A.
ובראשי חדשים תקריבו עלה וכו' וכו' ושעיר עזים אחד לחטאת לד' וגו' (“And at the head of the months [rosh chodesh] you will bring a burnt offering.... And a single male goat for a sin offering [chatta’th] for Ha-Shem....”; XXVIII,11-15).
Rosh chodesh, when the first sliver of the new moon is visible in the sky, is considered a minor holiday; celebrated in the synagogue with the recitation of Hallel (a collection of Psalms), a Torah reading (which includes the above passage), and an additional prayer service (mussaf). When we have the Béyth ha-Miqdash, the above-mentioned extra sacrifices are offered.
Rashi comments on verse 15: אמר הקב"ה הביאו כפרה עלי על שמיעטתי את הירח (“Said the Holy One, Blessed is He, Bring an atonement [kappara] for Me, because I diminished the moon”).
The mind reels; bring a kappara for G-d?! Did Ha-Shem commit a sin requiring a chatta’th or kappara, chas vë-shalom? What is this business about the moon’s diminution?
B.
Rashi’s comment is based on an exchange in the Talmud. It begins: כתיב "ויעש אלקים את המאורות הגדולים" וכתיב "את המאור הגדול ואת המאור הקטן" (”It is written, ‘And G-d made the great luminaries [ha-më’oroth ha-gëdolim]’, and it is written, ‘the large luminary [ha-ma’or ha-gadol]... and the small luminary [ha-ma’or ha-qaton]’”; Genesis I, 16). The sequence of the clauses lead Chazal to conclude that originally sun and moon were of equal size (both were gëdolim) and that subsequently the moon was made small (אבל עיי' ראב"ע עה"פ וע"ע מש"כ המהר"ל בגור ארי' תיובתא לי').
The moon asks: רבש"ע אפשר לשני מלכים שישתמשו בכתר אחד (“Master of the universe, is it possible that two kings will use the same crown?”). Since the above verse (q.v.) tells us that the purpose of the luminaries was “government” (memshala) of the day and night, the moon asks how this is to work. G-d answers: לכי ומעטי את עצמך (“Go and diminish yourself”). This leads the moon to protest: רבש"ע הואיל ואמרתי לפניך דבר הגון אמעיט את עצמי?! (“Master of the universe, since I said something correct before You I should diminish myself?!”). It sounds as though the moon is being punished.
So G-d tries to appease her, first suggesting: לכי ומשול ביום ובלילה (“Go and reign over day and night”). The moon is often visible by day as well as by night, which is not the case with the sun. The moon is not appeased: Does a candle at noon cast much light? The sun is so much brighter that the moon’s daytime role is hardly apparent.
Next, He tells her that Israel’s calendar will be based on her movements. The moon counters: דכתיב והיו לאותות ולמועדים ולימים ולשנים (“That it is written, ‘And they will serve as signs and for seasons, days, and years”). The sun also has a role to play in calendrical calculations.
G-d tries again: ליקרו צדיקי על שמיך, יעקב הקטן, שמואל הקטן, דוד הקטן (“The tzaddiqim will be named after you: Little Ya‘aqov [Amos VII, 2], little Shmu’el, little David [I Samuel XVII, 14]. When G-d saw that this also did not satisfy the moon, אמר הקב"ה הביאו עלי כפרה על שמיעטתי את הירח (“Said the Holy One, Blessed is He, Bring for Me a kappara because I diminished the moon”; חולין ס:, רש"י שם).
Whatever in the world does this little story mean?
C.
What follows is based upon, and condensed from, a long comment by the Maharal mi-Prag in his Gur Aryeh on our verse, as well as his Bë’er ha-Gola (Bë’er ha-Rëvi‘i).
As the language of the verse in Genesis implies, a ma’or has a set of general specifications, according to which the më’oroth were created in a standard, large size. The verse also tells us that the purposes of these më’oroth was memshala, “government” of day and night. The Maharal, explains that it is inherent in malchuth, “kingship,” that only one of them could be the melech, which the Maharal finds implicit the first verse of the Shëma‘, שמע ישראל ד' אלקינו ד' אחד (“Hear, Israel, Ha-Shem our G-d, Ha-Shem is one”; Deuteronomy VI,4), in which we accept on ourselves the עול מלכות שמים, the “yoke of the kingdom of heaven” (עיי' ברכות י"ג.), thus linking unity with malchuth. The moon, having made this observation was then told to diminish itself.
