Summary of the day

Shabbat HaChodesh is the last of the four special parshiyot, the one closest to Rosh Chodesh Nisan. We read “This month shall be for you the head of months; it shall be the first of the months of the year” (Exodus 12:1-20), the passage that gives two mitzvot: sanctifying the month, and the Pesach offering. Ezekiel’s haftara concerns the Nisan offerings.

The mitzvot of the day

• Hearing Parashat HaChodesh in the maftir reading.
• Announcing Rosh Chodesh Nisan and reciting the blessing for the blossoming trees in Nisan.
• Preparing for Pesach: clearing out chametz, “ma’ot chitim” (a fund for the poor before Pesach, “kimcha d’Pischa”), and learning the laws of the festival.

Origin in history

In Egypt, even before the Exodus, God said to Moses and Aaron: “This month shall be for you the head of months.” It is the first mitzvah given to Israel as a nation, and Rashi notes that the Torah could have started here. The meaning: someone who was a slave, whose time belongs to a master, now receives control over his own time. The renewing moon is a symbol of Israel, which wanes and renews.

The message for today

True freedom begins with mastering time. A slave does not set his own schedule, while a free person makes holiness out of it. Before Pesach, when everything is urgent, it is a reminder to set aside times that are truly ours: for Torah, for family, for charity. And the moon reminds us that even when something vanishes, it returns and renews.