Adapted from: Rav Pam on Chumash by Rabbi Sholom Smith

הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים 

This month shall be for you the beginning of the months (Shemos 12:2).

The mitzvah of Kiddush HaChodesh, the sanctification of the new moon, was the first commandment given to the Jewish people as they were about to become a nation. Kiddush HaChodesh is the manner by which Jews measure the passage of time and is the basis for the yearly cycle of Yamim Tovim.

Sforno comments on this mitzvah, ‘‘From now on, the months will be yours to do with them as you wish.’’ There is a deep significance in Kiddush HaChodesh as the first mitzvah presented to a nation of freed slaves. A slave has no time to call his own. His days and nights are controlled by his master. Freedom means the ability to use time as one wishes and not be dependent on the needs or desires of one’s master. Only when a person is in control of his time can he be a mitzuvah v’oseh to perform the mitzvos of the Torah. Therefore, as a prelude to their new obligations to uphold the Torah, Klal Yisrael was given this special mitzvah which is the key to all the other mitzvos.

It is the Beis Din’s task to sanctify the cycle of months. It is the task of every Jew to sanctify the gift of life he has been given by proper utilization of time.

When a person has a sizable amount of money to invest, he doesn’t simply accept the first offer that comes his way. He will seek the advice of expert investment bankers to guide him because his financial future is at stake.

Yet while most people understand that investing money requires careful forethought, very few people realize that even more forethought, advice and planning is required in investing time — a commodity infinitely more valuable than money.

Every human being is allotted a specific amount of time on this earth and a person’s task is to make the optimum use of this priceless gift. In what should a person invest his time to yield the greatest ‘‘returns’’ in this world and the World to Come? Someday a careful reckoning of every moment of life will be made by the Heavenly Court to ascertain if this gift of time was used properly. 

The Chofetz Chaim would often repeat the following aphorism to his students: ‘‘Ihr meint az men darf zine frum? Men darf zine klug!’’ (‘‘Do you think you have to be frum? You have to be smart!’’) His intention in this remark can be explained with a statement from the Gemara (Chagigah 4a) which teaches that a shoteh is defined as someone who loses whatever is given to him. Thus, a person who is given the gift of time and life and thoughtlessly wastes it with nonsense is in the category of a fool.

Yet in America there are multi-billion-dollar industries devoted to helping people ‘‘kill time’ which, given its immense value, is essentially first-degree murder.

Let us not fall victim to their tactics by discarding our valuable time — essentially our lives — and utilize the gift of time and thereby earn the full blessings of Hashem to live our life to the very fullest.