Bo:

This Month Shall Mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the new year for you

12:2

The first of Nissan is the new year for kings and festivals. The first of Elul is the new year for the tithe of cattle. Rav Eliezer and Rav Shimon say: the first of Tishri. The first of Tishri is the new year for years, for sabbatical and jubilee y ears, for planting and for tithing vegetables. The first of Shevat is the new year for trees according to the House of Shammai. The House of Hillel say: the fifteenth of Shevat.

Mishnah (2^nd Century)

The most common form of idol-worship is the adulation of heavenly objects such as the sun, the moon and the stars. These bodies have lured people away from monotheism since time immemorial…Considering all the efforts made in the Bible to combat tendencies toward idol-worship, the fact that the first commandment given to the Jewish nation should be the sanctification of the moon, seems puzzling…idolatry can be divided into three kinds. 1. belief that the object worshipped is itself a deity; in that event worship of that deity is the real thing. 2. one considers the object in question as close enough to the real deity to exercise some influence on said deity’s decision making process; in that event one worships the object as a sort of intermediary. One hopes that the object worshipped will intercede on one’s behalf with the inaccessible deity…3. One worships the object in question only for the specific visible function it performs; one considers the continued performance of that function by said object as vital to the welfare of the worshipper…

Yitzchak Arama (15^th century)

Calendars in the ancient world often reflected the world of nature. In the pagan world nature and religion were always intertwined. The sun and moon, the fields, forests, rivers, storms and fertility – all were viewed as manifestations of the gods and were reflected in the calendar…In contrast to this universalistic perspective, Nissan was chosen as the beginning of the Jewish year to reflect a particularistic perspective…this was the first time in history that a calendar was based not on nature but on a historic event…We celebrate and sanctify historic events, and do not necessarily celebrate the transitions between the seasons.

Aaron Demsky (Contemporary)

The present disaffection of Jews with regard to their worship therefore stems largely from the fact that the absolute is reduced to this very worship…To live dangerously for twenty centuries as Jews or as Marranos, only to end up attending pretty ceremonies! Savouring metaphysical anxiety and the presence of the Sacred in social quietude has, after all, been done better elsewhere. But as soon as a great Jewish cause offers itself up to the human appetite for the absolute, fidelity is affirmed…because of the scope of the enterprise, its effect on the whole of a man’s life…Judaism feels cramped within the concept of religion as defined by sociology…Judaism is to be adhered to with particular tenacity by those very people who attach no religious meaning to their adherence and sometimes attach no meaning to it at all…

Emmanuel Levinas (20^th Century)