The Torah records that the Israelites left Egypt "in the first month" (Numbers 33:3). This establishes a clear date for the Exodus — the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish calendar. But the Mekhilta asks a question that reaches far beyond that single event: does this dating system apply only to the generation that left Egypt, or does it extend to later periods as well?
The answer comes from a verse set forty years later: "In the fortieth year of the exodus of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, in the fifth month" (Numbers 33:38). This verse describes the death of Aaron the High Priest on Mount Hor, an event that took place decades after the original departure from Egypt. Yet the Torah still counts time from the Exodus.
This is not a minor calendrical detail. The Mekhilta finds in it a sweeping principle: the Exodus serves as the fixed reference point for all subsequent history. Forty years later, the Torah still measures time by the same starting line. The departure from Egypt is not merely a past event — it is the event from which all other events are measured.
The implications are profound. Every date, every milestone, every death and every encampment in the wilderness is anchored to that single moment of liberation. The Exodus does not recede into the past. It remains the permanent origin point, the year zero of Israelite consciousness, casting its shadow forward across every generation that follows.