Posted on April 11, 2025 by Cantor Risa Wallach
Shalom Chaverim,
As we approach the celebration of our Pesach or Passover seders, we notice the season we have entered. Passover in fact, has another name: Chag Ha Aviv, Festival of the Spring. Trees have exploded with buds and flowers, plants are turning green again, everything has started to bloom and the earth is offering us its riches.
Celebration of Jewish holidays is almost always rooted in the seasons, the cycles of the year, and the movement of the heavenly bodies, the sun and moon.
Solar and lunar cycles in the Jewish calendar are like each other, and also merge with each other. The solar Hebrew calendar includes what are called the three major festivals, or Shalosh Regalim, from the Torah: Pesach (Spring), Shavuot (Summer) (usually observed in the month of June) and Sukkot (Fall) -(Sukkot includes Simchat Torah and a lesser-known festival, Shemini Atzeret). We also observe Yizkor, or the memorial service on each of these 3 holidays. Lunar holidays prescribed in the Torah are Rosh Hashanah (on the new moon of Tishrei) and Yom Kippur, on the 10th of Tishrei, though we know that two of the Three Festivals also fall on the 15th of the lunar month. Check the sky on Pesach, and see if you can find a full moon, the midpoint of the lunar month. Just knowing that Islam follows a completely lunar calendar explains why the holy month of Ramadan can move all around in the yearly calendar, not aligned with the Gregorian calendar. Jews also observe the new moon, Rosh Chodesh, with special Psalms in the Hallel service, and a blessing for the new month on the Shabbat preceding Rosh Chodesh, as well as women’s Rosh Chodesh rituals.
Recently, a congregant brought a question to me: Why, every year, does the story of Pesach come before the actual celebration of Pesach? Why do we not read the weekly Torah portion on the dates of the festivals?
Here is a partial answer to her question.
In the cycle of the Torah readings, the parashah or sidra for each week, there are 54 readings, one for each week in a leap year, beginning and ending on Simchat Torah. But the 12 month year only has 52 weeks, plus there are intervening holidays which have their own designated Torah readings based on the rituals of the holiday or the related stories, such as the binding of Isaac and the stories of Sarah and Hagar on Rosh Hashanah. Some parashiyot are designated to be combined, to compress the calendar of Torah reading. The story of Pesach is found in the book of Exodus, which begins earlier or later in the year, depending on whether it falls in a leap year, and where the holy days fall in that year’s calendar.
We come from an earthy tradition, with earth-based customs that remind us that we are intricately connected to this planet and to the entire universe itself. Rabbi Arthur Waskow in his book, Seasons of Our Joy, wrote: ‘From the beginning the Jewish people have celebrated the Jewish festivals in order to honor the Unity that underlies all life. The very interweaving of the themes of history and nature, the human life cycle and moments of spiritual experience, remind us that in some sense all the realms of life are dancing with each other.’
As Jews come together at seder tables across the globe, in a very challenging time in our country and the world on this Passover, I invite you to remember this rootedness we all share in our earth and with all of creation.
I am wishing all of you a zissen Pesach, a sweet Pesach, and a Chag Ha Aviv Sameach, a happy festival of Spring!
L’shalom,
Cantor Risa Wallach
