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A related Reb on the Web: Tishre vs. Nisan.
A: Dear Miriam:
The first part of your question wins you this week's Reb on the
Web Jewish Intuition Prize! In fact, according to the Torah, the
first month is in the spring. We find the following verse in the book of Exodus
12 (verse 1), right before God strikes the firstborn and takes
the Israelites out of slavery: "God said to Moshe and Aaron in
the land of Egypt, saying: 'This month shall be for you the beginning
of months, it shall be the first of the months of the year.'"
We know that's in the spring because we celebrate Passover in
the spring, in the month of Nisan, right? It makes sense, as you
said: the spring is the time of renewal, of new life, and the
commemoration of our liberation from the darkness of slavery just
seems to fit with the bright and cheery theme of the season.
So technically, the first of Nisan, in the spring, is the "New
Year," in that Nisan is called the first month. To make matters
more confusing, the Torah merely says that the first day of the
month of Tishrei, which it calls the seventh month, is merely
a holy day of shofar sounds; the Torah does not call this day
"Rosh Hashana," (the "Head of the Year") like we do. (See Leviticus
23 for the Torah's accounting of the Jewish year cycle.)
Never let it be said that Jews couldn't come up with a creative
solution to an accounting problem: since there was, even in early
Talmudic times, a tradition of "Rosh Hashana" in the fall, on
the first of Tishrei (just as we celebrate it), but the Torah
tells us the first month of the year is in the spring, so the
rabbis of the Talmud (Mishna Rosh Hashana 1) decided that there
were actually four (!) "New Years":
1) The first of Nisan, in the spring, is the New Year for kings
(i.e., determining the number of years of their reigns) and for
the religious calendar. Thus the date of the first of Nisan basically
sets up how the rest of the year will fall, at least in the old
days before modern astronomical techniques.
2) The first of Elul, in mid to late summer, is the first year
for determining which cattle had to be tithed - think of this
as the fiscal year.
3) The first of Tishrei is our Rosh Hashana, and is the New Year
for counting the seven-year Sabbatical cycle and the 50 year Jubilee
cycle, among other things.
4) The 15th of Shvat, which usually falls in mid January to mid
February, is the New Year of the Trees; we now celebrate this
as Tu B'Shvat, a minor holiday with ecological and nature themes.
It's midwinter for us, but in Israel it makes sense, because January
is the rainy season, which will determine whether the trees grow
well or not.
Now, this may seem crazy and confusing, but if you think about
it, it's not that different from our society. We have several
"years" overlapping with different start dates: the calendar year,
the fiscal year, the tax year, the academic year, the baseball
season, and so on. Perhaps, again as you noted in your question,
the spring became our "New Year" of liberation because the theme
of rebirth seems to fit so well with the commemoration of liberation
from oppression. Similarly, the fall harvest season might be a
bit of a more reflective time, knowing that winter is up ahead,
and more suitable for the introspective holidays of Rosh Hashana
and Yom Kippur.
An excellent book on the Jewish holidays which examines each holiday
in its seasonal and ecological context is Seasons of Our Joy, by Arthur Waskow.
NJL |
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