Back in high school, I had a wonderful teacher who told our class about an intriguing, ritual called kiddush levanah, the monthly sanctification of the new moon. Rabbi Simcha Fishweicher explained that the ritual carries with it protective powers for those who recite it, and that the one time he missed performing it at the prescribed time he suffered a near-death experience. That was enough to convince me to commit to the practice. I came home and shared about the practice with my father, and he and I have been reciting kiddush levanah monthly ever since. No matter where I happen to be in the world, we make sure to get on the phone to recite the prayer together.
The origin of kiddush levanah can be found in Tractate Sanhedrin 41b and consists of a patchwork of scriptural sources. But it’s the penultimate paragraph of the prayer that always piqued my interest most — the cryptic reference to the restoration of the diminished moon to equal the luminosity of the sun, a seeming reference to messianic times. It is precisely this unusual image of the moon’s diminishment that occupies center stage on today’s daf.
Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi raises a contradiction: It is written: “And God made the two great lights” (Genesis 1:16), and it is also written: “The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.”
Genesis 1:16 describes the creation of two seemingly equal lights, yet immediately after the verse notes a “greater light” that rules in the day and a “lesser light” that rules at night. Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi explains: Originally, the sun and the moon were indeed of equal luminosity. But then the moon suggests that two kings cannot wear one crown — one must serve the other. So God tells the moon to diminish herself. The moon, presumably dissatisfied with God’s response, pushes back. Thus begins a series of attempts to mollify the moon. First, God offers that she could rule during the day. But the moon counters that this is a meaningless offer, as the sun would greatly outshine her, as a small candle hardly illuminates the sun-soaked daytime. God then offers that the Jewish people would set months by the moon’s cycles, but this too leaves the moon unsatisfied, as people also count years and days by the sun. Finally, God mentions that a number of very righteous and modest figures would be known as hakatan (“the small”), linking them to the smaller light. But this too is unsuccessful.
God saw that the moon was not comforted. The Holy One, Blessed be God, said: Bring atonement for me, since I diminished the moon.
Recognizing that all attempts to placate the moon had failed, God institutes a monthly sacrifice that the Jewish people would offer for the new month as a permanent acknowledgment of God’s wrong against the moon.
The creation of the two (originally equal) lights and the almost immediate stratification of them is shortly after paralleled by the creation of humans. In Genesis 1, the Torah seems to describe male and female humans being created not only simultaneously, but apparently together: male and female, God created them. By Genesis 2, we read of an entirely different creation narrative, in which God creates Adam first and only later fashions Eve out of his rib. We read of the further hierarchization of humanity when Adam and Eve are punished for partaking of the forbidden fruit. Indeed, among Eve’s great punishments is her subjugation to Adam, who will be “her desire.”
The moon’s argument with God is a quintessentially Jewish encounter — and in fact, certain sources understand the moon in this story as a stand-in for the Jewish people, who are fated to weather so many trials. Key to understanding the spiritual richness of the story is the idea that in actively contending with the Divine in dialogue, we enter into relationship with the Divine. The moon’s punishment (parallel to Eve’s punishment) is to to shine light only by means of reflecting someone else’s light. The moon lives in relationship.
Reading of the diminution of the moon in this particular light, we can return to the utopian vision spelled out at the close of kiddush levanah with a deepened appreciation of the radical blessing it invokes. When we gaze upon the brilliance of the moon in the night sky, in the darkest of places, we orient our prayers to a time when the moon, women and all who are socially marginalized will one day be restored to their full God-given glory. So may it be.
Read all of Chullin 60 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 29, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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