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Home , Bemidbar (parashah), Bereshit (parashah)

Note: Year shown is not a leap year (only one month of Adar). Purim is  Purim  = 3 Pilgrimage Festivals in celebrated in Adar II to be closer to  Fast of /Pesach Pesach. In leap year, Purim Katan is  7 Adar = New Year of Kings 14-15 Adar I

Moses dies Fast for Chevra Kadisha Barley Harvest Va-yakhel Va-Yikra  Lag ba’Omer (33rd day) Ki-Tisa Wheat  Tu b’Shevat Metzorah Harvest New Year of Trees Acharei-Mot Beshallach Va’era , Behukotai  Spring  Fast 10 Growth First 588 BCE Babylonian Va-Yehi Be’ha- Ripe Figs Siege of Va-Yigash alotecha  Hanukkah Mikketz Shelah-L’cha Roman Sack of Jerusalem Light in dark times Va-Yeshev Darkness in light Va-Yishlach Vine-  Fast of 17 Tammuz Va-Yetze Tending Toldot Pinchas Chayei Sara Va’yera Massei  Tisha b’Av (9th of Av) Grain Lech L’cha Recalls destruction of Temples Planting Ve’etchanan Tishrei: Ekev, Re’eh Summer  Ha’azinu Ki-Tavo Shoftim Fruit  is celebrated each New Year of Judgment, Ve-zot Haberacha KiTetze throughout the entire year! Spiritual New Year Plowing Va-yelech Fig Olive Gathering  Kippur (Day of Atonement) Harvest Grape  Gathering  Shemini Atzaret  (Rejoicing with Torah) -- 40 Days from 1 to -- Elul = New Year of animals

Introduction to Class, Fall 2019 The Jewish Calendar, notes by Laurie Rutenberg Gesher – A Bridge Home www.ourjewishhome.org

Where are we in time right now? Thursday evening after sunset = Friday, 28 Elul, 5779 This Sunday night – after sunset – will be the first day of the month of Tishrei, in the year 5780, the holy day of Rosh Hashanah. “Teach us to Count (and Treasure ) each day, so that we may develop a heart of wisdom" Psalm 90

