Let me begin with two questions. First, a question you have heard before: why do we view the 1st of Tishrei as New Year’s, the beginning or head of the year, when the Torah is very clear that Tishrei is the 7th month of the year, not the 1st. The Torah tells us in Vayikra 23:24 "bachodesh hashvii b’echad lacodesh yiheye lachem shabbaton zichron teruah mikra kodesh." "In the seventh month, on the first of the month, there shall be a rest day for you, a remembrance of loud noise or commemorated with loud blasts." So, while of all of us send out cards wishing each other a Happy New Year, or deliver the same message when we see each other coming or leaving shul, it is interesting to note that the year is already six months old. To analogize to the secular calendar, imagine going up to someone on July 1 st and wishing them a happy new year! So how did we come to think of the 1st day of the 7th month as the Jewish New Year? Another related question is exactly what is the Biblical view about, or purpose of Rosh Hashono? All we are told is that we should not work on that day, and that it is "zichron teruah" a commemoration of loud noise. Certainly in rabbinic tradition we have come to view Rosh Hashono as the day the world was created, but there is no hint of that in the Torah.
The second question I have comes from the text of the kiddush for Rosh Hashono night which we chanted Monday night and last night. The kiddush is on page 19 of your machzor. In this kiddush we begin with the traditional holiday formula, and then we go to say "vatitain lanu hashem elokeinu b’ahava et yom hazikaron hazeh, yom, teruah mikra kodesh zecher litziat mitzraim." "You, our God, gave us with love this Day of Remembrance a day for "teruah"-- loud noise—a holy assembly in memory of our liberation from Egypt."
Let’s stop right there. As we say the kiddush for Rosh Hashono, the day which tradition tells us commemorates the creation of the world, we thank God for giving this holy day which is "zecher litziat mitzraim—in memory of our liberation from Egypt." Huh? How could that be? How could the commemoration of the creation of the world, which happened way before we even went down to Egypt, let alone left Egypt, be deemed to be zecher litziat mitzraim, in memory of leaving Egypt? Clearly, the rabbis who wrote the text of this kiddush had something in mind about relating yitziat mitzraim to Creation. But if you think about it for a moment, they did the very same thing in the text of the kiddush which is much more familiar to us, the Friday night kiddush. As you all remember, in the Friday night kiddush we first make reference to Shabbat as zecher l’maaseh breishit, in memory of the creation of the world" and then we go on to say "ki hu yom t’chila, l’mikraei kodesh, zecher litziat mitzraim—for this is the first day of holy days, in memory of the liberation from Egypt." So we have the same question again—if Shabbat is meant to recall the fact that God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh day, what does yitziat mitzraim have to do with anything?
The answer to these questions is, of course, the centrality of yitziat mitzraim to the fabric of the Jewish people and to the fabric of Judaism. Every kiddush we recite for any festival, not just the kiddush for Pesach, includes the phrase zecher litziat mitzraim, because of the importance of the Exodus, and its impact on everything we do as Jews. First, let’s talk about the calendar for a moment. In Shmot chapter 12 verse 2 God tells Moshe and Aharon: hachodesh hazeh lachem rosh chadashim, rishon hu lachem l’chadshei hashono. –this month shall mark the beginning of the months, it shall be the first of the months of the year for you." Notice the repetition, even redundancy of the Pasuk. This is the first of all the months, or perhaps, the head of all the months, and then we are told it shall be the first of the months of the year. Why the repetition. As the Etz Chaim explains: "The impending Exodus is visualized as the start of a new order of life that will be dominated by the consciousness of God’s active presence in history. The religious calendar of Israel is henceforth to reflect this reality by numbering the months of the year from the month of the Exodus." God’s active presence is history is what we remember when, on Shabbat, or on Sukkot or even on Rosh Hashono we include in the kiddush the words "zecher litziat mitzraim." I would go one step further—the repetition of the fact that this is the first month of all the months to me means that when something happens to you in the second month, or the fourth, or eighth month—it must be related back to the events of the first month. In other words, the first month is the prism through which we view everything that happens in any month of the year.
