This week's parasha presents us with the opportunity to consider how multi-faceted our Torah is. Two weeks ago, we began the telling of the story of Moses and the Israelites' slavery in, and upcoming deliverance from, Egypt. In fact, narrative stories have dominated the content of the Torah since we began to reread it again this past Simhat Torah. Beginning with the Creation story, Noah, and the accounts of the lives of our patriarchs and matriarchs in the Book of B'reishit (Genesis), we have been reminded of our human and Jewish roots. However, this week's parasha marks a transitional moment in Jewish history regarding the function and content of Torah.

Our Rabbis teach us that there are "shiv'im panim la'Torah"/"seventy faces to the Torah." This quotation can be understood in two ways: that the Torah has many and varied meanings, new ones always being revealed, and that the Torah serves many and varied functions. For the purposes of our discussion this week, we are focusing on the latter. Looking quickly at this week's parasha, we find that the Torah is our story, our legal foundation, and the basis of our moral and ethical code. And it is in this week's parasha that the legal code of the Jewish people begins, with the very first explicit mitzvah/commandment in the Torah for the Jewish people being revealed: God's commandment to the Israelites to observe the upcoming Rosh Hodesh - the beginning of a new month - as the "first of months" i.e. the calendar New Year. Departing Egypt as a free nation for the first time in four hundred years, the Jewish people would begin its own national calendar based on the lunar cycle. There are several additional laws that are contained within this parasha that deal with issues regarding the paschal sacrifice, the consecration of firstborns to God and the celebration of the Passover festival. So, we see that the many faces of Torah are revealed in earnest this very week.

No discussion of this topic would be complete without making mention of a teaching by Rashi (cir. 1040-1105, France), the famous biblical commentator. In his commentary on the very first pasuk (verse) of the Torah, he asks why - if the Torah is a book of Jewish law - the Torah did not start with the verse from this week's parasha which teaches the first mitzvah (commandment) of the Torah. Rashi answers by explaining that the Torah was not written in order exclusively to be a law code. It begins with the narratives of Creation, Noah, and the first families in order to provide a historical, religious, and spiritual backdrop for God as the One God and the God of the Jewish people who promised the Israelites the Land of Israel. Therefore, even Rashi's commentary supports the idea that there are indeed a multitude of faces for the Torah.

May we all take the opportunity to appreciate the profundity of the Torah's meanings and roles for us in our time and take the time to learn from and live by it and all the rabbinic teaching that flows from the depth of its layers.