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Iyar is a month of counting . First there is the counting of the Omer, which began on Passover and continues for forty-nine days until Shavuot. The entire month of Iyar falls within that counting period, starting with the sixteenth day of the Omer.
Then there is the first counting of the ancient Israelites in the desert after they left Egypt. The Book of Numbers opens with God commanding Moses to take a census of all males of twenty and up who are able to bear arms. Women and children are excluded, as are members of the tribe of Levi, whose role it is to care for the sanctuary, not to fight national battles. The census begins on the first day of the biblical second month and ends twenty days later, when more than 600,000 men have been counted.
The name Iyar itself bears no connection to numbers. It may stem from the Hebrew word or, meaning "light," and suggest the long days of light at this time of year. It is called Ziv in the Book of Kings, also signifying light. Legendary interpretations of its zodiac sign, however, tie it to darkness, not light.
The sign is Taurus, a black bull or ox, and in one somewhat convoluted interpretation it has a place in the Creation of the world. In this explanation, God began forming the world in the month of Nisan, not Tishrei. Satan, prince of darkness, demanded that darkness be the first element created. God refused, declaring that the world must first be illumined. So God created light and called it Day. Only then, as the second act of Creation, did God fashion darkness and call it Night. The white ram of Nisan, the first month represents the light. The black ox, symbol of the dark, became the sign of the second month, Iyar
5: Yom HaAtzma'ut - Israel Independence Day * 18: Lag Ba'Omer - a Day for Celebrations * 23: Crusaders Massacre the Jews of Worms, May 18, 1096 * 28: Yom Yerushalayim - Jerusalem Day
Text Copyright (c) 1996 by Francine Klagsbrun
Reproduced with permission from Farrar, Straus & Giroux