When teaching the Jewish calendar, I always note that it is a bit of a mindbender to understand. From the time of the Tanakh, Nisan — the month of Passover — is counted as the first month. And yet, we celebrate Rosh HaShanah, the New Year, in Tishrei — the 7th month on the calendar. Nisan makes a lot of sense; it is spring, flowers are blooming, rebirth is in the air. As Cantor Emma taught last week, the Mishnah teaches of the four New Years of the Jewish calendar, and explains that while Nisan is the first month for the order of the festivals, Tishrei is the first month for counting years.
Given all of this, perhaps it is not surprising that — for centuries — the non-Jewish world celebrated New Years Day on March 15. It was the Roman King Numa Pompilius (715-673 BCE) who first introduced a 12-month calendar with January as its first month. Not unlike our calendar, however, the first month was not treated as the beginning of the year. That was saved for March 15, when — not unlike the month of Nisan — flowers would bloom and earth would come alive again.
The switch to January came first in 153 CE, and became “official” in 45 CE, when Julius Caesar adopted a more comprehensive calendar. Interestingly, with the fall of the Roman Empire, many communities went right back to their March 15 celebrations… all the way until 1582 CE, when Pope Gregory introduced the Gregorian calendar and restored New Year’s Day to January 1.
Just before Christmas, our Talmud study group spent some time on the Talmudic understandings of — and concerns with — the Pagan and Christian rituals of their time. And still to this day, I think we (American Jews writ large) have a strange relationship with January 1 as a New Year.
On this January 1, I want to suggest two ways to understand this day. The first comes from the Roman tradition. January was named after the Roman god Janus, who had two faces. He was seen, then, as the appropriate figure for the start of the new year, when the month could symbolically look into the past and forward into the future. While we certainly do not want to worship a Roman deity, the message holds meaning; it is similar to the work of Elul, and perhaps it is not a terrible idea to take some time partway through our Jewish year to take stock.
And the second comes from the Mishnah with which I began, and which I turn to each January 1. While the text itself does not say so, I think the fact of the four New Years speaks not only to the history of agriculture and Jewish awareness of time, but also to the very human desire for new beginnings.
Here’s to 2024, here’s to five months into 5784. However we count today, here’s to new beginnings.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer