The Meaning of Time
The first commandment in the Torah directed to the Jewish people (as opposed to being directed to the patriarchs or other individuals who pre-dated the Jewish people as the nation of Israel) was to establish a Jewish calendar.
Fifteen days before the Exodus, on the first day of the month of Nissan, G-d commanded Moses and Aaron to establish a new month, by observing the new moon. This month would be the first of the months of the year. They were then commanded to instruct the Jews that ten days hence, on the tenth day of the first month, they should designate and prepare a sheep as an offering. On the fourteenth day of the first month they should offer the sheep as a Passover offering, they should eat the offering on the night of the fifteenth, which would coincide with the tenth plague, the plague that would force Pharaoh to set the Jews free.
We would expect that the very first commandment to the Jews as a people would capture a deep spiritual truth, a life altering message, a revolutionary idea that was unique to the nation about to be born. Why then is the commandment of setting a calendar the first thing that G-d commands the new nation? The Jewish people were about to experience radical change, they were about to become a free people. They were about to begin the journey toward accepting the Ten Commandments at Sinai. Why then does G-d burden them with the task of establishing a calendar which seems no more than a footnote to the life altering experiences of the Exodus? A calendar might be a necessary tool for a functional society, yet it does not seem to be a pressing need at the moment of liberation, it seems that a calendar is no more than a bureaucratic tool which could be established sometime in the future.
The one thing which we have no control over is the passage of time. Time ticks by whether we like it or not. All the money in the world, the combined effort of all humanity, cannot stop the clock. We therefore view the passage of time as something we have no control over, as an objective fact independent of human experience. We think of ourselves as bound by time, unable to escape its tight grip on our very existence.
That is until we are commanded to establish a calendar.
When G-d redeemed the Jewish people from Egypt, he charged them with the task of being a holy people. The Jews were called upon to connect heaven and earth, to sanctify the mundane, and to bring the Divine into every facet of creation.
All of creation lies within the boundaries of time. If our mission is to sanctify all of existence, then the first Mitzvah, the place to begin, is with the sanctification of time itself. Setting up the calendar, and establishing the new month based on the sighting of the new moon, is referred to in Hebrew as “Kiddush Hachodesh” - the Sanctification of the new month.
The Biblical system for establishing the calendar was by witnesses who would come to the high court in Jerusalem each month to testify that they had sighted the new moon. The court would then pronounce that day to be a holy day, the day of Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the new month. The Jewish people would wait for news of when the court established the new month. The message they received was, indeed, the human being does control time. The Mitzvah is not to passively observe and mark the passage of time, but rather it is to actively participate in establishing the “Rosh Chodesh”, the beginning of the new months, and the holy days throughout the year.
The message to the Jewish people is, although we cannot control the passage of time, we are very much in control of time itself. We determine the meaning of time. Will this day be mundane or holy; meaningless or filled with sanctity? Will the next moment be just a trivial moment or will it be infused with the infinity of G-d? It is up to us. Time itself is in the hands of each and every individual.
G-d took us out of Egypt and gave us free choice. G-d gave us the ability to be truly free, to be in control of our time.
G-d commanded us to establish a calendar, to understand that we are in control of our time, for r only we can determine its significance and meaning.[1]
[1] Inspired by the teachings of the Rebbe, Lekutey Sichos, Bo, Vol. 26 Sicha 1.