THE FOUR MAJOR ELEMENTS OF A CALENDAR: Astronomical (and spiritual): Month, Year, Day, Season Spiritual Only: Week 1. JEWISH MONTHS: While the are still in Egypt: the first ever given to the Jewish people Exodus 12:12 G!d said to and in the land of Egypt: This month shall be for you the beginning of the months, it shall be for you the first of the months of the year. a. You shall have a relationship with the months. - for you. - your people. they shall have meaning for you. b. You shall have a Lunar calendar c. Each month is celebrated on its first day - Rosh Hodesh. d. The counting of the months of the Jewish calendar begins in the springtime with the month in which Passover falls; this first month is called Nissan Deuteronomy 16:1 You shall observe/guard (shamor) the month of springtime (chodesh ha'aviv) and perform the Passover offering to , for in the month of springtime (chodesh ha'aviv) A-donai your G!d took you out of Egypt at night. (ba'lailah) e. The lunar calendar by itself would not keep Passover in the springtime, so it had to become coordinated with the solar calendar. This is a uniqueness of the Jewish calendar. i. lunar month is approximately 29 1/2 days ii. a month must have a complete number of days, so our calendar alternates between 29 and 30 days. iii. this totals 355 days, and so is 11 days less than the solar year of 365 days. iv. This means that the holiday of Passover would be 11 days earlier each and every year, which after a few months would bring it backwards to winter, but Passover has to be celebrated in the springtime. v. The solution was to create a "leap" year - (shanah m'uberet - a pregnant year) with an entire additional month - which would precede the usual” month of Adar. This added month is called Adar 1 or Adar Alef vi. This entire additional month - Adar Aleph - is added 7 times in every 19 year cycle. The leap years are 3,6,8,11,14,17,19 f. In the Torah, the months are referred to numerically, beginning with the month of - Nissan. - Spiritual focus - one way of always remembering the Exodus from Egypt - the physical and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people (the prototype of future redemption). g. The Jewish months later were given names - of Babylonian origin, where most experienced the first expulsion – the first exile – from the land of , the first diaspora. These are the names in our printed calendars today. h. The first six months of the Jewish calendar are Nissan, , Sivan, Tammuz, Av and Elul. The final six months of the Jewish calendar are Tishri, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat and Adar. On leap years, a thirteenth month is added to the end of the Jewish year. 2. JEWISH YEARS a. The Jewish year, for the sake of counting YEARS, begins on the first day of the 7th month, which is Tishrei – which starts this Sunday night – Rosh Hashanah, and begins the year 5779. b. Today we are still in the year 5778. c. Calculation of the Jewish year - based on story of creation of humanity - who had to make meaning of time d. When using a secular calendar, Jews use the expressions BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era). 3. JEWISH DAYS a. “And there was evening and there was morning, one day" Genesis 1:5 Jewish "days" start at nightfall - sunset - and end at nightfall. b. All Jewish days begin on the evening before the "day" on the secular calendar (look at calendar together) spiritual benefit - think of a new day when you come home from work. don't bring the mess of the workplace with you. opportunity to start fresh each evening c. Shabbat, as all secular days, begins in the evening on Friday - candle lighting begins Shabbat - tradition is 18 minutes before sundown d. Tonight , i.e., Thursday night - is part of Friday, according to the Jewish calendar e. All Jewish holidays begin in the evening 4. JEWISH - have 7 full “days" a. week - not based on astronomy or earth rotations. It is a religious idea, from Torah - from the accounting of how G!d created the universe. G!d created an ordered universe in 6 "days” - undetermined time periods – and then on the 7th day G!d created Shabbat and G!d rested and was renewed and replenished. b. The week begins on Saturday night, at the end of Shabbat - after a ceremony called Havdalah - and lasts through Friday afternoon. Saturday night through Sunday afternoon is called “Day 1” (Yom Rishon) c. All days are numbered in Hebrew, except for the 7th day, which is called Shabbat, which actually means “G!d ceased” Ex 31:17 "The children of Israel are to keep the Shabbat, to make the Shabbat observance throughout their generations as a covenant for the ages: between me and the Children of Israel as a sign, for the ages, for In six days God made the and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and on the seventh day G!d ceased and rested - paused for breath. (shavat vayinafash) God rested for us to see rest as necessary. God didn't need to rest. God sat in awe of God's creation, and took it in and marveled at it. Would that we could do that every Shabbat with God's creation and our own!

Holidays and Seasons of the Year: Celebration of harvests and spiritual bounty: 1. The THREE FESTIVALS - Chagim. or Shalosh R'galeem, originally Agricultural Holidays Passover – barley harvest, Shavuot – wheat harvest, Sukkot – harvest of summer fruits Torah describes these holidays as having pilgrimages to Jerusalem to bring sacrifices to the Temple. a. Special Torah readings, with holiday themed Torah portions b. Special very festive part of the morning prayer service called Hallel, which is the singing of many of praise and thanksgiving A. Passover: starts 14th of Nissan Days 1 & 2 and Days 7 & 8 are called Chagim. Days 1 and 2 are observed with Passover Seders, and no leavened products. Also with the same forbidden activities as Shabbat, which allow for “rest” - except that carrying and cooking are permitted Days 7 and 8 are also Chagim with forbidden activities, as well as prescribed ways to celebrate The middle days - 3,4 ,5, 6, - are celebrated with fewer customs and rules. - These days are called Chol Hamo'eid B. Shavout - only 2 days celebrates the receiving of the Torah from God at Mt. Sinai, and in every generation an all-night study session, enjoyed with festive dairy foods is central to this holiday C. Sukkot: Dwell - eat and perhaps sleep in the sukkah all 7 or 8 days waving ritual with the lulav and etrog for all days - except Shabbat Hallel - songs of praise - with lulav and etrog all days except Shabbat special festival themed Torah readings all days