But to answer my second question—why we mention leaving Egypt in the kiddush for Rosh Hashono--we need to focus on these three words—zecher litziat mitzraim—in memory of our leaving Egypt. The difficulty is why should we introduce memory of a historical event—in this case leaving Egypt—on a day that is unrelated to that event?But this question only exists if we interpret these three words—zecher litziat mitzraim—as a historical reference, namely "in memory of the time when the Jewish people left Egypt. But I would suggest another interpretation of these three very powerful words. First, let me give an anology. When someone goes through Alcoholics Anonymous and stops drinking, he or she is referred to as a "recovering alcoholic." Even someone who hasn’t had a drink in 20 years would still refer to himself or herself as recovering, with an ING at the end and not an ED. It is a permanent and ongoing process. So, too, I believe that yetziat mitzraim is a permanent and ongoing process, and that we are always in the process of leaving Egypt. The Haggadah tells us "b’chol dor vador chayav adam lirot oto k’ilu hu yatza memitzraim—in each generation we are obligated to see ourselves as if we personally came out of Egypt." In other words, we are always in the state of leaving Egypt, of struggling with the temptations of all that Egypt represents, of breaking free from the things that enslave us. On Rosh Hashono and Yom Kippur in particular, as we look back upon the year that has passed and conduct a cheshbon hanefesh, an intense exmination of our own souls, we are leaving Egypt. So when these three words—zecher litziat mitzraim-appear in the kiddush for Rosh Hashono, instead of translating them "in memory of the Exodus from Egypt 4,000 years ago" I translate them as "in commemoration of our leaving Egypt—then and now."
Just as the Jews leaving Egypt 4,000 years ago needed guidance and direction, so do we. In parshat B’shalach, the parsha which recounts our journey through the desert, and then the Egyptians chasing us to the Red Sea, we find this passage, in Chapter 14, verse 3:
God tells Moshe "v’amar Paroh…--Paroh will say—n’vuchim heim ba’aretz, sagar aleihem ha’midbar—they are wandering aimlessly in the land, the wilderness has closed in on them."
Why was Paroh wrong—why weren’t the people wandering aimlessly in the land? Because God gave the people signposts. In Chapter 13 verse 21 the Torah tells us "Hashem holech lifnayhem yomam b’amud anan lanchotam haderech v’laila b’amud esh l’ha-ir lahem—God went before them in a pillar of cloud by day to guide them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night." The second Pasuk, verse 22 tells us lo yamish amud he’annan yomam v’amud haesh laila lifnay ha’am—the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. That’s why Paroh was wrong, why the people did not wander aimlessly—Hashem holech lifnayhem, God himself walked before them. God’s method of walking before them was to use a cloud and a pillar to fire; the provided a direction, the pillar of cloud to follow during the day and the pillar of fire at night. So long as they followed the pillars they could not become lost. The Talmud in Masechet Shabbat, 23b, tells us that the daytime cloud would not leave until the nighttime pillar of fire came, and the nighttime pillar of fire would stay until the cloud came up in the morning. Thus, there was never one moment when the people were unclear about which direction to go. God didn’t just print out the directions for them on Mapquest—God himself walked before them—Hashem holech lifneyhem.
So too with us. Hashem holech lifaneinu--God walks before us and shows us which way to go. We may not have the same pillars of cloud and fire that our ancestors followed as they walked through the desert. God has given us other pillars to follow, and if only we follow them we will not wander aimlessly, but instead our lives will be filled with purpose and direction. What are OUR pillars of cloud and fire, we may ask. I don’t see them! If only I had them to follow.
But the pillars are with us always, if only we look for them. When we say Hashem holech lifneyhem and we look at the verb root of holech it leads to the word halacha, the way to go through life that guides the Jewish people. God has given us the Torah, and the rabbinic tradition that together constitute Judaism. We have laws, customs and most of all the opportunity to study Torah. And there are so many other pillars to follow. For those of here in this room, a pillar is Temple Beth Am. For some of our teen-age children, the pillar may be USY. For other Jews there are many other pillars, from Chabad to Stepen S. Wise Temple. When we most need these guiding pillars they are there for us—setting the night sky ablaze with brilliant fire. This is why the seventh month, Tishrei, must be viewed through the prism of the first month, the month of Nissan when we left Egypt. This is why when we recite kiddush for Rosh Hashono—and for Shabbat, or Sukkot, or Shavuot-- we add the phrase zecher litziat mitzraim— first, to remember our ancestors’ leaving of Egypt, their walk through the desert, and the pillars that represented God Himself leading the people. When we say zecher litziat mitzraim we also remember OUR leaving Egypt, and OUR pillars of cloud and fire to follow. We say zecher litziat mitzraim to remember that there is a purpose and a mission to our people’s history and to our own daily lives. We say zecher litziat mitzraim to remember that so long as we look for our own pillars of cloud and fire we will never wander aimlessly, we will stride forward confidently, with purpose, with direction and with the knowledge that, hard as they sometimes may be to see, the pillars are always there for us to follow.
On this day of Rosh Hashono, when we say hayom harat olam—this is the day that God created the world, we remember the very first act of that Creation—Vayomer Hashem y’hi or—God said let there be light. Just as God created light at the beginning of history, he renewed that light as a pillar of fire to guide the people as they left Egypt, and He renews that light daily for us. This is the promise of the second pasuk we quoted before—lo yamish amud he’annan yomam v’amud ha’esh laila. These pillars will never depart from the people.
Shana tova