(The following interesting article is reprinted by permission from the b’nai b’rith “Messenger” of April 7,1995. However, please observe some editorial comments at the end.)

Somewhere in the long evolution of the Jewish calendar there was a minor hiccough. The Biblical system of counting the months by simple ordinal numbers, first, second, third, etc., changed quite suddenly to Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tamuz, and so on. As these names are pure Babylonian, it is clear that when the Jews were exiled to the Land Between the Rivers they adapted the vernacular calendar to their Jewish diary. The numbers that had no real character or meaning per se were abandoned in favor of the dominant culture.

No religious leader of that time or even later seemed to mind that some of these months actually bore the names of pagan deities. One is not a little surprised to discover that the god Tamuz, who is actually mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel as an idol in the Babylonia pantheon, as well as others, should have been adopted and incorporated into the Jewish calendar. This surprise needs some further explanation. When the Israelites left Egypt, somewhere around the 15th century BCE (800years before the exile to Babylon) they dramatically commenced this new period in their history with a new calendar. This was in the month Aviv, the Spring month, at which time Moses announced “This month shall be unto you the first of the months, it shall be the first month of the year’ “ Nothing could be more explicit or precise than this pronouncement. One might ask nevertheless, what was wrong with the Egyptian calendar that they had used for 4 or 5 generations? Answer: it was to be a fresh start, the beginning of a new chapter, but at the same time an opportune moment to jettison that calendar replete with the names of Egyptian gods. “You shall not have any gods before Me”

The difference between the Egyptian and Babylonian experience is clear. In the latter, the Judeans were exiles, not slaves. They acculturated quickly, married local girls, spoke the local Aramaic language to the point that Hebrew became their second language, and of course used and adopted the national calendar. What Jew today be he ultra-Orthodox is even aware that January is named after the threshold deity of the Romans, that February is the month of ritual preparation, or that March honors Mars, the Roman god of war?

So our ancestors accommodated themselves to a new vocabulary. The first day of the seventh month has been singled out by Moses in the Torah as a “day of sounding the shofar, a day of Holy convocation, no work is to be performed.” The Torah gives no reason why this seventh month is to begin with a fanfare, or why it is significant. Somewhere along the line this important “Day of the shofar” becomes Rosh Hashanah, another New Year. In fact, the newcomer is so impressive and dominant, it so completely upstages the old New Year, that by comparison the former fades into insignificance.

Later on, in the Mishnaic period, the first of Nissan is designated the “New Year for Kings,” but it does not have the status of a Yom Tov, or a religious red-letter day. The first day of each month, Rosh Chodesh, was New Moon Day, a gazetted half-holy day. The first of these New Moon Days, despite its prominent position, never became a Festival in its own right, a day of rest and a Holy Convocation. The new Rosh Hashanah in the seventh month encountered little opposition. This development must have taken place in Babylon at a time when the calendar received its new nomenclature. The indigenous peoples most probably celebrated a major festival which gradually became identified with the Day of the Shofar. It appears somewhat iconoclastic to imply that the holy day of Rosh Hashanah was borrowed from a pagan culture then completely Judaised. If one looks closely, however, how Jews through the ages have been influenced by their surroundings, one totally endorses the Yiddish proverb azoi kristlesech, azoi yulesech, the Jew behaves as his environment behaves. There is a constant process of osmotic adaptation, particularly in a benign and positive context. Such was the Babylonian, and after them the Persian scenario in which the Jews had equal opportunities and a good life. When these refugees first arrived on alien soil they were so depressed at the loss of their beloved homeland, the Songs of Zion stuck in their throat so they hung up their harps on the willow trees later under Persian rule they were allowed to return, but only a small number elected to forsake the fleshpots of Persia for the land of Judea. Twenty- five hundred years ago, Rosh Hashanah did not loom as large as it does today. The impressive liturgy and ritual that we now possess did not exist at that period. Far more attention was paid to the three Pilgrim Festivals of Pesach, Shavuot and Succot that highlighted the agricultural climaxes of the year. So the changed status and the upgrading of the Yom T’ruah, to a New Year’s Day was evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

The sages of the Talmud persistently debated the question “when was the world created;’as the answer conclusively determined when time and the annual cycle began. The school of Rabbi Joshua maintained that G-d created the world in Nissan, while Rabbi Eleazar opined that the planet began its existence in Tishrei. It was the latter point of view that prevailed. As today we only have one New Year, the synagogue service reflects the Tishrei date. “On this day the world was born, on this day G-d puts on trial the creatures of this world” “This day is the beginning of Your work, the anniversary of the Creation Day.”

One cannot deny that teaching the workings of the Jewish calendar to children presents a thorny problem. The civil year is most uncomplicated with New Year’s Day on January 1, whilst the Hebrew equivalent commences in the seventh month. Some schools have already cut the Gordian knot by making Tishrei as the first month of the year and completely abandoning Nissan to oblivion. This move is drastic and dangerous, and runs counter to the very prescription of the Torah itself. How indeed can the seventh month become the first, just because it is difficult to teach Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, etc. Our national history began in the Spring month of Nissan-Aviv and must be celebrated accordingly in perpetuity. The original mandate is unequivocal, “This month (Nissan) shall be unto you the first of the months’ “ It would clearly be against the halacha to interfere with the sequence of the months, and a blatant example of thoughtless expediency.

– Rabbi Ron Lubofsky

(This article maintains the scriptural Practice of numbering the Jewish months from the spring, which is commendable. However it fails to notice ancient and scriptural references to the fall year- which some term the civil year, or the agricultural year- which began with the month of Tishri. As far back as the book of Exodus the “End of the year” (and therefore the beginning of the next) was in the fall (Exodus 23:16, 34:22). Evidently the regnal years of the Judean kings were fall years, as the numbered year did not change with the coming of Nisan (compare 2 Chronicles 34:8, 35:19, and the intervening context). In Ezekiel 40:1 “the beginning of the year” refers to month seven (when month one is intended it is specified by number as in Ezekiel 29:17, 30:20). The Law itself marks day one of month seven more prominently than day one of month one (Numbers 29:1 cf. Numbers 10:10.) Certainly the Jews did not acquire a fall year from either the Babylonians or Persians, whose kings unambiguously used spring years.)

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