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REFERENCE

Calendar: Closer Look

Calendar Essentials
Calculating the Calendar
Rosh Hashanah
Other Days
Encoding the Year
Accuracy of the Calendar
Further Reading

See also:
Current Calendar
Jewish Calendar

The Jewish
Calendar: A
Closer Look
Level: Intermediate

A month is calculated as 29
days, 12 hours, and 793
"parts"
Leap years occur in years 3,
6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19 of a 19year cycle
Adjustments (dechiyot)
prevent round off the date
calculated
Dechiyot prevent oddities in
the length of the year
Dechiyot prevent holidays
from falling on the wrong day
of the week
Some months have variable
lengths
There are 14 possible formats
of year, identified by codes
The calendar is not perfect,
but it is very accurate

The basics of the Jewish calendar were explained on the

previous page, and will be mentioned only in passing here.
This page is intended for those who are interested in a
deeper understanding of the workings of Rabbi Hillel II's
fixed calendar, or those who want to be able to build their
own Jewish calendar computer programs.
Although this page will focus primarily on calendar
calculations, I encourage you not to dismiss this as purely a
mathematical exercise devoid of spiritual value. The sages
emphasized the value of studying astronomy as a way of
appreciating the greatness of the Creator's work. This page
does focus on some arcane mathematics, but do not be
intimidated by it: the Jewish scholar Rambam wrote that,
"the method of the fixed calendar is one which an average
school child can master in 3 or 4 days." (Hilkhot Qiddush
HaHodesh 11:4). A lot of the confusion people experience
stems from variations in the way different sources say the
same thing, and the way some sources use familiar terms to
mean unfamiliar things. I will do my best to keep these
variations straight for you.
This page includes JavaScript that performs all of the
calculations described, in the order that the concepts are
presented here and with detailed comments. Those who are
comfortable with programming languages may find it faster

and easier to understand the math by looking at the code.

This code is not necessarily the best or most efficient script
possible, but it's not intended to be; it's intended to illustrate
how the calendar is calculated. Despite the inefficiency of
this code, I have no doubt that it will be appearing on other
websites in short order. Would it kill you to give me credit
and a link back?

Calendar Essentials
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 lunar months and 11 days.
To coordinate these three phenomena, and to accommodate
certain ritual requirements, the Jewish calendar consists of
12 or 13 months of 29 or 30 days, and can be 353, 354, 355,
383, 384 or 385 days long. The keystone of the calendar is
the new moon, referred to in Hebrew as the molad.
A new month on the Jewish calendar begins with the molad,
(pronounced moh-LAHD). Molad is a Hebrew word
meaning "birth," and refers to what we call the "new moon"
in English. The molad for the month of Tishri (the month
that starts with Rosh Hashanah) is the most important one
for calendar calculations, and is referred to as Molad Tishri.
Note that the calculated molad does not necessarily
correspond precisely to the astronomical new moon. The
length of time from one astronomical new moon to the next
varies somewhat because of the eccentric orbits of the Earth
and Moon; however, the moladot of Rabbi Hillel's calendar
are set using a fixed average length of time: 29 days, 12
hours, and 793 "parts" (or in Hebrew, chalakim). The
amount of time is commonly written in an abbreviated form:
29d 12h 793p.
A "part" (or in Hebrew, cheilek) is a unit of time used in the
Jewish calendar, equal to 3-1/3 seconds. There are 18 parts
in a minute and 1,080 parts in an hour. Most sources express
time from calendar calculations in days, hours and parts,
although some sources break the parts down into minutes.
For example, the period between moladot could be written
as 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 1 part (29d 12h 44m
1p), because 793 parts is 44 minutes and 1 part (793 = 44
times 18 parts plus 1 part) . This makes the resulting times
look somewhat more familiar, but it increases the number of
calculations, so we will stick with days, hours and parts.