It is clear from the rest of the Talmudic passage that the moon’s diminution was no punishment; to the contrary, through its diminution the moon achieved sovereignty over both the day and the night (since it is at times visible in both periods, unlike the brighter, flashier sun); became the primary sign for the measurement of passing time for Israel (the lunar month and attendant year are primary, the solar year secondary in calendrical calculations); and tzaddiqim are recognised by their possession of this quality of self-abnegation, first demonstrated by the moon.
All of the above being true, wherein, exactly, lies the moon’s complaint?
To answer this, we must first penetrate to the root meanings of the words kappara and chatta’th. The popular mind has it that a kappara is an “atonement” achieved through the penitent sinner’s offering a qorban chatta’th; but is this highly specialised sense the real meaning of the words?
Kappara is built from the root kaf-pé’-réysh. The Maharal examines other uses of this root in e.g., Genesis XXXII, 21, in which Ya‘aqov says of his brother ‘Ésav אכפרה פניו במנחה, “I shall clear his face with the gift.” Rashi ad loc. cites other passages (Isaiah XXVIII, 18 and XLVII, 11) and concludes on their basis that Ya‘aqov meant אבטלה רוגזו (“I shall annull his anger”). Thus, says the Maharal, the basic meaning of the root is קנוח, סלוק, “removal, wiping away.” Hence, kappara acquires its secondary meaning of “atonement” in the sense that it removes a block or obstacle in the sinner’s relationship with G-d.
Chatta’th, built on the root cheth-teth-alef, appears in Genesis XXXI, 39: אחטנה מידי תבקשנה (“I shall bear the loss, from my hand you should ask it”); in Judges XX, 16: קלע באבן אל השערה ולא יחטא (“who shoots a stone at the target and does not miss”); and I Kings I, 21: בשכב אדני המלך עם אבותיו והייתי ובני שלמה חטאים (”When my lord the king lay with his fathers, I and my son Shlomo were bereft”), and on that basis the Maharal explains that its root meaning is חסרון “lack,” a gap or gulf, and thus chét’ means sin in the sense that it opens such a gulf between sinner and G-d which must be closed or bridged, by bringing a qorban, a sacrifice, whose root meaning makes clear that it restores the closeness (qurva) between the penitent sinner and G-d.
G-d of course does not act unjustly; hence it cannot be that kappara or chatta’th have their colloquial meanings. However, the alteration of one of the two previously equal më’oroth created a necessary and inevitable gap which increased the degree of alienation of the material nether regions which we inhabit, and whose critical time dimension they were going to govern, from the supernal realm. It is precisely this sort of alienation, this yawning gulf, which we are in the world to correct (the true meaning of תקון עולם, “repairing the world”); this is why the moon’s sar held out for qorban chatta’th to be offered by human beings to bridge the gap (וע"ע רי"ף שם בחולין).
D.
As well as unity, the concept of humility is linked by Chazal to kingship, as we have seen. This is evident in the two most common roots signifying rule and govern, mem-lamed-kaf and mem-shin-lamed. Each root is derived by means of the transitive prefix mem from the fundamental roots lamed-vav-kaf and shin-vav-lamed, respectively.
Lamed-vav-kaf does not occur in its basic form in Tanach, but in its reduplicated form, lichluch, it does occur in Oral Torah literature, meaning dirt or dirtiness, i.e. a debased state. Shin-vav-lamed, however, does occur Biblically, in Exodus XXVIII, 33-34, where the word shul refers to the train or hem (that is, the lowest part) of a robe. With the transitive prefix mem, each of these, then, seems to mean something like applying humility.
In this light, we find that the holy Zohar conveys the same notion, proclaiming מאן עני דא דוד מלבא (“Who is poor [i.e., humble]? That is King David”; ח"א קנ"ז.). A properly constituted king knows that he owns nothing of his own; he has the use of state property to pursue and protect the kingdom’s interests, but he is motivated by the understanding that “state” property belongs to the people of the kingdom; it is not his.
Contrast this with another ancient Semitic language, Akkadian, whose word for king, sharrum, is derived from a very different root, which occurs as sin-réysh-réysh in the Holy Language, in turn derived sin-vav-réysh, to have dominion, be a ruler, make oneself a ruler (in the hithpa‘él), lord it over someone. This, presumably, resulted from the corrupting influence of the non-Semitic Sumerians, whose word for king was lugal, literally, big man, imposing himself on others.
Therein lies the difference between the Torah’s concept of the inherent limits of government, kingship through humility, and that which has all too often prevailed in the world.
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