Nissan as the Month that Has It All
“This month will be to you the head of all months...”
Just as the head has in it the image of the complete body and controls it, so too the month of Nissan has in it all other months. Each month has a “key phrase” that corresponds to one of the 12 permutations of the Name of God. This is reflected by the Gematria of the Nissan key phrase and the Gematria of the names of all other months combined being one and the same, 1952.
This was the gist of the complete exposition that came to me from Rabbi Menachem Kranz, whose lectures on Kabbalah can be found at the Jewish Heritage Foundation site. So here it is.
Mark, I thought you would enjoy this דבר תורה, I am amazed by how well it fits so I have said it by my Shiur before פרשת החדש for a number of years already, so enjoy.
We read on this שבת the פרשה of ראש חדש and the תורה says as follows, החדש הזה לכם ראש חדשים ראשון היא לכם לחדשי השנה I saw in the ספר אור מלא a beautiful רמז to how we can see that this month of ניסן is the ראש, head of all the months, the head has inside of it all the of the of the rest of the body inside of it, but only on the potential level, so somehow we have to be able to see in the month of ניסן a hint to all of the rest of the months.
If you look in a lot of סידורים in נוסח ספרד, like the Artscroll all hebrew siddur, by מוסף for ראש חדש you will see that it brings down to have in mind a different one of the 12 permutation for the שם הוי"ה by every month, (a 4 lettered word should have 24 permutations but since there are 2 of the same letters so it cuts the amount in half, and that's why there is only 12 permutations for the שם הוי"ה) and they come from different פסוקים from their acronym. The first three all start with the letter י, the next three ה, the next three the letter ו, and the last three permutations start with the letter ה.
The month of ניסן it says comes from the acronym of the פסוק: ישמחו השמים ותגל הארץ ירעם הים ומלאו, the first letters of the first four word spells out השם's name in order, but yet in here is a רמז for all of the rest. As follows, if you start from the second letter and count the first letters it comes out in the order of הוהי and from the set that begins with the letter ה which corresponds to the month of תמוז that's the order of its permutation. Now if we start counting from the third letter we get a permutation in the order of והיה which is the permutation that is for the month of תשרי which is the first of the ones that start with a ו, and lastly if we start from the fourth letter we have the order of היהו which is for the month of טבת the first of the last three which start with the letter ה. So all in all we have seen the a רמז here for the four main month, they are also the four month that the seasons are called by like תקופת ניסן and so on, as they are the heads of the permutations that begins with the different letters. Now if we would add up the גימטריא (numerical equivalence) of the those four months they equal to 1944, add to it another 8 to represent the other 8 months that aren't the main ones, it all equals up to 1952 which is the גימטריא of the whole פסוק. ישמחו השמים ותגל הארץ ירעם הים ומלאו. So we see here how the month of ניסן is the ראש of all the חדשים and they are all hinted in the פסוק that represents the month of ניסן.
We'll go word for word,
ישמחו=364
השמים=395
ותגל=439
הארץ=296
ירעם=320
הים=55
ומלאו=83
Together they equal 1952
Now let's count the four main month ניסן=170
תמוז=453
תשרי=910
טבת=411
Altogether it equals 1944, now add 8 to it which represent the other 8 month, and you have exactly 1952.
For someone to come up with this it had to be with רוח הקדש. It amazes me every time I go through it, it just fits so perfectly. May we finally see the גאולה as it says בניסן נגאלו ובניסן עתידין לגאול!
Art: Alfred Sisley - The Small Meadow In Spring