Rosh Chodesh Elul - Shammai's Shabbat

As Jews, we attune our lives not to one but to several time cycles. There is the daily cycle, in which the sun halves the day into day and night and marks the hours for the reading of the Shema, prayer, and other time-specific mitzvot; the weekly cycle, by which we reexperience the Six Days of Creation and their culmination in a seventh day of divine rest; the lunar cycle of diminution and rebirth that defines the Jewish month; the yearly cycle with its calendar of festivals; the annual Torah-reading cycle which gives each week and day a chapter of the divine wisdom to guide and instruct it; the seven-year shemittah cycle and the 50-year yovel cycle; the 19-year cycle which aligns the Jewish year, comprised of lunar months, with the solar seasons; and so on.

Thus, our every moment is a unique product of the various time-currents that have converged to form the particular time-juncture it occupies. At any given moment, it is a certain hour of the day, as well as a certain day of the week; the month is either growing or dwindling with the moon; a certain Torah-section will be read this Shabbat, and a certain festival is approaching or receding; the moment might be rife with mourning, hedged in between the strictures of Tammuz 17 and Av 9, or it might be replete with the potential for a special closeness to G-d as part of the ten days that connect Rosh HaShanah to Yom Kippur; we might have counted the omer, building the days and weeks toward Shavuot and Sinai, or have added another candle and day to Chanukah.

In a word, no two moments are the same. It might have been the same day of the same month one year ago, but then it was on a different day of the week, or in a week with a different Torah reading, or in a different year of the shemittah. The various time-streams that flow through our lives spin an endless variety of configurations, imparting a distinct significance and lesson to every moment of our lives.

Let us, by way of example, examine the significance of a particular constellation formed this year when the two days of Rosh Chodesh Elul fall on Shabbat and Sunday.

Every month begins with a Rosh Chodesh, a “head of the month,” which serves as the month’s beginning and its nerve center. In essence, it is a day (or two) that encapsulates a month, just as the head is the source and seat for everything that occurs in the body.

Due to the particular construction of the Jewish calendar, a month’s Rosh Chodesh might consist of either one or two days.[1] When there are two days of Rosh Chodesh, the first is actually the 30th day of the previous month, while the second is the first day of the new month. In such cases, the first day of Rosh Chodesh has a dual function, completing the previous month as well as “heading” the coming month.

The month of Elul, which always has two days of Rosh Chodesh, likewise faces in two directions. As the last month of the year, Elul serves as a time for review and stocktaking for the closing year, as well as a time of preparation for the coming year. A time of divine goodwill (coinciding with Moses’ third 40 days atop Mount Sinai, during which he procured G-d’s wholehearted forgiveness of Israel for their worship of the Golden Calf), the month of Elul is uniquely suited for rectifying the failings and consolidating the achievements of the bygone year, and for readying ourselves for the “Days of Awe” of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.

But Elul and its double Rosh Chodesh do not exist in a vacuum. Underlying the monthly cycle is the weekly cycle, which, in many ways, is the most basic cycle of created time. As related in the book of Genesis, G-d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, stamping this cycle of work and repose into the very fabric of creation. Every Sunday opens a new cycle of human achievement, which gathers momentum over the next six days and culminates in Shabbat, when the week’s achievements are “elevated” toward their ultimate fulfillment and objective.

To summarize: “Elul” is a month that embraces a year; “Rosh Chodesh” is a day or two that encapsulate a month; “Sunday” represents the beginnings and initiations of human endeavor; “Shabbat,” its culminations and realizations. What is the significance of the confluence of these four time-dynamics when a Shabbat and a Sunday together serve as the Rosh Chodesh for the month of Elul?

In approaching a task, a relationship, our life, we usually adopt a “staircase” approach. We assess our current situation, taking into account our limits and deficiencies; we act to improve upon it, to raise ourselves to a place that is more elevated than our starting point but not so elevated that it is beyond our reach. From this point we seek to raise ourselves another step, and from that step, to the next; thus we work our way up from the bottom, building upon yesterday’s gains a platform from which to reach for tomorrow’s.

But there are also times when we aim straight for the top. Times when we shed our “realism,” disregard our limitations, transcend our deficiencies, and focus directly on our ultimate goal. Times when we experience a surge of faith in our potential to achieve the head of the staircase, no matter how removed it may be from our present station.

Each approach has its advantages. The “step-by-step” approach might be burdensome and time-consuming, but it allows a person to achieve full identification with what he has achieved. In the words of the Talmud, “If someone tells you, ‘I have not toiled but I have achieved—do not believe him.”[2] Even if that person had found some sort of “shortcut” to attain his goal without toil, what he will find is an empty gift: it will never be truly his. “With chassidim nothing comes automatically,” goes the Chassidic dictum, for at the heart of the Chassidic ethos is the demand for penimiyut, “internalization”—that everything one does should be fully integrated into one’s character and personality.

