Shabbat Tazria HaChodesh

Lev. 12:1-13:59 and Ex. 12:1-20

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb for the Orthodox Union

My Earliest Memory

Have you ever been asked the question, “What is your earliest memory?”?

I have been asked that question many times. There was a time, long ago, when I was a graduate student in psychology, when that question was posed. The answer was considered very revealing of the respondent’s deeper psyche.

Such exceptionally early memories were known in psychoanalytic circles as “screen memories” and were considered quite significant diagnostically. The scientific significance of such memories is now considered to have no basis, but they are certainly interesting and make for great conversation.

Considering the question posed, I had a clear image of my first memory. I was standing outside a brick building, looking up at my father, may he rest in peace, surrounded by a small crowd of other men. Everyone was looking at the moon.

This may have been my first experience, at age three or four, of Kiddush Levana, the monthly ceremony during which the congregation exits the synagogue and acknowledges the first appearance of the new moon.

I have another memory of the religious significance of this ceremony. I remember being told that the Hebrew word for “month” is “chodesh” and the Hebrew word for “new” is “chadash”. It was then that I learned of the significance of the new moon which commences a new month, and became aware for the first time that the Jewish people follow the lunar, not solar, calendar.

This week, we read the Torah portion of Tazria. But since it is also the very last Sabbath before the new moon of the month of Nisan, the month of Passover and spring time and the beginning of the new calendar year, we will also read an additional portion from Exodus 12:1-20, known as Parshat HaChodesh. Famously, according to Rashi, these verses are the true beginning of the Torah.

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