It’s hard to believe we are marking a year since the pandemic began.

As we pass this milestone, the reality of the past year sinks in: Our hearts break for the more than half million lives taken by the pandemic. We grieve the people, the moments, the sense of safety, we lost. Yet despite everything we lost, we are still here. We feel grateful for our friends and family members, for all those who gave us the strength and support to go on.

So today, we are also celebrating a new beginning: Orchard Cove is beginning to reopen, giving us more ease and freedom of movement. The weather is getting warmer, the birds singing again. Spring’s arrival coincides, in the Jewish calendar, with the Hebrew month of Nisan, which starts this Sunday – two weeks before Passover.

To celebrate this month of growth and freedom, the sages call this Shabbat Shabbat HaChodesh, “the Shabbat of months.” To honor it, they instituted a special Torah reading  in which we encounter the first commandment, way before the Ten Commandments. This is the commandment to sanctify the new moon. It reads: “This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” (Exodus 12:1)

Imagine: after 400 years of slavery in Egypt, during which they have been unable to determine their comings and goings, or tell one day from another, our ancestors are now free, have the power to shape their schedule. During lockdown, many of us (myself included!) forgot what day it was; setting our own schedule again is a big adjustment! So Rashi (a medieval commentator) imagines God helping out by pointing at the moon as it waxed, and saying to Moses: “when you see the moon in a stage of renewal similar to this…you may proclaim that a new month has begun.”

This is a tender moment of transition when God helps our people regain agency by giving them control over their schedules. Unlike Shabbat, which comes and goes regardless of human action, the new moon must be determined by human beings. The Talmud explains two individuals need to independently verify the moon is waxing. When they are certain, they light a fire on a mountaintop, and all the regions around do the same, until the message gets out and there is a great communal celebration.

Likewise, our new beginning as a nation and a world, has depended on human communication and behavior to determine what we could do to slow the spread of COVID, to speed the incredible vaccines into production,  to get them to the people who needed them most – so we could again begin to enjoy  some of the freedoms of pre-pandemic times.

As we celebrate this Shabbat of months and mark the moon’s growth to fullness at the threshold of our people’s liberation, let’s reflect on what has sustained us over the last 12 months, and feel, as we welcome warmer and more expansive days ahead, that time is ours again to fill with the people and activities we love.

May it be so.