Rabbi's Derasha

We had a guest scholar giving the Derasha last week, which meant that I did not begin by marking the 31st time I’ve been here for Parashat Para.  As it happened, the way things went that year, I also spoke on Parashat HaChodesh.  I returned a week later at the request of the search committee.  That was, as it turned out, a much more dramatic weekend than the one before, a sign that EB would never lack for drama.  

Shortly after Maariv, Stan Sussman mentioned that there would be a Bar Mitzva the next morning, and asked that I find a way to work that into the Derasha.  Not always easily done, but we managed.  (The Bar Mitzva boy was Eitan Jaffe.)  So this is the 31st time we’ve passed HaChodesh together.  

HaChodesh is the first Mitzva given to the Jewish people as a group.  There are Mitzvot in Bereisheet, but they are given to individuals.  This is why the Torah, as a book of Commandments, could have begun here.  It is interesting to note that the first Mitzva does echo something about the beginning.  Bereshit contains the creation of time, and the first Mitzva also is also about time.  

There’s another parallel to the beginning of the Chumash.  HaChodesh is just the beginning of the Parasha.  It’s the preamble to Korban Pesach and to Pesach in general.  Many more verses are devoted to that than to the Mitzva of Rosh Chodesh.  In the beginning of the Chumash, the Creation was the preamble to the creation of man.  The moment of truth in the creation of man was the blowing of the Neshama into man’s nostrils.  The Aramaic translation of the Torah identifies that as the moment in which man gained the ability to speak.  Whatever cognition man has, it culminates in the ability to finish with one’s mouth, to speak.  

The Karbon Pesach is accompanied by a condiment called Matza, which is called Lechem Oni.  This is understood in the Gemora as bread on which one says many words.  Even the word “Pesach” is understood as Peh Sach, when the mouth speaks.  How this meaning fits into the sense of passing over, or jumping, could be that the power of speech is a great leap beyond other animals.  It sets man apart.  We hear a lot about dolphins speaking but they aren’t creating Shakespeare or Wittgenstein.  

When one looks at the Haggada, one must recognize it as a special order of speech.  When I was in Eretz Yisrael last week, I heard an amazing story.  It concerns R’ Nota Schiller, a”h, one of the founders and leaders of Ohr Somayach, who passed away in his 90s a few weeks ago.  His local claim to fame is that he introduced Rabbi and Mrs. Felsen to each other.  A friend of mine told me the following story.  He was standing with R’ Schiller and the latter told him that he once heard from R’ Yitzchok Hutner, ztz’l, the Rosh Yeshiva of Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, that no poet ever wrote successfully outside of his mother tongue.  My friend told me that he objected: “What about Joseph Conrad?”
“That’s exactly what I asked R’ Hutner,” said R’ Schiller.  And R’ Hutner shot back, “Fool.  I said ‘poet.’” 

The difference between prose and poetry is a certain intensity.  That is what makes it so hard to produce poetry in a second language.  It does not come from deep inside.  If the Haggada has poetic power, it is also supposed to have intensity.  Parashat HaChodesh is supposed to announce that Pesach is coming.  Proper preparation involves lots of work, lots of cleaning.  But it also means preparing to inform the Haggada with the intensity it deserves.