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In an broadcast shown at Princeton University March 29, British Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathon Sacks spoke about three mitzvot (commandments) specific to the Hebrew month of Nissan -- one that occurs every Nissan, one that occurs every seven years, and one that only occurs every 28 years.

The lecture, sponsored by the Chabads of Princeton, Lawrenceville, the Windsors, Monroe Township, Princeton University, and The College of New Jersey, was in honor of hakhel, a tradition that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson revived. In observance of the custom, Chabad is hosting four lectures this year, in which approximately 360 communities are participating.

Sacks, who has been chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth since 1991 and was knighted in 2002 for his public service, is a widely respected religious authority who is credited for encouraging many Jewish families in England to send their children to private Jewish schools, according to Rabbi Shmuel Lew, a member of Lubavitch U.K.'s executive board.

"[Sacks] is known in England as the greatest articulator of religious ideas, even amongst the general population," Lew said, referring to Sacks' television show on the BBC network and his frequent articles in the New York Times. "The chief rabbi has promoted a structure of education, bringing joy, singing, and happiness to youth. More than 50 percent of the children of England are in Jewish schools, and a lot of it is due to the inspiration of Rabbi Sacks."

Sacks began his lecture by explaining the three mitzvot and their relevance to this particular time of year.

Hakhel is commandment number 612 out of the 613 Moses gave to the Jews at Mount Sinai, Sacks said. The commandment for the Jews to gather and hear Torah was originally organized by the king, and all Jews had the obligation to go to Jerusalem and hear the reading. Birkat Hachama is a blessing recited once every 28 years when the planets, sun, and stars are in the exact position they were in at creation, Sacks explained. The blessing is always recited on Wednesday because the planets, stars, and sun were created on the fourth day. The korban pesach was roasted and eaten in a family gathering before the Jews were brought out of Egypt, Sacks said.

All three of the mitzvot are connected according to three fundamentals of Jewish faith extracted from Maimonides' 13 principles of faith: creation, revelation, and redemption.

"God's relationship with the world is creation, His relation to us is revelation, and when you apply revelation to creation, we bring about redemption," Sacks said.

Sacks explained that the pattern of creation-relation-redemption appears in everyday Jewish life, prominently in the siddur.

"Look at the structure of morning weekday prayer as a whole," Sacks said. "We discuss creation, then there's amidah, where we stand directly in the presence of God, and then there's u'va l'tzion, which is about redemption."

Each of the three qualities applies to one of the mitzvot of this time of year, Sacks said.

"As the Orech Hashulchan explains, the blessing of the sun every 28 years is the beginning of the greatest cycle that happens," Sacks explained. "Every 28 years, the planets and the stars are in the same position as they were when the heavenly bodies were created on the fourth day." This, Sacks said, testifies to creation.

Hakhel, Sacks said, renewed the covenant between God and the Jewish people.

"Hakhel was the moment when the king gathered the entire people and read for them the Torah," Sacks said. "He read sefer habrit, the book of God's covenant with Israel. Hakhel is every seven years. Hakhel is re-enacting revelation -- the revelation of God to the entire people at Sinai."

Korban Pesach, Sacks said, is an annual reminder of "when the temple stood on the eve of redemption, when God brought His people out from slavery into freedom -- the great moment of redemption of Jewish history."

On a deeper level, Sacks explained that each mitzvah also relates to us as individuals, a family unit, and an entire nation -- three basic human groupings.

"The blessing over the sun is a mitzvah that applies to each of us as individuals," Sacks said. "The general principle when it comes to blessing the sun is that people come together for it. The custom is to celebrate in large crowds, but the mitzvah itself applies to the individual, so you need to do it anyway."

Korban Pesach is a mitzvah that applies to a family unit, Sacks said.

"The very essence of the mitzvah is that the korban pesach is meant to be celebrated as a family," Sacks said. "That's why all Jews, from the most to the least religious, come together on Pesach as families. It's the great family time of the Jewish year."

Hakhel, Sacks explained, applies to the nation as a single unit.

"The king gathers people together and addresses them as one person," Sacks said.

Sacks then explained the connection between individual, family, and nation to creation, revelation, and redemption.

"When it comes to creation, the primary feeling we have is that here is the finite me, and there is the infinitely vast and powerful creation," Sacks said. "Just thinking of ourselves in the vast galaxy… fills us with two feelings: a sense of the greatness of God, and at the same time, we have fear of God, because here I am, so tiny, a speck of sand on the seashore, dust on the surface of infinity. We relate to creation as individuals."

"Redemption, however, happens in families," Sacks continued. "When God commands Moshe to bring the Jews out, he says to bring out ‘my child Israel.' When God redeemed his children from Egypt, he did it as a family. Kinship groups are what people give up things for. When it comes to redemption, the family is essential."

Hakhel is related specifically to revelation because of its parallels to receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, Sacks explained.

"Here we are in the presence of something very strong and uniquely Jewish," Sacks said. "When God revealed himself to Mount Sinai, he didn't do it to an individual or a family, but to an entire nation. There is no other concept of revelation [in this scale] in the other religions, cultures, or civilizations of the world. Others talk about sons of God, prophets of God, but when God spoke at Sinai, he did so to all of us together as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

Sacks then identified a phenomenon directly linked to the Jewish culture: that even though Jews were scattered across the world, they were always considered one nation.

"Normally, a nation is a group of people who live in the same land, political jurisdiction, or the same language," Sacks said. "Jews remained a nation even when they were scattered and dispersed across the world. Over 2,000 years, they were seen as one person. We were the world's first global nation. The Hakhel and the revelation that binds us all is Torah, and we are all responsible for each other because we share a faith and a sense of fate."

Sacks then connected the idea of being a whole nation to the Haggadah and the story of the four sons. The wicked son is not chastised because he speaks badly of Judaism, Sacks said, but that he violated a fundamental principle. The wicked son "excludes himself from the people, [and therefore], he violated a fundamental principle of the faith reenacted every seven years at hakhel: that God chose us as one person, in which each of us has a share and each has a unique contribution to make," Sacks said. "Although in terms of creation we react as individuals, in redemption, we react as a nation. When it comes to the Torah, we are one people. That's why division was so dangerous in the past."

A Hakhel was called at every significant juncture in Judaism, Sacks said.

"Moses himself did Hakhel to reaffirm the people's faith," Sacks said. "Yehoshua did it too. Jeremiah and Ezra did it too. Whenever the Jewish people is fractured, there is a voice calling from Heaven, saying to renew the sacred covenant, gather the people together and make sure everyone is united and connected."

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, who revived the tradition of Hakhel, "saw the Jewish people as shattered, tattered, thrown all over the world, and limping through after the wrestle with the angel of death," Sacks said. "And the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in an act of faith and leadership that had no parallel in 2,000 years, reached out in love to every Jew, everywhere in the world, to try to reconnect them, to try to make them a single kehila (congregation) again, to try to open their hearts and minds about the voice of revelation. He performed the mitzvah of Hakhel in our time. That has to be the mitzvah of this hour."