Jewish Calendar

• 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 29½ days. The Earth revolves around the sun in about 365¼ 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 29½-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 which Purim 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-Februar
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

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 - 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)

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)

Links to Jewish Calendars

I maintain a current Jewish calendar on this website. Unlike most Jewish calendars you will see, my calendar shows the Hebrew months with the corresponding civil dates.

Most printed Jewish calendars cover a 16-month period: from September of one year (to include Rosh Hashanah) to December of the following year. Be aware, however, that some show only the 12-month period from September to August, and some that claim to have the full 16-month period show only limited information about September to December of the latter year. They show the civil months with Jewish holidays, Torah readings, candle-lighting times and so forth. I am particularly partial to the London Jewish Museum calendar, which has illustrations of Jewish artwork from the middle ages to the 1800s, but there are many Jewish calendars available on Amazon.com. Click here to check their catalog.

If you would like to look up the date of a Jewish holiday, from the Gregorian (civil) year 1 to the Gregorian year 9999, try http://www.hebcal.com. I don't know how accurate this is (especially given that during the earlier dates, months were determined by observation), but I haven't caught any mistakes in it yet. Of course, the earlier Gregorian dates are artificial, since the Gregorian calendar did not exist until the 16th century and was not accepted in many parts of the world until much later (they used the less accurate Julian calendar). There is also a very nice, quick and easy converter to and from Hebrew dates on Chabad's website.

If you would like to make your own computerized Jewish calendar, my page on The Jewish Calendar: A Closer Look explains in detail how the calendar works and provides illustrative JavaScript code.





Judaism 101