Clowns are cavorting to the music, children are clamoring for sweets, people
are lining up to be frightened, thrilled or amused. Another day in the glorious
theme park of life.
Do you take the ferris wheel or the roller coaster?
If you're a ferris wheel kind of guy, you want your ups and downs to follow
an even cycle. You acknowledge that life is a ride -- that there are times to ascend
and times to descend, times to move and times to halt and times to sway gently
in the breeze. But you need for it to follow a regular pattern, so that you can
reflect on what has been and prepare for what's to come.
If you opt for the roller coaster, it's because you know that the real fun
comes when you're caught unawares. When you inch up a long, seemingly endless
incline, only to plunge into a bottomless pit; when a slow, graceful summersault
follows a twisting hurdle through dark tunnels. When you never know what the
ride will throw at you next, and have only your grip on the handlebar and your
faith in the designer's ingenuity to get you through it.
Another day in the theme park of life. Do you take the ferris wheel or the
roller coaster?
Did you ever wonder why our calendar has both weeks and months? Why follow
two different cycles that never add up?
The week came first. As the Bible tells it, G-d created the world in seven
days -- six days of work and a seventh of rest. According to the Kabbalists,
everything in creation is modeled upon this structure of seven sefirot
("lights" or "spheres") -- including time itself. The weekly
Shabbat, first observed by Adam only hours after his creation, is thus the key
to living our lives as "partners with G-d in creation," of attuning
our own creative powers with those of our Creator.
In other words, the seven day week is nature's inner clock -- the system by
which it was brought into being and by which it continues to be sustained and
maintained by its Creator.
And then, one dark night in Egypt some 2,448 years after the first Shabbat,
the month was born.
And G-d spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: "This
new moon shall be for you the head of months; the first of the month of the year
for you..." (Exodus 12:1-2)
The week is generated by seven sunsets and seven sunrises, a repetitive event
by which each day in the cycle is virtually indistinguishable from its fellows;
the month, on the other hand, has its progress marked by the moon's phases, as
it grows from crescent to fullness, only to dwindle back to oblivion and await
another rebirth. The week was programmed by the Creator into creation; the
month, on the other hand, must be created anew each time -- according to Torah
law, a new month is proclaimed after the Sanhedrin (supreme court) hears
testimony from two witnesses who saw the new moon. Shabbat, which commemorates
the creation of the natural order, is a product of the week; the Festivals that
commemorate the miracles of Jewish history (Passover, Sukkot, Chanukah, Purim,
etc.) are all products of the month.
If the week represents all that is regular and immutable in our world, the
month represents the new, the unanticipatable, the miraculous.
Do you take the ferris wheel or the roller coaster? Imagine that you could
ride both simultaneously. If you can imagine that, you know the experience of
living with the Jewish calendar.
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