Guarding the Spring Month and Greeting the Divine Presence

"It shall be first for you" (Exodus 12:2). Why is this said? Because it says, "Guard the month of spring" (Deuteronomy 16:1): guard the Passover for the spring and the spring for the Passover, so that spring comes in its proper time. How so? Add a leap month to Adar so that spring comes in its time. Suppose they added a month to Adar and spring still did not come in its time; I might hear that they should add a month to Nisan. Rabbi Shimon used to say: if you say so, you would be making a second Nisan, and the Torah said, "It shall be first for you." Rabbi Yonatan says: "Guard the month of spring": the month adjacent to spring you intercalate, that is the month of Adar. But we have not heard by how much one intercalates. When it says "Guard the month," a month you intercalate. And reason supports this: since the month is intercalated and the year is intercalated, just as a month is by one of its units, so the year is by one of its units. If so, just as a month is by one part out of thirty, so the year is by one part out of thirty? Scripture teaches, "Guard the month": a month you intercalate by one part out of thirty, but you do not intercalate a year by one part out of thirty. If so, just as a year is by one part out of twelve, so the month by one part out of twelve? Scripture teaches, "and on the fifteenth day of this month" (Leviticus 23:6): a day per month you intercalate, but you do not intercalate by one part out of twelve. Rabbi Yitzhak says: if you say so, you would already find the moon in the middle of the sky. You have nothing to say except according to the first formulation rather than the last: just as a month adds its intercalation only at the end, so the year adds its intercalation only at the end. Rabbi Yirmiyah says: since impurity is reckoned and spring is reckoned, just as impurity is no less than thirty days, so spring is no less than thirty days. "Or even if the spring has already gleamed?" Scripture teaches, "You shall keep this statute" (Exodus 13:10): you add and you do not subtract. "It shall be first": that he should not make a second Nisan. Rabbi Yoshiyah says: from where that the year is intercalated only by the Great Court in Jerusalem? Scripture teaches, "It shall be first for you." "Speak to all the congregation" (Exodus 12:3). Rabbi Yohanan said: whoever blesses the new moon in its proper time is as one who greets the Divine Presence. Here it is written, "This month shall be for you," and there it is written, "This is my God and I will glorify Him" (Exodus 15:2). It was taught in the school of Rabbi Ishmael: had Israel merited nothing other than to greet the face of their Father in heaven once each month, it would have been enough for them. Abaye said: therefore let them say it standing. Mareimar and Mar Zutra would have themselves supported on shoulders and would bless. What do they bless? "Who by His word created the heavens," and so on. This is what the verse said, "Many things You have done, O LORD my God, Your wonders and Your thoughts toward us" (Psalms 40:6). Rabbi Simon said: Your reckonings are toward us, for during all the two thousand four hundred and forty-eight years before Israel went out of Egypt, the Holy One, blessed be He, sat reckoning calculations, sanctifying the years and renewing the months; and once Israel went out of Egypt He handed them over to them. That is what is written, "And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying" (Exodus 12:1). What is "saying"? He said: from here onward they are handed over to you, "This month shall be for you," and so forth. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" (Proverbs 13:12). Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba said: these are Israel before they were redeemed. When Moses came to Israel and said, "Thus the Holy One, blessed be He, said to me: I have surely remembered you" (Exodus 3:16), they said to him, "Moses our teacher, still only a remembering? My strength, how can I wait, and what is my end that I should prolong my soul? Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?" But once he said to them, "This month you are redeemed," they said: this is a good sign, "and a tree of life is a desire fulfilled" (Proverbs 13:12).