Ha Chodesh Hazeh 5714

The Alef Kabbalah group (1 April 2008) explored the (unedited) Chassidic-kabbalistic discourse taught by the Lubavitcher Rebbe on Shabbat Parshat HaChodesh in 1954. Parshat HaChodesh is an extra passage read on the Shabbat before the New Moon of Nisan from a second Torah Scroll. It is from Exodus ch.12, beginning 'This month should be for you the first of the months'. This expresses the idea that Nisan, the month of the redemption from Egypt, is the first month in the Jewish Calendar - although at the beginning of Tishrei, the seventh month, is Rosh Hashanah, celebrating the creation of the world. The discourse explores this theme and then develops a beautiful teaching about the importance of joy when carrying out the Mitzvot. Joy reveals inwardness, and one's joy when carrying out the Mitzvot reveals the Divine inwardness of existence. This is like the redemptive Nisan which reveals its power in the normal, 'natural' structure of the year which starts on Rosh Hashanah.