Nisan


Nisan or Nissan is the month of the barley ripening and the first month of spring in the Babylonian and Hebrew calendars. The name of the month is an Akkadian borrowing, although it is ultimately derived from Sumerian nisag 'first fruits'. In the Hebrew calendar, it is the first month of the ecclesiastical year, called the "first of the months of the year", "first month", and the month of Aviv. It is called Nissān in the Book of Esther. It is a month of 30 days. In the year 2025, 1 Nisan will occur on 30 March. Counting from 1 Tishrei, the civil new year, it would be the seventh month, but in contemporary Jewish culture, both months are viewed as the first and seventh simultaneously, and are referred to as one or the other depending on the specific religious aspects being discussed.

Name and origin

The biblical Hebrew months were given enumerations instead of names. The new moon of Aviv, which in Hebrew means 'barley ripening' and by extension 'spring season' is one of the few called both by name and by its number, the first. Nisan and other Akkadian-origin names for the equivalent lunar months in the Babylonian calendar came to be applied to the Hebrew calendar during the Babylonian captivity, in which the month of Aviv's name was Araḫ Nissānu.

Holidays and observances

  • 1 Nisan Lunar new year, marking the month of Aviv meaning spring, as the first month of the year, which month was later called Nisan. The first national mitzvah that was given to the Jewish people to fix the calendar to the new moon of Aviv, according to the Book of Exodus 12:1–2, 12:18.
  • 10 Nisan – Yom HaAliyah – Aliyah Day, Israeli national holiday
  • 14 Nisan – Fast of the Firstborn – When the 14th falls on Sabbath, Ashkenazim observe it on 12 Nisan and Sephardim do not observe it at all
  • 14 Nisan – Passover seder meal and Haggadah on the going out of the 14th and eve of the 15th
  • 15–21 Nisan – Feast of Matzot – Passover week
  • 23 Nisan – Mimouna – a Maghrebi Jewish celebration of the end of the Passover prohibition on eating chametz, on 22 Nisan within Israel
  • 27 Nisan – Yom HaShoah – on 26 Nisan or 28 Nisan when the 27th falls on Friday or Sunday respectively, interfering with Shabbat

    Moveable holidays and observances

  • Shabbat HaGadol is the sabbath which immediately precedes the 15 Nisan, the first day of Pesach, which changes due to the leap year in the Hebrew calendar.

    In history and tradition

  • 1 Nisan The day the floodwaters receded from the earth, after the dove was sent out by Noah and returned with an olive branch, according to Genesis 8:10-13
  • 1 Nisan – Death of Abraham according to the Talmud
  • 1 Nisan – Death of Isaac according to the Talmud
  • 1 Nisan – Death of Jacob according to the Talmud
  • 1 Nisan – Tabernacle inaugurated on the second year
  • 1 Nisan death of Nadab and Abihu
  • 1 Nisan.
  • 1 Nisan – Birth of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
  • 1 Nisan – Death of Rabbi Elimelech Szapira of Grodzhisk
  • 2 Nisan – Death of Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe. His last words are recorded as, "I'm going to heaven; I leave you the writings."
  • 3 Nisan – The Alhambra Decree orders the expulsion of Spanish Jews from Castile and Aragon.
  • 7 Nisan – Joshua sends two spies to Jericho.
  • 8 Nisan – Birth of Yaakov Yechezkiya Greenwald II, the present Pupa Rebbe
  • 10 Nisan – The first Shabbat HaGadol was celebrated by the Israelites in Egypt five days before The Exodus.
  • 10 Nisan – Yahrzeit of Miriam the prophetess, 39 years after the Exodus.
  • 10 Nisan – The Israelites cross the Jordan River into Canaan
  • 11 Nisan – Death of Nachmanides
  • 11 Nisan – Birth of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson
  • 13 Nisan – Haman's decree to annihilate the Jews is passed.
  • 13 Nisan – Death of Joseph Caro, author of the Shulchan Aruch.
  • 13 Nisan – Death of Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe.
  • 14 Nisan – Birth of Maimonides
  • 14 Nisan – Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins. The uprising would last until 3 Iyar, and is now commemorated in Israel on 27 Nisan.
  • 14 Nisan – On the going out thereof, the eve of the 15th, was the first Passover meal, and the 10th plague on Egypt, the slaying of the firstborn.
  • 15 Nisan – The Exodus from Egypt, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm
  • 15 Nisan – Birth of Isaac
  • 15 Nisan – Esther appears before Ahasuerus unsummoned and invites him and Haman to a feast to be held the same day. During the feast she requests that the king and Haman attend a second feast the next day.
  • 16 Nisan – The Israelites stop eating manna six days after entering the Holy Land.
  • 16 Nisan – Esther's second feast, during which she accuses Haman regarding his plot to annihilate her nation. Ahasuerus orders his servants to hang Haman.
  • 17 Nisan – Noah's Ark came to rest on mountains of Ararat
  • 17 Nisan – Haman hanged after Esther's second drinking party.
  • 21 Nisan – The Red Sea splits, allowing Israel to escape the Egyptian army.
  • 26 Nisan – Traditional yahrzeit of Joshua son of Nun.
  • 28 Nisan – Battle of Jericho by Joshua.
  • 29 Nisan – Death of Hayyim ben Joseph Vital, a Kabbalist and a disciple of Isaac Luria.
  • 29 Nisan – In Bamberg, Germany, during a commercial crisis in 1699, the populace rose up against the Jews, and one Jew saved himself by throwing prunes from a gable-window down upon the mob. That event, the 29th of Nisan, called the Zwetschgen Taanit "Plum-Fast", was commemorated by a fast and a Purim festivity until the extermination of the Jewish community there.

