Months: Names Numbers and the Land

This month shall be the head month to you. It shall be the first month of the year.               Exodus 12:2

            Naḥmanides explains that setting Nissan as the first month of the Hebrew calendar must remind us of the miracles of the exodus from Egypt, for "every time we mention the months, the miracles will be recalled." And as Israel counts the days of the week Shabbat, so they count the months from the redemption from Egypt.  

            Naḥmanides adds that this is the reason that the Torah never mentions the months by name, but only by number.

            While Israel numbers its months from Nissan, years are accounted from the month of Tishrei, as the Torah states [Exodus 34:22] "Also keep the Harvest Festival (Sukkot) soon at the turn of the year." Thus, the intent of the verse "This month shall be for you …" is "to stress that it is not the head month of the year, rather, it is the first for you, as it recalls Israel's redemption."

            Apropos of these comments, Naḥmanides explains the reason the months have been known by name since the Return to Zion [the times of Ezra and Neḥemiah], as our Sages [Breishit Rabba 49:9], the names of the months "ascended from the Babylonian exile." Using the names of the months, explains Naḥmanides, conveys a reminder of Israel's return to its Land, "the second redemption" in his words. "When we ascended [to the Holy Land] from Babylonia and fulfilled the verse [Jeremiah 16:14-15]:

Therefore, behold, the days come, says God, that it shall no more be said: 'As God lives, Who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but: 'As God lives, Who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where He had driven them'; and I will bring them back into their Land that I gave unto their fathers.

We called the months by the names we had used in Babylonia to remind ourselves that God has brought us up out of our exile to return to our Land."

            We can add that according to Naḥmanides' elucidation, the switch from numbering the months to naming them is not a substantive change, but merely technical. The purpose of the exodus was to bring God's nation into His/their Land, as the verse (Deuteronomy 6:23) quoted in the Haggada states explicitly: "And He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the Land which He swore unto our fathers." Thus, recalling the redemption from Egyptian bondage must necessarily carry as well a reminder of Israel's first entry into the Land. Therefore, both the use of the Hebrew months' names and numbers convey reminders of Israel's entry into the Holy Land.