Parashat Tazria

There is a strange paradox in our reading this coming Shabbat. The month in which Pesach falls has its own special status; it is the month, the month of all months, and even the Shabbat on which we announce its arrival, this week, is named Shabbat Hachodesh, the Shabbat of the month. Strangely, even as we give all the attention to this special month, the actual name of the month Nisan never appears in the Torah! Instead, the Torah calls it “this month,” “the first of all months,” and “Chodesh Ha-Aviv,” the month of spring. The names of the months — from Tishrei through Elul — are not biblical, but Babylonian names. In fact, the first time any actual names of months appear is in Megilat Esther, a book written during the time of the Babylonian exile, and only then did they become standard for Jewish practice.

Why would the rabbinic tradition honor the Babylonian names rather than the titles used in the Torah? A teaching by thirteenth-century Spanish commentator Rabbenu Bachya ibn Halawa offers a possible explanation. The names of the months are meant to remind us of our own history. 

The Torah asks us to count the months — “first month,” “second month,” “third month” — from the redemption from Egypt. 

“By doing so the memory of the redemption from Egypt is constantly invoked.” 

The rabbinic tradition, however, pushes us to remember even more of our history: our exile in Babylonia and our continued survival through the generations. When we use names that are born of exile, we acknowledge the long and difficult history of our people. Rabbenu Bachya suggests that the Babylonian names of the months are designed to reflect on a different kind of redemption, the kind that is still in process and that still needs fulfillment.

“Again, you find that the names of the months provide us with a memory of redemption, albeit a partial redemption unlike that from the land of Egypt.”

In other words, the very names for the month in which Pesach falls — the biblical “first of all months” or the Babylonian Nisan — remind us of the different types of redemption our people has experienced: the complete redemption from Egypt, and the better future for which we continue to yearn. Every generation has to see itself as part of the process, to fulfill the vision of full liberation from tyranny and enslavement. When we use a Babylonian name for a month, we are remembering our history, both good and bad, and we are reminded that there is still work to be done. Chodesh Tov!