The Kosher Month

The Exodus from Egypt took place in the springtime.

In Parsha Bo (Shmot 13:4) we come across a statement that seems obvious:

Today, in the month of Aviv, you are leaving.

Rashi asks: Did B’nai Yisrael not know in which month they went out? Rather, this is what was meant: “See the kindness that God has bestowed upon you. He took you out in a month in which it is fit to go out-not hot, not cold and not raining. So too, is it stated in Tehillim 68:7 “He brings out prisoners ‘bakosharot’, at appropriate times, meaning, a month that is kosher (fit) to go out.”

The word Aviv in the Tanach refers to the time that the barley is ripe as we see in reference to the plague of hail (Shmot 9:31):

The flax and barley had been destroyed since the barley was ripe, and the flax had formed into stalks.

Barley ripens very fast just like spring passes quickly in contrast to the long winter that we leave behind and the lengthy summer ahead.

In Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) 2:11-13 we see the beauty of springtime in nature:

Come, rise, my love, my beautiful one, let us leave. Winter is over; the rains have passed and left us. On the land, buds have appeared. The songbirds’ time has come, and the turtle dove’s call sounds over our land. The fig has put out her buds, and the flowering vines give scent- so come, rise, my love, my beautiful one, let us leave.

Springtime in Israel is very short. The rainy season is over at the beginning of Pesach when we begin to pray for dew rather than rain and before we know it the weather becomes very hot.

We add an extra month of Adar to the Jewish calendar in years that Nisan would otherwise arrive too early in order to ensure that Pesach always takes place in the spring.

Just as we left Egypt in the month of the spring, so too will the future redemption occur in the spring as it says in Micha 7:15: “As in the days when you came out of Egypt, I will show you my wonders.”