Nisan is the first month of the year and the first month of the spring. Spring brings with it a feeling that there is life again. As the world wakes up from its winter slumber, we too feel renewed, awakened and filled with a sense of renewal.

Spring represents a time of plenty, abundance, sunshine, hope, and possibility. Redemption, on whatever level, feels palpable and accessible. In spring, the world is redeemed from the cold winter, the flower is redeemed from the tree, the grass from the earth, and we too feel that redemption is possible.

A whole complex of ideas, including newness, redemption, going out of Egypt, and being freed from slavery, is intricately bound with the idea of Aviv / spring. With the onset of winter, everything that had seemed so lively in the summer now seems lifeless and hopeless. Then spring arrives and everything comes alive; there is a rebirth of hope and possibility. This is the secret of Yetzias Mitzrayim / the Going Out of Egypt. We, along with the earth, are literally freed from all our constriction and lifelessness with the arrival of spring.