April 2, 2022

In addition to this week’s regular Torah reading (Tazri‘a) in the annual cycle, this Shabbat also includes two special readings, one to mark the first day of the new month (Shabbat Rosh Hodesh) which falls on this day, and a separate reading to mark Shabbat ha-Hodesh, a day which occurs only once a year, on the Shabbat that precedes or falls on the first day of the month of Nisan. Since these latter two special readings reflect, for the most part, features of our Hebrew calendar that are generally agreed upon today, it might be appropriate to mention the calendar’s role in the disputes that wracked Israel in an earlier day.

 

The details need not concern us here, only the fact that what could have remained a relatively minor disagreement in the closing centuries BCE came to divide the nation as a whole. Thanks in particular to the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now know much more of the extent of these disputes and, quite apart from their particulars, we can see clearly how a relatively minor matter came to be a—and for some, the— casus belli. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that the calendar ultimately split Judaism into warring camps and helped lead to the disastrous revolt against Rome.

 

In present-day Israel, we sometimes seem to be headed down (Heaven forbid) a similar path. Here, the issues are certainly not comparable to the relatively flimsy grounds of yore. But one thing they do have in common is their ability to blow up even minor details into major issues. Long ago, our rabbis distinguished disputes that are “for the sake of Heaven” from disputes that are created simply out of malice, focusing on nothing, or almost nothing. A message to keep in mind over the coming weeks.

 

Shabbat shalom!