Beth HaDerech; Messianic Jewish Congregation, Toronto, Canada

The Luach – Jewish calendar

The first thing you might notice is that the Jewish calendar sometimes has an extra month. The years with an extra month are the Jewish calendar’s leap years. Regular years have anywhere from 353 to 355 days, while leap years have 383 to 385 days. Gregorian years have 365 days normally, and 366 days in a leap year. The reason leap years exist is because the standardized days given to the months do not perfectly match up with a solar year—the time it takes for the earth to rotate around the sun. Because the western calendar is based on the solar year, this can be dealt with by adding an extra day to February approximately once every four years. The year according to the Jewish / Biblical calendar is based on the number of years since creation. Creation was calculated, according to various biblical passages, to be about 3760 BC or BCE. So, for example, sundown on 22 September 2006 was the beginning of the Jewish year 5767 AM. AM stands for anno mundi and means in the year of the world. The days according to the Jewish calendar start at sundown, rather than at midnight as in the Gregorian system. Important Events Shabbat Nisan Iyar Sivan Tammuz Av Elul Tishri Heshivan Kislev Tevet Shevat Adar Adar Sheni Sabbatical Year Year of Jubilee The Hebrew calendar (Hebrew: הלוח העברי‎...