And yet, we are never content to “play by the rules,” never content to submit to the limitations of the human state. We sense, with every fiber of our being, that we are capable of more; that the “nitty-gritty” of life is an injustice to our true potential; that the pull of the earth that holds us to the staircase of measured progress is an alien imposition, from which there must be some way to free ourselves so that we might leap directly to the full realization of our dreams.

These two approaches to life were personified by the two great Talmudic sages, Shammai and Hillel.

It was said of Shamai the Elder that all his days he would eat for Shabbat. How so? When he came across a prime quality animal, he would buy it and say: “This is for Shabbat.” When he found a better one, he would buy the second one for Shabbat and eat the first.

But Hillel the Elder had a different approach. He did everything for the sake of Heaven. [He would say:] “Blessed be G-d, who every day provides us with the day’s needs.” [3]

To Shammai, everything was for Shabbat. Everything was oriented toward the goal, to the extent that the process of getting there was wholly absorbed within the goal. Going to the marketplace on Sunday, he thought only of what might be acquired for Shabbat. Eating on Sunday was “for Shabbat”—not to satisfy today’s needs, but in order that the better portion be reserved for Shabbat.

Hillel, on the other hand, purchased food on Sunday for Sunday’s consumption, on Monday for Monday’s consumption, and so on. For Hillel, too, the purpose of it all was for Shabbat, but in order to get to Shabbat, one must first feed one’s Sundays and nourish one’s Mondays.

We each have a Shammai and a Hillel within us. For man is an amalgamation of matter and spirit, a body coupled with a soul. Of the body it is said, “Dust you are”[4]; of the soul, “Literally a part of G-d above.”[5] Hence the inherent duality in our self-perception and our approach to the endeavors of life. The body’s finite nature necessitates the “Sunday approach”: begin at the beginning and work your way up the steps and stages of natural progression. The soul’s innate perfection is the source of the “Shabbat approach,” in which we directly relate to the infinite source and end-point of all.

In man, body and soul fuse to form a dynamic, integrated whole, in which their respective approaches to life intertwine as a course that is transcendent even as it is “realistic,” that is end-oriented even as it concerns itself with the means.

This is the lesson of this year’s Rosh Chodesh Elul. Elul, which sums up the year, is headed by both a Shabbat and a Sunday. The month of Elul—and, by extension, the year as a whole—is thus defined as a Shabbat-Sunday reality: a reality that is focused on the ultimate goal and, at the same time, respects and is devoted to the process of getting there.

[1]. The Torah instructs us to set the months in accordance with the lunar cycle: the night on which the new moon is first visible is the first night of the month. Since the moon completes its orbit of the earth in 29.5 days, the new moon is first visible either on the 30th or the 31st night after the previous new moon.

In the days of the Sanhedrin (the supreme court of Torah law that sat in the Temple courtyard), the months were set based on eyewitness sightings of the new moon. On the 30th day after the new moon, the Sanhedrin would convene and await the appearance of witnesses. If at least two witnesses arrived and testified that they saw the new moon on the previous night, that day would be proclaimed Rosh Chodesh and the first day of the new month (in which case the previous month had only 29 days). If no witnesses appeared that day, the next day would be proclaimed Rosh Chodesh, and the previous month would have had 30 days.

On Rosh Chodesh, special korbanot (animal and meal offerings) were brought in the Holy Temple. These had to be offered before the daily afternoon offerings; thus, if witnesses appeared in the late afternoon of the 30th day, after the afternoon offering had been brought, the korbanot of Rosh Chodesh could no longer be offered. In such a case, the Sanhedrin would proclaim two days of Rosh Chodesh, the first of which would be counted as the 30th day of the previous month, while the second day of Rosh Chodesh (on which the offerings would be brought) would be the first day of the new month.

When the conditions of the exile and dispersion of the Jewish people no longer allowed the monthly setting of the calendar by the Sanhedrin, a pre-set calendar was established in which each month has a set number of days: Nissan always has 30 days, Iyar 29, Sivan 30, and so on (the exception are two months, Cheshvan and Kislev, which vary in length: in certain years both have 30 days; in other years, both have 29 days; and in certain years, Cheshvan has 29 and Kislev 30). When a month has 29 days, the following month has only one day of Rosh Chodesh. When a month has 30 days, our calendar follows the model of a double Rosh Chodesh: the 30th day also serves as the first day of Rosh Chodesh for the following month, followed by a second day of Rosh Chodesh on the first of that month.