    Table of civil dates when 1 Nisan occurs

The list below gives a time which can be used to determine the day the Jewish ecclesiastical year starts over a period of nineteen years. These are not Nisan molad times, although the offset necessarily remains constant.
Every nineteen years this time is 2 days, 16 hours, 33 1/18 minutes later in the week. That is either the same or the previous day in the civil calendar, depending on whether the difference in the day of the week is three or two days. If 29 February is included fewer than five times in the nineteen – year period the date will be later by the number of days which corresponds to the difference between the actual number of insertions and five. If the year is due to start on Sunday, it actually begins on the following Tuesday if the following year is due to start on Friday morning. If due to start on Monday, Wednesday or Friday it actually begins on the following day. If due to start on Saturday, it actually begins on the following day if the previous year was due to begin on Monday morning.
The table below lists, for a Jewish year commencing on 23 March, the civil date of the first day of each month. If the year does not begin on 23 March, each month's first day will differ from the date shown by the number of days that the start of the year differs from 23 March. The correct column is the one which shows the correct starting date for the following year in the last row. If 29 February falls within a Jewish month the first day of later months will be a day earlier than shown.
For long period calculations, dates should be reduced to the Julian calendar and converted back to the civil calendar at the end of the calculation. The civil calendar used here is correct to one day in 44,000 years and omits the leap day in centennial years which do not give remainder 200 or 700 when divided by 900. It is identical to the Gregorian calendar between 15 October 1582 CE and 28 February 2400 CE.
To find how many days the civil calendar is ahead of the Julian in any year from 301 BCE add 300 to the year, multiply the hundreds by 7, divide by 9 and subtract 4. Ignore any fraction of a day. When the difference between the calendars changes the calculated value applies on and from 1 March for conversions to Julian. For earlier dates reduce the calculated value by one. For conversions to the civil date the calculated value applies on and from 29 February. Again, for earlier dates reduce the calculated value by one. The difference is applied to the calendar one is converting into. A negative value indicates that the Julian date is ahead of the civil date. In this case it is important to remember that when calculating the civil equivalent of 29 February, 29 February is discounted. Thus if the calculated value is −4 the civil equivalent of this date is 24 February. Before 1 CE use astronomical years rather than years BCE. The astronomical year is – 1.
Up to the 4th century CE, these tables give the day of the Jewish month to within a day or so and the number of the month to within a month or so. From the 4th century, the number of the month is given exactly and from the 9th century the day of the month is given exactly as well.
In the Julian calendar, every 76 years the Jewish year is due to start 5h 47 14/18m earlier, and 3d 18h 12 4/18m later in the week.
;Example calculation
On what civil date does the eighth month begin in CE 20874–5?
20874=2026+. In Julian years the Jewish year is due to start later in the week, which is 932d 2h 31 2/18m or 1d 2h 31 2/18m later after removing complete weeks. Allowing for the current difference of thirteen days between the civil and Julian calendars, the Julian date is 13+ earlier, which is 72d 21h 28 16/18m earlier. Convert back to the civil calendar by applying the formula.
So, in 20874 CE, the Jewish year is due to begin 87d 2h 31 2/18m later than in 2026 CE and 1d 2h 31 2/18m later in the week. In 20874 CE, therefore, the Jewish year is due to begin at 11.30 3/18 am on Friday, 14 June. Because of the displacements, it actually begins on Saturday, 15 June. Odd months have 30 days and even months 29, so the starting dates are 2, 15 July; 3, 13 August; 4, 12 September; 5, 11 October; 6, 10 November; 7, 9 December, and 8, 8 January.
The rules are based on the theory that Maimonides explains in his book Rabbinical Astronomy. The times in the list are those calculated by Gauss with an offset of −14 days as his calculation gives the civil date of Passover rather than the start of the month. Gauss's calculation has been rigorously proved.