What does a Hebrew year look like?

An ordinary (non-leap) year has 353, 354, or 355 days. A leap year has 383, 384, or 385 days. The three lengths of the years are termed, "deficient'', "regular'', and "complete'', respectively.

An ordinary year has 12 months, a leap year has 13 months.

Every month starts (approximately) on the day of a new moon.

The months and their lengths are:

 

Name Length in a
deficient year
Length in a
regular year
Length in a
complete year
Tishri 30 30 30
Heshvan 29 29 30
Kislev 29 30 30
Tevet 29 29 29
Shevat 30 30 30
Adar I 30 30 30)
Adar II 29 29 29
Nisan 30 30 30
Iyar 29 29 29
Sivan 30 30 30
Tammuz 29 29 29
Av 30 30 30
Elul 29 29 29
Total: 353 or 383 354 or 384 355 or 385

The month Adar I is only present in leap years. In non-leap years Adar II is simply called ``Adar''.

Note that in a regular year the numbers 30 and 29 alternate; a complete year is created by adding a day to Heshvan, whereas a deficient year is created by removing a day from Kislev.

The alteration of 30 and 29 ensures that when the year starts with a new moon, so does each month.

What years are leap years?

A year is a leap year if the number year mod 19 is one of the following: 0, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, or 17.

The value for year in this formula is the ``Anno Mundi'' described below.

 

 Rosh Hashanah


 
Sign our Guest Book

Holiday Index

Home

 
Contact us

Refer This Site