YeshivaThe torah world Gateway
Beit Midrash
- Shabbat and Holidays
- Passover - Pesach
- The Month of Nissan
Translated by Hillel Fendel
What is time? Time is our ability to delineate and mark a process. We specify a point that marks its beginning, and from there we can proceed further, until the process ends. Time is our ability to define movement and progress. The ancient world did not have such a concept. Pagan man was a pawn within meaningless circularity: birth, work, death, and then again, and then yet again, etc. Early man did notice the change of seasons, but he did not feel the need to count these periods and years; marking a beginning and ending point was not in his awareness.
In the pagan world, there was nothing to progress towards; there are no processes. Man was stuck in a pointless cycle from which he cannot burst out. This is actually a form of slavery. Pagan man did not create units of time, and was therefore rendered captive to the nothingness of time. He became eroded, worked from inertia, and had no control over his life. In Egypt, the cultural center of the ancient world, there was nothing beyond slavery. As the Mechilta legal midrash teaches, "At first, no slave could ever escape from Egypt, which was closed up and locked off." Not only were the Jews enslaved there, but the Egyptian 'masters,' too, found themselves enslaved, closed off to everything outside mere subsistence. There was nothing beyond random chance and nature, eroding in the circles of time.
But with the arrival of the Exodus, a new era dawns upon humanity. The month of Nissan is when time was essentially born in the world, as the Torah declares: "This month is for you the head of the months, the first for you of the months of the year" (Sh'mot 12,2). In Nissan, history sets out on its journey. From now on, there is a beginning, there is renewal, and there is the beginning of historic memory. Time has two dimensions: permanent and variable. In order that we may measure time, we need firstly a point of departure, a stable basis. Afterwards, we will attain "movement," which we will mark as change and progress. We sense this in our personal lives as well: If there is no movement towards a goal, we feel bored, we feel that time is simply not moving.
In the Jewish year cycle, there are indeed two such axes: Shabbat, the permanent basis, and the Festivals, which stand for change and movement. Shabbat comes every six days, and is thus "permanent and lasting" (Tr. Chullin 101b), a fixed point of time ever since the Six Days of Creation. But the Jewish Festivals, on the other hand, are commemorated at different times each year, depending on what the Rabbinical Court determined regarding the new moon and the beginning of the new month.
On the first "Shabbat HaGadol," just before the Exodus, we prepared to slaughter the Egyptian sheep-god that stands for simple nature, purposeless wandering, and no concept of time. In its place, we mark the beginning point, the point at which history begins to move. A few days later comes the next stage: the Passover holiday and the birth of a nation charged with setting direction and movement in history.
To where does time take us? Where is history leading us? History is not merely "the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind,” as historian Edward Gibbon wrote. Rather, as Rav Kook explained, it is historia, a Hebrew play on words meaning "the non-revealed [events] of G-d." It is leading us in a specific direction, towards understanding, as G-d gradually reveals Himself in historia.
The primary greatness of the Shabbat just before the Exodus continues throughout all of Jewish Historia, and brings us to the "great and awesome day of G-d" (Malachi 3,13, from a Biblical portion read aloud on this Great Sabbath). The persona of Eliyahu the Prophet – the man over whom death and time did not reign, and who ended his life on earth by ascending heavenward in a storm – is the one who will announce to us the coming of that great, timeless day: the day of Redemption that is, in the words of a Passover Haggadah hymn, "neither day nor night."
What is time? Time is our ability to delineate and mark a process. We specify a point that marks its beginning, and from there we can proceed further, until the process ends. Time is our ability to define movement and progress. The ancient world did not have such a concept. Pagan man was a pawn within meaningless circularity: birth, work, death, and then again, and then yet again, etc. Early man did notice the change of seasons, but he did not feel the need to count these periods and years; marking a beginning and ending point was not in his awareness.
