High season for calendars: Elul, time for a new luach

The Jewish calendar, the luach, is among the most popular works of our faith. Within its covers can be found just about any and all laws that are time bound and time honored thus enabling us to effectively observe ritual and rite in the correct manner.

In a recent Dvar Torah (words of Torah) on Parashat Re’ei, Rabbi Berel Wein noted the historic importance of the luach with the following observations:

“The calendar has always been central to Jewish life and survival. Under the dark regime of Stalin, Soviet Jewry was forbidden from owning or possessing a Jewish calendar. …

“The depths of loyalty of Soviet Jewry to their inner faith, is seen in the fact that somehow millions of Soviet Jews still knew when the Jewish holidays – especially Simchat Torah – would occur … for the calendar is the rhythm of our lives and evokes with it memory, hope and a feeling of the timelessness of Jewish life and its traditions.”

Rabbi Wein states that “the calendar supplies us with a vision of the future and allows us the ability to feel that we are masters of our fate and that we can, by our own efforts, be influential in determining our destiny.”

Now just imagine this august concept applied to that simple humble little luach that serves to help you, your rabbi, your shamash or gabbai (synagogue attendant), to navigate Jewish custom, law and liturgy as they apply to our daily lives.

The now yearly “changing of the guard” in most observant shuls involving the purchase and installation on a wall of the Ezras Torah Luach has, in recent years, taken on the appearance of an almost sacred ritual in and of itself. This has only served to further endear this little artifact of our faith.

Rabbi Wein concludes his commentary on the luach by noting that, “Though the future is always inscrutable, we can nevertheless be comforted and feel secure by the consistency of our calendar, which has marked the journey of the Jewish people through time and centuries.

“The Jewish calendar reminds us daily of our uniqueness as a people and of the eternity of our Torah and our faith….The passage of time itself is one of life’s gifts bestowed upon us by our Creator.”