the Danish free-trade society, led the Chamber of Commerce from 1873, and reorganized the Copenhagen Police Force.
Moritz was also a prominent member of the Jewish community, serving as a member of its representative committee and later as its chairman. He was a great humanitarian and a philanthropist who provided much support to needy Jews and others, and his charitable activities were always performed in secret and without seeking public recognition.
The Melchiors entertained a variety of famous guests, including Andersen, who became a very close friend to the point that they all considered him a member of the family. After he became increasingly ill after a fall in 1872, the Melchiors moved their lonely friend (he never married or had any children) into their home and gave him his own room, where he wrote some of his final works, including Lucky Peter, discussed above. He dedicated his final collection of stories to the Melchiors, who cared for him over many years until his death from liver cancer in 1875.
Three stamps issued by the Israeli Postal Authority in 2000. From left to right: the Little Mermaid in love gazing at the prince's palace; the crooked tailors "dressing" the foolish king in The Emperor's New Clothes with the "special garments" they had sewn; and the Ugly Duckling being scrutinized by his friends.
One of the most common difficulties people of all backgrounds and professions come across in their careers is how to manage their calendars. Finding time for all our competing demands and priorities, as well as time to relax, take vacation or time off for major chagim, and allow for the inevitable disruptions and surprises that come up over the course of a calendar year, is no easy task for the Jew in the modern workforce.
Fascinatingly, the very first comment Rashi makes in his glosses to the Torah identifies a verse in this week's parshah, regarding the establishment of the lunar calendar and its starting point from the month of Nisan, as a potential alternative starting point for the entire corpus of biblical literature. Although Rashi clarifies that the Torah instead begins with Bereishit to solidify the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov as the rightful inhabitants of the Land of Israel, it is still fascinating that Rashi entertains the real possibility that the Torah could have begun right in the middle of parshat Bo. What does that say about this week's sidra, and what is the significance of the lunar calendar that allows it to warrant such a possibility?
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Although there are more than a few answers given by commentators ancient and modern, one of the most notable was offered by Ibn Ezra, who posits that until this commandment, the Israelites simply used the solar calendar that had been employed by their Egyptian hosts. Hence, this commandment effectively gave Bnei Yisrael temporal autonomy from their captors, making this commandment – the first that G-d commanded Moshe (see Ramban's comments to Shemot 12:2) – a crucial stage in liberating the nation from slavery. In other words, by establishing the lunar calendar, which is demarcated in months, as opposed to the solar calendar, which is demarcated in years, as the official calendar of the Jewish people, the Jewish people saw their first real expression of freedom by measuring time differently than they had in the past and differently from the other nations of the world, especially the Egyptians.
Returning to our original question, although the stories that compose Sefer Bereishit were, in fact, indispensable to Jewish tradition to the point that they begin the narratives and laws that comprise Tanach, it is not an accident that our parshah is identified as a potential alternative. Although it is easy to simplify this "debate" as a matter of whether the Torah delegates greater importance to its narrative or legal sections, it is important not to downplay the newfound significance that time played and continues to play in the Jewish consciousness, as it was the first step in the Jewish people's march to freedom.
Perhaps you recently hung a new yearly planner to your fridge and it's already filling up. Maybe you agonized over which calendar app to download, or made a resolution to better manage your time and already feel overwhelmed by everything you want to accomplish in 2022. Or you simply find yourself losing control of your time as work, family, and other obligations seem to deny you the feeling of accomplishment each week. Know that you are not alone. And keep in mind that the calendar was the first expression of the Jewish people's freedom. Moreover, even in contemporary halacha, the knowledge and ability to keep track of time remains a hallmark of freedom, and dissociation with time is characteristic of slavery (see the Mishnah in Berachot 3:3). Thus, one of the surprising takeaways from Rashi's comments at the beginning of the Torah is that no matter how much time seems like a constraint, especially in our modern lives and workplaces, it is important to take a step back to appreciate our ability to track and measure time, one of the prime examples and expressions of freedom in the Torah