In the pagan world, there was nothing to progress towards; there are no processes. Man was stuck in a pointless cycle from which he cannot burst out. This is actually a form of slavery. Pagan man did not create units of time, and was therefore rendered captive to the nothingness of time. He became eroded, worked from inertia, and had no control over his life. In Egypt, the cultural center of the ancient world, there was nothing beyond slavery. As the Mechilta legal midrash teaches, "At first, no slave could ever escape from Egypt, which was closed up and locked off." Not only were the Jews enslaved there, but the Egyptian 'masters,' too, found themselves enslaved, closed off to everything outside mere subsistence. There was nothing beyond random chance and nature, eroding in the circles of time.
But with the arrival of the Exodus, a new era dawns upon humanity. The month of Nissan is when time was essentially born in the world, as the Torah declares: "This month is for you the head of the months, the first for you of the months of the year" (Sh'mot 12,2). In Nissan, history sets out on its journey. From now on, there is a beginning, there is renewal, and there is the beginning of historic memory. Time has two dimensions: permanent and variable. In order that we may measure time, we need firstly a point of departure, a stable basis. Afterwards, we will attain "movement," which we will mark as change and progress. We sense this in our personal lives as well: If there is no movement towards a goal, we feel bored, we feel that time is simply not moving.
In the Jewish year cycle, there are indeed two such axes: Shabbat, the permanent basis, and the Festivals, which stand for change and movement. Shabbat comes every six days, and is thus "permanent and lasting" (Tr. Chullin 101b), a fixed point of time ever since the Six Days of Creation. But the Jewish Festivals, on the other hand, are commemorated at different times each year, depending on what the Rabbinical Court determined regarding the new moon and the beginning of the new month.
On the first "Shabbat HaGadol," just before the Exodus, we prepared to slaughter the Egyptian sheep-god that stands for simple nature, purposeless wandering, and no concept of time. In its place, we mark the beginning point, the point at which history begins to move. A few days later comes the next stage: the Passover holiday and the birth of a nation charged with setting direction and movement in history.
To where does time take us? Where is history leading us? History is not merely "the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind,” as historian Edward Gibbon wrote. Rather, as Rav Kook explained, it is historia, a Hebrew play on words meaning "the non-revealed [events] of G-d." It is leading us in a specific direction, towards understanding, as G-d gradually reveals Himself in historia.
The primary greatness of the Shabbat just before the Exodus continues throughout all of Jewish Historia, and brings us to the "great and awesome day of G-d" (Malachi 3,13, from a Biblical portion read aloud on this Great Sabbath). The persona of Eliyahu the Prophet – the man over whom death and time did not reign, and who ended his life on earth by ascending heavenward in a storm – is the one who will announce to us the coming of that great, timeless day: the day of Redemption that is, in the words of a Passover Haggadah hymn, "neither day nor night."
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 9 - "Seeing is Believing" (parag. 21-30)
These paragraphs elaborate on the theme that seeing and knowing is better than any attempt to prove logically, and begins explaining the difference between Israel and gentiles.
Ein Aya Various Universal Stages of the Geula Process
Rav Kook examines the various stages of redemption, explaining how (in addition to the obvious oft-mentioned stages of ingathering the exiles, reviving the Hebrew language, army, state etc.) the messianic dream of world prosperity, the State of Israel and world unity can and are realistically and logically gradually coming true.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
How do we know that the "claim" of mass revelation to 2,000,000 witnesses at Mt. Sinai is really true? This important class answers all of the questions skeptics ask about this claim of the Kuzari.
Ein Aya Armies Still Necessary for Balance & the War Against Wars
Rav Kook explains why the world was originally divided into the various seemingly contradicting ideologies and cultures, in order to develop each one respectively. Swords or armies symbolize how each respective ideology defends themselves, as well as deters their opposing ideologies and cultures. On the other hand, the messianic era will be one of peace, and Rav Kook explains the transition to that stage, which mankind is already undergoing.
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
