Nisan ניסן

"This month shall be to you the head of months": the command to count months from Nisan is the first given to the people, still in Egypt. On the night of the fifteenth—Pesach, the seder and the telling of the Exodus. In Nisan, says tradition, the world was redeemed—and in Nisan it will be redeemed again; all month no penitential prayers are said and no fasts are kept. On the first of Nisan the Tabernacle was raised.

The month names now in use are Babylonian: "the names of the months came up with us from Babylon", says the Jerusalem Talmud. In the Torah months are counted—"the first", "the seventh"—from Nisan, the month of the Exodus.