The same shorthand can be used to express the time when a

molad occurs. The time is normally expressed as a day of the
week, along with the hours and parts (or hours, minutes and
parts). For example, the time of a molad might be expressed
as 2d 12h 1005p (or 2d 12h 55m 15p), meaning that it
occurs on Monday (the second day) at the 12th hour and
1005 parts.
The "hours" used to calculate the molad are standard 1/24 of
a day hours. Note that this differs from the "hours" used for
ritual scheduling, which are 1/12 of the time from sunrise to
sunset. For example, at Pesach (Passover), we are required
to stop eating chametz at the end of the "fourth hour "of the
morning on Nissan 14, that is, at the end of 1/3 of the time
between sunrise and sunset. These "seasonal hours" vary
depending on the time of the year; molad hours are constant.
The time for the molad is Jerusalem Solar Time, which is
not necessarily the same as your local time. It is also not
necessarily the same as the time on the clock, even in
Jerusalem. This fact has no effect on your calculations, but is
worth knowing.
The Jewish "day" starts at sunset, rather than at midnight. If
you read the story of creation in Genesis Ch. 1, you will
notice that it says, "And there was evening, and there was
morning, one day." From this, we infer that a day begins
with evening, that is, at sunset. Accordingly, most sources
discussing the molad use 6PM of the preceding evening as
the "zero hour." In our example, 2d 12h 1005p, the 12h
means the 12th hour after 6PM, that is, 6AM. If a molad
occurs at 2d 4h 0p, this means that it occurs at 10PM on
Sunday night, because the second day (Monday) begins at
6PM of the preceding evening (Sunday). Some sources,
however, use the more familiar Western conventions and use
midnight as the zero hour. Be very careful to check which
system is being used when you rely on times given by any
source! If the time is referred to as "Rambam time" or
something similar, then you know it uses 6PM as the zero
hour. On this page, I am using Rambam time, but some wellrespected Orthodox sources in America use midnight as their
zero hour. As long as you are consistent, you will get the
same result under either system.

Calculating the Calendar

Here is an overview of the steps involved in calculating the
date of Rosh Hashanah on the Jewish calendar:
1. Start with a known molad (and the corresponding
secular date, if you wish to convert your resulting date
to a secular date).
2. Determine the number of months between the known
molad and Tishri of the year of the date you are
calculating.

3. Multiply the number of months by the length of the

molad: 29d 12h 793p.
4. Add the result to the known starting molad.
5. Apply the dechiyot (rules of postponement) to
determine the date of Rosh Hashanah for the year of
your date.
6. To get the secular date, add the number of days
elapsed calculated above to the secular starting date.
If you want to calculate a date other than Rosh Hashanah,
you will have to calculate either that year's Rosh Hashanah,
the following year's Rosh Hashanah or both and use this
information to work out the date.
We will now look at these steps in detail, illustrating the
techniques by calculating the dates of Rosh Hashanah and
Pesach (Passover) in the year 5775 (2014-2015) using 5732
as our starting point. As I said above, if you are comfortable
with JavaScript, you may find that it is faster and easier to
understand these concepts by viewing my code here. This
code is designed to illustrate calendar principles and is not
the most efficient code possible. If you choose to use it in
your own work despite this warning, would it kill you to
give me credit and a link back?
Step 1: Start with a Known Molad
To perform any calculations on the Jewish calendar, you
need a starting point, preferably the molad of Tishri for a
specific year, along with the corresponding secular date if
you want to be able to convert the Hebrew date to secular. It
is not possible to work out a molad from first principles,
because the first molad of creation (known as Molad Tohu)
did not occur at 0d 0h 0p!
I like to base my calculations on the molad of Tishri 5732,
which occurred at 2d 7h 743p (using 6PM as the zero hour),
and corresponded to the secular date September 20, 1971. I
use this particular year because it is the first Molad Tishri
after 1/1/1970 (Javascript's 0 date) that is not subject to
dechiyot (postponements), which complicate secular date
conversions. If you will be calculating dates in the past and
would like to avoid the complications of subtracting dates,
you may prefer to work with an earlier molad, such as Tishri
5661 (9/24/1900), 2d 11h 9p, or even Molad Tishri 5558
(9/21/1797), 5d 11h 607p. I'm sure our Christian friends are
primarily interested in knowing Molad Tishri 3762 (the year
1), or some other year in that lifetime. Unfortunately, the
program I use to calculate molads overflows after 3861 (the
year 100), so you'll have to work out the rest yourself:
Molad Tishri 3869 (9/22/108, the earliest one I can work out
that is not subject to postponements) is 7d 8h 957p. A more
interesting base from my perspective is Molad Tishri 4120
(9/10/359), 5d 8h 29p, which is the first non-postponed year

after Rabbi Hillel II developed this calendar! Any

calculations before that calendar was developed do not
necessarily correspond to what people in those times
observed. In addition, it is very complicated to convert a
Hebrew date to a secular date before the Gregorian calendar
reforms, which took effect at different times in different
countries (introduced in 1582 but not adopted in America
until 1752!).
Step 2: Determine the Number of Months to Tishri of
Your Year
The next step is to determine how many months are between
your starting point and Tishri of the year of your end point.
There are exactly 235 months in every 19-year cycle of leap
years (12 12-month years plus 7 13-month years), but if your
number of years is not evenly divisible by 19, then you will
have to determine whether each remaining year is a regular
year (12 months) or a leap year (13 months).
Fortunately, the leap year cycle is easily calculated. Leap
years occur in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19 of a 19-year
cycle, and the 19-year cycle begins in the year 1, so you can
simply divide the year number by 19 and examine the
remainder. If the remainder is 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 or 0 (the
19th year of the cycle) then the year is a leap year.
Otherwise, it is not.
There are two cycles between 5732 and 5775, with a
remainder of 5 years (5775 - 5732 / 19 = 2 remainder 5), that
is 470 months from 5732 to 5770. The remaining months
before 5775 are:
Year

Divided by 19

Leap
Year?

