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Back to Question of the Week Q: According to Exodus 12:2, God says "Let this New-Moon [the one before Pesach] be for you the beginning of the New-Moons, the beginning-one let it be for you of the New-moons of the year..." Could you please explain why our current Jewish calendar begins on Rosh Hashanah in the North American autumn months as opposed to in the spring at the beginning of Pesach? (E. Fox Translation) Merle |
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A related Reb on the Web: Why do we celebrate the New Year in the Fall? A: While the verse that you cite does indeed indicate that the year begins in the spring-time month of Nissan, in which Passover falls, there is already in the Tanakh itself some indication of alternative ways of reckoning the beginning of the year. Thus, in Exodus 23:14-17, the pilgrimage festivals (which don't include Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur) are listed beginning with Passover. But the time of Sukkot, which falls two weeks after Rosh Hashanah, on the full moon of the month of Tishrei, is called "the time of the going-out [or: "changing"] of the year." There is a small limestone calendar found at a site known as Gezer, next to the contemporary kibbutz of the same name, which is believed to date from about the time of King Solomon, mid-10th century B.C.E. The Gezer calendar lists the months of the year and the farmer's activities in that month and begins this accounting of the agricultural year in the fall. On the other hand, the Tanakh never refers Rosh Hashanah as "Rosh Hashanah" (="beginning of the year), and always counts the months starting with Nissan. Even such a late book as Esther, written well after the Babylonian exile from which scholars see the origins of the ascendency of Rosh Hashanah as the beginning of the year, still calls Nissan the first month (Esther 3:7) In the period of the Mishnah (about 0-200 B.C.E.), there were still arguments about when the when world began, Nissan or Tishrei. (See Talmud Bavli, Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a and Bereshit Rabbah 22:4.) Maybe the ancients were just more comfortable with multinple new-years than we are. The Rabbis of the Mishnah (Tractate Rosh Hashanah 1:1) had four -- count 'em, four! -- Rosh Hashanah's. (They were: the first of Nissan, the New Year for the cycle of festivals and for reckoning the reigns of kings; the first of Ellul, the beginning of the fiscal year for reckoning tithes of livestock; the first of Tishrei, our Rosh Hashanah, the new year for years (i.e. the calendrical new year) and a bunch of other things; and the fifteenth of Shevat, the new year for trees.) Of course, we also have different overlapping "years:" fiscal years, school years, calendar years.... At some point, though, the primacy of the Tishrei Rosh Hashanah as the beginning of the world and of the year became established. It is clear that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were second-tier holidays in the Biblical year. They aren't even always mentioned in Biblical lists of the holidays. But by the time of the Mishnah, Rosh Hashanah was already beginning to accrete its enormous liturgy, and today, we are all familiar with the phenomenon of "twice-a-year" Jews, which does not refer to those who celebrate only Shavuot and Sukkot! I have a vague notion that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur fit better with the spiritualized theology of the rabbis compared with the originally agriculturally-based holidays of Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Of course, Passover is still no slouch of holiday! I'd like to conclude with an extended quote from the commentary of Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (also called Nachmanides, also called Ramban) (1195-c.1270) on the verse that Merle inquired about. It summarizes some of what is said above and also gives an interesting new twist: Just as we remember the Sabbath day by counting according to it -- "the first day of the Shabbat cycle, the second day of the Shabbat cycle" [this is how the days are counted in formal Hebrew, "Yom rishon beshabbat," etc] -- as I will explain below, so we remember the Exodus from Egypt by counting the first month, and the second and third month from our redemption. For this is not the enumeration that we apply to the year, for the beginning of our years is in Tishrei, as it is written (Exodus 34:22), "the Festival of gathering [i.e. Sukkot], at the year-season," and it is written (Exodus 23:16) [also with regard to Sukkot], "at the going-out/changing of the year." Therefore, when the month of Nissan is called "first" and Tishrei "seventh," the meaning is: the first from the redemption and the seventh therefrom. And this is the meaning of "the beginning-one let it be for you." For it is not the beginning of the year, but the beginning for you, for it is thus-called in memory of our redemption. And our rabbis have already made mention of this matter, and said that the names of the months returned with us to the Land of Israel from Babylon (see: Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashanah Chapter 1, halakhah 2). For originally, they did not have names among us, the reason being that they were originally counted as a remembrance of the exodus from Egypt. But when we returned from Babylon, and the scriptural saying (Jeremiah 16: 14-15) came to pass: "Assuredly, a time is coming -- declares the Eternal -- when it shall no more be said, 'As the Eternal lives who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt,' but rather, 'As the Eternal lives who brought the Israelites out of the northland," we switched to calling the months by their Babylonian names, in order to remember that we were there and that Blessed God brought us up from there. .... And so we remember the second redemption by way of the months, just as we had previously done with the first. written by Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz |
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