Parshas Bo: The Sun and Moon: A Lesson in Jewish Freedom
Liluei Nishmas Ita bas Chanoch Aharon Bistritzky
In this week's parsha, right before the tenth and final plague in Egypt—the killing of the firstborn—Hashem gives the Jews their first mitzvah. Out of all 613 commandments, the very first one is about setting up the Jewish calendar and its months, with Nissan being the first month. This calendar follows the moon, which takes about 30 days to go through its cycle: it starts as a tiny sliver, then builds and builds until the 15th of the month, when it becomes full and then gets smaller again.
Now, you might ask: Why this mitzvah, and why now? Why, just as they're about to get the tenth plague and leave Egypt, does Hashem say, "Hold on—it's important that you know about the Jewish calendar"? And why do we base our months on the moon? To understand this, we need to look at the big difference between the sun and the moon.
The sun is steady—it shows up every day with the same strength. Its cycle doesn't really change. Sure, some days might be hotter or colder, and sometimes there are clouds in the way, but the sun itself shines the same way, day in and day out. The moon, though? The moon is all over the place. It never looks the same from one day to the next. Its orbit is way more complicated than the sun's, and its shape keeps changing—one day, it's big, one day, it's small, one day, it looks like a ball, another day like a banana.
So, what does the moon teach us? It shows us that we can reinvent ourselves. Maybe yesterday I was one way, maybe I've been living a certain pattern for years, but today I can decide to expand my horizons and approach life in a fresh, new way—a more godly and inspired way.
This is the big difference between a slave and a free person. A slave or victim feels stuck. They think, "This is just how it is." They submit to their patterns, feeling like, "I can only reach this much success, this much spiritual growth, this much happiness—and that's it." When you're stuck like this, you lose your creativity and your ability to be fresh and become something new. You start thinking, "I can't change—my past, how my parents raised me, how I built my family, what society says—it all keeps me stuck this way."
But a free person—which is what a Jew is supposed to be—learns from the moon. They can say, "Yeah, maybe until now, I've been living this way. Maybe I've been setting the bar really low or just living on autopilot. But today? Today, I'm going to wake up fresh." People might laugh or make comments, but a free person can live in the present like their past patterns don't even exist.
That's what Hashem was telling Moshe: Jews should count by the moon. In fact, there's a difference between angels and Jews—an angel is called "omed" (someone who stands in one place), while a Jew is called "mehalech" (someone who moves). Only humans can do real teshuva and become totally different from one day to the next—angels can't do that.
But here's where it gets more complicated: The Jewish calendar doesn't just follow the moon—it follows the sun too. How do we know? Well, we have leap years. Every two or three years, we add an extra month. Why? Because if we just followed 12 moon months, our holidays would end up in the wrong seasons. The Torah says Pesach needs to be in spring and Sukkot in fall. So, we add leap years to keep the moon calendar lined up with the sun's seasons.
So which is it—are we supposed to be like the moon or the sun? The answer is both! A Jew needs to balance being steady and being changeable. Our basic beliefs, who we are, what our morals are, and what our purpose is—that needs to be rock solid, like the sun, from when we first understand things until the day we die. But that doesn't mean we should suppress our creativity and live narrowly. Within those solid foundations, we need to keep growing and changing.
This plays out in lots of ways. Take schools—they need to teach solid principles about what we believe in and what our tradition is. But if all you're doing is making kids repeat what their parents did without letting them be creative and become their best selves, you've given them the sun but not the moon. You haven't let them grow into themselves.
How do we do both? It's a tough question—it's hard to put into words how to balance living fully like the sun and fully like the moon. But our calendar shows us it's possible, even if it's complex. Each day, we can wake up with the same basic faith, saying, "Hashem, I'm yours, thank you for waking me up," but also say, "Today I'm going to try something different, approach life with new energy, and find new ways to serve You that I haven't tried before."
This balance shows up everywhere—in how we parent, in marriage (where often men might be like the sun and women like the moon, or vice versa), and in how we grow spiritually. It's about keeping our faith rock solid while still staying fresh and present, like the moon.
There's a fascinating contradiction in the Talmud about this. One part says that in the World to Come, there's never peace. Another part says it'll be a place of total peace and contentment. So which is it? The answer is both! Just like our calendar follows both sun and moon, paradise isn't about just being content and turning off all our drive and ambition—that's more like being dead. But just having ambition and change without any peace isn't paradise either—it just brings anxiety. Real paradise is when we can fully bring together both the moon's movement and change with the sun's steady backbone of peace.
Adapted from Life Talks on the Parsha