Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 December 2003 — Page 41

Hanukkah marks the beginning of one of Judaism's years. To understand why we celebrate the beginning of the year in December, not only in September, we have to begin with the beginning. Judaism tells time with three clocks, which are synchronized: solar-lunar, the days of the week of creation culminating in the Sabbath, and the lectionary cycle of the synagogue. The solar seasons signify the pilgrim festivals. The year is divided into lunar months. The week commemorates creation. And the synagogue's lectionary cycle responds to the solar seasons and the lunar months, forming a commentary - a kind of obligato - for the whole. The narrative of Israel is made in that way to form a commentary upon the natural cycle. Critical chapters of the story of Israel, commemorated as festivals, are timed to coincide with turnings in the year of nature. In Judaism, time is marked by the lunar months and the solar seasons and is endowed with sanctity when a turning in the heavens coincides with an episode in Israel's story. Harmony thus characterizes Israel's life on earth and God's abode in heaven. In the words of the Qaddish, the prayer repeated in synagogue worship that sanctifies God's name, "He who makes peace in the heights may make peace for us." The solar seasons and the festivals of Passover and Tabernacles The point is, the sacred calendar signaled by the sun (for seasons) and the moon (for months) coordinates Israel's life here on earth with the movement of the heavenly bodies. The movement of the sun and moon around the earth attests to critical episodes in the Torah's narrative. Thus, every year on the first full moon after the vernal equinox of March 21, the communities of Judaism commemorate the liberation of the Israelite slaves from Egyptian bondage and their escape into the wilderness of Sinai. So too on the first full moon after the autumnal equinox of Sept. 21, Israel returns to dwell in the shacks that afforded shelter in the wilderness for 40 years. The six days of creation: restoring paradise every seventh day Passover-Pentecost and Tabernacles focus on one of the two paramount narratives that nearly all communities of Judaism adopt as their own: Israel liberated from Egyptian bondage, brought to Sinai, given the Torah, condemned by its own rejection of the Land to wander in the wilderness until all the contumacious generation has died out. There is another narrative that shapes the way of life and world view and definition of "Israel" of nearly all communities of Judaism, and that concerns the creation of the

world. On the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath, Israel rests, as God rested after making the world. The Sabbath recreates the condition of the world when God completed creation: "God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that he had done." (Gen. 2:3) With God, Adam and Eve rested on the first Sabbath, and on the Sabbath day, by its repose, Israel restores the conditions that prevailed when God and Adam were last together - that perfect Sabbath when God, having perfected creation, blessed and sanctified the Sabbath day in celebration of the perfection of creation - and entered upon repose. How is the story of the restoration of Eden told? Here, in so many words, we are told that Israel's perfect sanctification of a single Sabbath day represents that repair and perfection of the world that marks the recovery of the Land that is Israel's Eden: Yerushalmi-Tractate Taanit 1:111:5: R. Aha in the name of R. Tanhum b. R. Hiyya, "If Israel repents for one day, forthwith the son of David will come. "What is the scriptural basis? 'That today you would hearken to his voice!"' (Ps. 95:7) Said R Levi, "If Israel should keep a single Sabbath in the proper way, forthwith the son of David will come. "What is the scriptural basis for this view? 'Moses said. Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; [today you will not find it in the field]' (Ex. 16:25). "And it says, 'For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.' And you would not.'" (Is. 30:15) By means of returning and [Sabbath] rest you will be redeemed. The main point, then, is the linkage of repentance to the coming restoration of Israel to the Land, the dead to life, by the Messiah. But the advent of the Messiah depends wholly upon Israel's will. If Israel will subordinate its will to God's, all else will follow. And the Sabbath stands at the very center of the Judaic master-narrative. Marking time and the lectionary cycle So we see that Judaism tells time by correlating nature's solar seasons and lunar months with Israel's paradigmatic events and by commemorating the creation of the world and restoring Eden. But there is another way of marking time, another narrative woven into the narrative of the solar seasons and lunar months. It is time as marked by the Torah as declaimed in the synagogue: the Sabbaths made to recapitulate another narrative. To understand that way, we have to recall that through the lunar year each Sabbath is marked by reading a passage Continued on page 14