Greg Killian: A Rosh Chodesh (New Moon) - In the future

In the future

In sefer Revelation, a sod level sefer, we read about a Rosh Chodesh celebration in the future:

Revelation 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

This pasuk suggests that the Rosh Chodesh celebrations of the future will involve healing. Note that the fruits of one of the twelve trees will ripen on Rosh Chodesh.

Beginnings

Rosh Chodesh represents a beginning. Beginnings, in Torah, are very potent. For example, the moment of conception of a human being is a time when both the male and the female chromosomes divide in half. The remaining halves then unite to form a new being. The genes that were laid down at this moment are the descriptors that will define this person for the rest of his life. Not only do they describe his physical components like the color of his eyes and hair, but they also define his temperament and his likes and dislikes. In fact, Chazal teach that that moment also gives the memories of the father to his progeny. In some way, the child knows about the father. While the beginning has occurred in secret, never the less, its potency is great as it contains everything in a compressed form.

Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of a month, is a little bit like the flash of inspiration, which leads to a blueprint, which leads to a completed building. That moment of inspiration contains everything! That moment is hidden, but the end will reveal that it contained everything.

Our Sages teach us that the sound made by the shofar is the sound of the human neshama, the soul. This is a sound without corruption, the raw sound of the neshama. The bend of the shofar is said my the mystics to be the transition between this world and the next.

The shofar is the depth or root of speech. Teshuva (repentance) means to go back to the moment of creation, to go back into the womb to the moment of conception. We return to our fetal state, our moment of creation. This return is what Chazal meant by zicranot, memory or remembering as a function of Rosh HaShana. We return to the moment when the memories (sperm) of the father are given to us. Chazal use this same concept to teach us that the sound Adam HaRishon heard on wakening from his creation, was the sound of a shofar, the sound made by his neshama as it entered him. This suggests that the shofar can take us back to the very moment when our neshama entered us.

This same concept will help us to understand why a ram was found at the very moment that Isaac expired and was resurrected. At that moment a shofar became available.