Jewish Calendar

Level: Basic
Based on moon cycles instead of sun cycles
"Leap months" are added to sync up with sun cycles
Used to be calculated by observation
Calculated mathematically since 4th century
Years are numbered from Creation
A few years ago, I was in a synagogue, and I overheard one man ask another,
"When is Chanukkah this year?" The other man smiled slyly and replied, "Same as
always: the 25th of Kislev." This humorous comment makes an important point:
the date of Jewish holidays does not change from year to year. Holidays are
celebrated on the same day of the Jewish calendar every year, but the Jewish year
is not the same length as a solar year on the civil calendar used by most of the
western world, so the date shifts on the civil calendar.
Background and History
The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the
Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month);
and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year). These three phenomena are
independent of each other, so there is no direct correlation between them. On
average, the moon revolves around the Earth in about 29 days. The Earth
revolves around the sun in about 365 days, that is, about 12.4 lunar months.
The civil calendar used by most of the world has abandoned any correlation
between the moon cycles and the month, arbitrarily setting the length of months to
28, 30 or 31 days.
The Jewish calendar, however, coordinates all three of these astronomical
phenomena. Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29-day lunar
cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar
cycle.
The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon
becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used
to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they
would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two
independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date,
they would declare the rosh chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers
to tell people when the month began.
The problem with strictly lunar calendars is that there are approximately 12.4 lunar
months in every solar year, so a 12-month lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter
than a solar year and a 13-month lunar is about 19 longer than a solar year. The
months drift around the seasons on such a calendar: on a 12-month lunar calendar,
the month of Nissan, which is supposed to occur in the Spring, would occur 11
days earlier in the season each year, eventually occurring in the Winter, the Fall,
the Summer, and then the Spring again. On a 13-month lunar calendar, the same
thing would happen in the other direction, and faster.
To compensate for this drift, the Jewish calendar uses a 12-month lunar calendar
with an extra month occasionally added. The month of Nissan occurs 11 days
earlier each year for two or three years, and then jumps forward 30 days, balancing
out the drift. In ancient times, this month was added by observation: the Sanhedrin
observed the conditions of the weather, the crops and the livestock, and if these
were not sufficiently advanced to be considered "spring," then the Sanhedrin
inserted an additional month into the calendar to make sure that Pesach (Passover)
would occur in the spring (it is, after all, referred to in the Torah as Chag he-Aviv,
the Festival of Spring!).
A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me'uberet (pronounced
shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht), literally: a pregnant year. In English, we commonly
call it a leap year. The additional month is known as Adar I, Adar Rishon (first
Adar) or Adar Alef (the Hebrew letter Alef being the numeral "1" in Hebrew). The
extra month is inserted before the regular month of Adar (known in such years as
Adar II, Adar Sheini or Adar Beit). Note that Adar II is the "real" Adar, the one in
whichPurim is celebrated, the one in which yahrzeits for Adar are observed, the
one in which a 13-year-old born in Adar becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Adar I is the
"extra" Adar.
In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical
and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of
months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle, so that the
lunar calendar realigns with the solar years. Adar I is added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th,
11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. The current cycle began in Jewish
year 5758 (the year that began October 2, 1997). If you are musically inclined, you
may find it helpful to remember this pattern of leap years by reference to the major
scale: for each whole step there are two regular years and a leap year; for each half-
step there is one regular year and a leap year. This is easier to understand when you
examine the keyboard illustration below and see how it relates to the leap years
above.

In addition, Yom Kippur should not fall adjacent to Shabbat, because this would
cause difficulties in coordinating the fast with Shabbat, and Hoshanah
Rabbah should not fall on Saturday because it would interfere with the holiday's
observances. A day is added to the month of Cheshvan or subtracted from the
month of Kislev of the previous year to prevent these things from happening. This
process is sometimes referred to as "fixing" Rosh Hashanah. If you are interested
in the details of how these calculations are performed, see The Jewish Calendar: A
Closer Look.
Numbering of Jewish Years
The year number on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since
creation, calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Bible back to the time of
creation. However, this does not necessarily mean that the universe has existed for
only 5700 years as we understand years. Many Orthodox Jews will readily
acknowledge that the first six "days" of creation are not necessarily 24-hour days
(indeed, a 24-hour day would be meaningless until the creation of the sun on the
fourth "day"). For a fascinating (albeit somewhat defensive) article by a nuclear
physicist showing how Einstein's Theory of Relativity sheds light on the
correspondence between the Torah's age of the universe and the age ascertained by
science, see The Age of the Universe.
Jews do not generally use the words "A.D." and "B.C." to refer to the years on the
civil calendar. "A.D." means "the year of our L-rd," and we do not believe Jesus is
the L-rd. Instead, we use the abbreviations C.E. (Common or Christian Era) and
B.C.E. (Before the Common Era), which are commonly used by scholars today.
Months of the Jewish Year
The "first month" of the Jewish calendar is the month of Nissan, in the spring,
when Passover occurs. However, the Jewish New Year is in Tishri, the seventh
month, and that is when the year number is increased. This concept of different
starting points for a year is not as strange as it might seem at first glance. The
American "new year" starts in January, but the new "school year" starts in
September, and many businesses have "fiscal years" that start at various times of
the year. Similarly, the Jewish calendar has different starting points for different
purposes.
The names of the months of the Jewish calendar were adopted during the time of
Ezra, after the return from the Babylonian exile. The names are actually
Babylonian month names, brought back to Israel by the returning exiles. Note that
most of the Bible refers to months by number, not by name.
The Jewish calendar has the following months:
Hebrew English Number Length Civil Equivalent

Nissan 1 30 days March-April

Iyar 2 29 days April-May

Sivan 3 30 days May-June

Tammuz 4 29 days June-July

Av 5 30 days July-August

Elul 6 29 days
August-
September

Tishri 7 30 days
September-
October

Cheshvan 8
29 or 30
days
October-
November

Kislev 9
30 or 29
days
November-
December

Tevet 10 29 days
December-
January

Shevat 11 30 days January-February

Adar I (leap years only) 12 30 days February-March


Adar
(called Adar Beit in leap
years)
12
(13 in leap
years)
29 days February-March
The length of Cheshvan and Kislev are determined by complex calculations
involving the time of day of the full moon of the following year's Tishri and the
day of the week that Tishri would occur in the following year. After many years of
blissful ignorance, I finally sat down and worked out the mathematics involved,
and I have added a page on The Jewish Calendar: A Closer Look, which may be of
interest to those who want a deeper understanding or who want to write a Jewish
calendar computer program. For the rest of us, there are plenty of easily accessible
computer programs that will calculate the Jewish calendar for more than a
millennium to come. I have provided some links below.
Note that the number of days between Nissan and Tishri is always the same.
Because of this, the time from the first major festival (Passover in Nissan) to the
last major festival (Sukkot in Tishri) is always the same.
Days of the Jewish Week
Other than Shabbat, the name of the seventh day of the week, the Jewish calendar
doesn't have names for the days of the week. The days of the week are simply
known as first day, second day, third day, etc. Sometimes they are referred to more
fully as First Day of the Sabbath, etc. Below is a list for those who are interested.
Hebrew Transliteration English

Yom Rishon First Day (Sunday)

Yom Sheini Second Day (Monday)

Yom Shlishi Third Day (Tuesday)

Yom R'vi'i Fourth Day (Wednesday)

Yom Chamishi Fifth Day (Thursday)

Yom Shishi Sixth Day (Friday)

Yom Shabbat Sabbath Day (Saturday)