2. Four Spiritual SEASONS: a. Season from Passover through Shavuot: Counting the Omer. Focus on self- refinement, attention to our character, in readiness to receive Torah: 7 weeks, 49 days counting the Omer b. Season of Spiritual Darkness in the middle of light: summer: 3 weeks from 17th of Tammuz through 9th of Av, set aside to remember the sad experiences of the Jewish people c. Season of Spiritual Growth and Repair: Beginning of Elul through Yom Kippur: 40 days: focus on teshuvah-becoming our better selves, mending our ways, making restitution, asking for forgiveness, offering forgiveness, dreaming of who we can become when we dream big. d. Light in the middle of darkness: winter: Hanukkah

3. Redemption Holidays: Peoplehood Holidays a. Hanukkah b. Purim c. Pesach d. Modern Holidays: i. Israel Independence Day, 5th of Iyar ii. Memorial Day for Israelis killed in wars, 4th of Iyar iii. Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th of Nisan

4. Personal calendar: Yarzeits, yearly anniversary of the deaths of loved ones The Jewish Calendar

…is directly modeled upon the calendar calculation developed by the ancient Babylonians. They lived in a land which was seldom cloudy and very flat, so that they were able to observe the ’s position vis-à-vis the and earth with great accuracy over a relatively short time. To this day the Jewish calendar’s months are part Babylonian and part Hebrew.

For the Greeks, as for other ancient civilizations, astronomy was a vital and practical form of knowledge. The sun and the moon were the basis for calendars by which people marked time. The solar cycle told farmers the best times for sowing and harvesting crops, while the lunar cycle was commonly used as the basis for civic obligations. And, of course, for mariners the stars provided some means of navigating at night….

For the Greeks, like the Babylonians before them, the year consisted of twelve “lunations,” or new-moon-to-new-moon cycles, each of which lasted an average of twenty-nine and a half days. The problem with a lunar calendar is that twelve lunar cycles takes about eleven days less than one solar cycle. That means that if you don’t make regular adjustments to the calendar the seasons soon slip out of synch with the months, and after eighteen years or so the summer solstice will occur in December. Finding a system that reconciled the lunar year with the solar year was the great challenge of calendar-making.

Most ancient societies readjusted their calendars by adding a thirteenth, “intercalary” month every three years or so, although methods of calculating the length of these months, and when they should be added, were never precise. Babylonian astronomers hit upon an improvement. They discovered that there are two hundred and thirty-five lunar months in nineteen years. In other words, if you observe a full moon on April 4th, there will be another full moon in that same place on April 4th nineteen years later. This cycle, which eventually came to be known as the Metonic cycle, after the Greek astronomer Meton of Athens, was an extremely useful tool for keeping the lunar calendar and the solar calendar in synch. (The Metonic cycle is still used by the Christian Churches to calculate the correct day for celebrating Easter.)

- John Seabrook, “Fragmentary Knowledge”, New Yorker, May 14 2007, 98-100.

Sacred Time: The Jewish Calendar

A few years ago, I was in a synagogue, and I overheard one person ask another, "When is Hanukkah this year?" The other 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 Gregorian calendar used by most of the western , so the date shifts on the Gregorian calendar.

A LUNAR CALENDAR WITH EDITS

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 Gregorian 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.

IT’S NOT THE NEW MONTH UNTIL THE BEYT DIN SAYS IT IS

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 (acting as a beyt din, a rabbinical court). When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare the Rosh Hodesh (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 loses about 11 days every year and a 13-month lunar gains about 19 days every year. The months on such a calendar "drift" relative to the solar year. On a 12 lunar month calendar, the month of Nissan, which is supposed to occur in the Spring, would occur 11 days earlier each year, eventually occurring in the Winter, the Fall, the Summer, and then the Spring again. To compensate for this drift, an extra month was occasionally added. The month of Nissan would occur 11 days earlier for two or three years, and then would jump forward 29 or 30 days, balancing out the drift. In ancient times, this month was also 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 Pesakh (Passover) would occur in the spring (it is, after all, referred to in the Torah as Hag he- Aviv, the Festival of Spring!).

A LEAP MONTH

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 or Adar Alef. It 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.

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 Heshvan 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.

WHAT YEAR IS IT?

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 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 Gregorian calendar. "A.D." means "the year of our Lord," and Jews do not believe that Jesus is the Lord. 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 , 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 Gregorian 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 Heshvan 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 II in leap years) 12 (13 in leap years) 29 days February-March

The length of Heshvan 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.

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.