Pinchas 5780 – Mo’ado – Connecting with Fixity and Spontaneity
We have the korbanos of the mo'adim. את קרבני לחמי לאשי ריח ניחחי תשמרו להקריב לי במועדו. But, interestingly, amongst these korbanos is the Korban Tamid, which is brought daily. Which is strange, because mo'ed implies something special — a unique time. Tamid implies almost the exact opposite: the routine, the constant, the unchanging. Calling the Korban Tamid a mo'ed is almost oxymoronic.
Time is probably the most essential ingredient in Berias Haolam. A world with no time is a frozen world. Picture a photograph: the scene inside it never changes, never accomplishes, never fails. Time is what allows for change, and change is what allows for bechira, for accomplishment, for consequence. Without change, the world would be meaningless — nothing could or would ever happen in it. With Time, change can happen and, as a result, makes a briah worth having.
But there’s a type of change that also seems meaningless. If something happens b’mikreh, where there was a pattern of change, but then, out of the blue, the pattern deviates. A toddler was playing with blocks, and all the sudden pics up a crayon and scribbles on the floor. There doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to it, so it’s also viewed as meaningless. A change that’s mikreh-dik, carries no weight.
So we need time to have meaning, but a time that comes b’mikreh is also meaningless.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu created time, but He didn't create a form of time where a frozen world was transformed into a world of mikreh. Within time itself, He built two tracks — one of kviyus, regularity, patterns, rhythm; but He also created a track of chiddush, deviating from the patterns, unpredictable. The two bodies that mark these tracks: the sun and the moon. The sun is constant, monotonous, regular; and the moon is inconsistent, irregular, a form of chiddush. Our calendar is obviously a fusion of the two.
And our korbanos mimic these two. The Korban Tamid is fixed, it’s daily, influenced by the sun. The moon has no say – whether the chodesh is me’uber or not, is irrelevant to the Tamid. There’s no variation, there’s no deviation.
But the korbanos of the Chag are dictated entirely by the moon, by Kiddush Hachodesh.
The Avoda of Korbanos runs on these two tracks: one that is fixed, and one that fluctuates. Halacha bookends the Avoda of the Beis Hamikdash with two Temidim — the day opens with a Korban Tamid and closes with a Korban Tamid, and nothing may precede the first or follow the last. Every other korban of the mo'adim, sits between those two bookends. The Rambam, when describing the very purpose of the Beis Hamikdash in the opening Halacha of Beis Habechira, describes the Beis Hamikdash as the place where korbanos are brought and where you go up l'regel three times a year: meaning, the irregular avodos ensconced within the regular. This is why all the korbanos are tagged with the title “mo’ado.” Mo’ed means time but it also means where things or people meet, like the Ohel Mo’ed. We “meet” and connect to HKBH with both Avodos together. With the flashes of chiddush, but also the framework of consistency.12
And it’s not just Avodas HaKorbanos. Every person's Avodas Hashem needs both. A person who keeps the halachic routine flawlessly, but with nothing spontaneous — it was drilled into him, it's habit, it's the chevra around him — that Avoda is frozen; it doesn't feel like it means anything. And there’s a t’viya on such a person when their avodah is mitzvas anashim m’lumada.
But on the flip side – a person who is irregular — sometimes yes, sometimes not — he may seem inspired, but instinctively we don't trust erratic behavior. An erratic person is not viewed as a bar da'as.
Take a marriage as an example. A marriage can fall into rote, going through the motions which actually erodes the relationship. But, on the other hand, a person can have moments of elation and connection, but they are totally unpredictable and erratic. This does not lend itself to stability. Neither one on their own is what we actually want. What a person wants is a consistently stable relationship, marked by moments of unique uplift. Both elements create the “mo’ed.”
Baruch Hashem, most of us are frum — we're structured, trained, we do what we're supposed to do. And we thirst, rightly, for moments of uplift, of spontaneity. The sod of avoda is to do both: Tamid as the bookends, mo'adim as the pnim, the toch, giving the whole structure its nishmas chayim.
A person needs to establish both. Which aspects can you do, will you consistently. Where’s your makom kavu’a? What practices do you already do that feel monotonous? Those fixed activities are necessary – they will frame where you need to inject your Neshama.
But you will need to inject that Neshama. There’s got to be chiddush. Where does a person find that hischadshus, though, if his outer life looks the same every day — the same shul, the same makom kavua, the same Daf Yomi, the same masechtos he learned in yeshiva twenty years ago? Obviously you can just take a vacation with a change of scenery. But, that happens what – once or twice a year? Can we generate spontaneity in our daily avoda, yom yom?
Yes, of course! Different people find it in different places. For some it's in learning itself — a new pshat, a chiddush, and suddenly the old words come alive. Or it’s in tefilla. The Volozhiner writes that for a person who truly davens, no two davenings are alike. Or maybe you’ll find it at work. For a person whose avoda is sitting and helping people in whatever situation they are in — every case is not “another case.” He may have heard twenty challenges today, but for the person in front of him, this is his own challenge, and it has to be felt as new, as if for the first time. That, too, is hischadshus.3
The parsha of Mo’ed is telling us that to meet and connect with HKBH, there has to be a tochen, a meaningfulness to what we do. And the meaning comes with two necessary ingredients. One – with an infusion of Neshama, an infusion of chiddush, but equally as important is, two – an avodah that is consistent. Within the bookends of our daily, yom yom avodas HaTamid, is a rich Nekuda of “mo’edo” that connects us to HKBH.
Good Shabbos!