Months

5770

303 remainder
13

No

12

5771

303 remainder
14

Yes

13

5772

303 remainder
15

No

12

5773

303 remainder
16

No

12

5774

303 remainder
17

Yes

13

Plus 2 cycles (2*235) 470

Total 532
Step 3: Multiply the Number of Months by the Length of
the Molad

Next, we multiply the number of months by the average

length of the molad, which is 29d 12h 793p:
793p * 532 = 421,876p
12h * 532 = 6,384h
29d * 532 = 15,428d
Of course, we will then have to round up the smaller units
into the larger units, just as we would round 75 minutes into
1 hour and 15 minutes. Here are the stages of this rounding:
421,876 parts / 1,080 parts per hour = 390 hours
remainder 676 parts
(6,384 multiplied hours + 390 rounded hours) / 24
hours per day = 282 days remainder 6 hours
15,428 multiplied days + 282 rounded days = 15,710
days
We now know the amount of time between our starting
molad and our ending molad: 15,710d 6h 676p
Step 4: Add the Result to the Starting Molad
Next, we add the elapsed time calculated above to the
starting date to get the ending date. Our starting molad is 2d
12h 1005p (using 6PM as 0h). We will not add the days yet,
for reasons that will soon become clear.
676 elapsed parts + 743 starting parts = 1,419 parts
6 elapsed hours + 7 starting hours = 13 hours
Now we need to do some more rounding:
1,419 calculated parts / 1,080 parts per hour = 1 hour
remainder 339 parts
13 calculated hours + 1 rounded hour / 24 hours per
day = 0 days remainder 14 hours
15,710 calculated days + 0 rounded days = 15,710
days
At this point, we should note the number of days elapsed
between our starting point and our ending point: 15,710
days. We must note this at this point in the calculation, after
the hours are rounded into the days but before the weekday
of the starting molad is added to the number of days. This
number of days will be necessary to determine the Gregorian
date. Note that if the hours are more than 24 at this point,
you will need to round those hours into the days to get the
elapsed time. In this calculation, however, the number of
hours is only 14.
Let's finish the calculation of the molad, adding the days and
determining the day of the week:
(15,710 calculated days + 2 starting days) / 7 days per

week = 2244 weeks remainder 4 days

The remainder of 4 days gives us the day of the week for our
molad, so the resulting molad is: 4d 14h 339p, that is,
Wednesday in the 14th hour (8 am) and 339 parts, with
15,710 elapsed days. Note that if the remainder is 0 days, the
molad is 7d (Shabbat), because 7 days / 7 days per week = 1
week remainder 0 days.
Step 5: Apply the Dechiyot
There are four rules of postponement known as dechiyot,
pronounced d'-khee-YOHT, where "kh" is a throat-clearing
noise (singular: dechiyah). These rules postpone the date of
Rosh Hashanah, but do not affect the calculated time of the
molad. One of the dechiyot is a general rule of rounding
while the rest are designed to prevent oddities in the length
of the year and the date of Rosh Hashanah.
Dechiyah 1: Molad Zakein
The first dechiyah is molad zakein, meaning an "old" molad.
If the molad occurs at or after noon (that is, 18h where 6PM
is 0h or 12h where midnight is 0h), the molad is considered
to be "old" and we round to the next day. This rule is quite
commonly applied, affecting a quarter of all years (half if
you use midnight as the 0 hour).
If noon seems a bit early to be considering the molad "old,"
remember that the Jewish "day" starts at sunset. The rule of
molad zakein simply means that a molad at or after noon
relates to the "day" that starts at the next sunset (4-10 hours
later) rather than the previous sunset (14-20 hours earlier).
This rationale is clear from the Rambam notation, where
6PM is 0h and a Molad Zakein is one that occurs at or after
18h in a 24h day.
Interestingly, Molad Zakein is the reason why you will get
the same result regardless of whether you use 6PM or
midnight as your zero hour. With midnight as your zero
hour, Molad Zakein applies to molads after 12h, applying in
half of all years. With 6PM as your zero hour, Molad Zakein
only applies in one quarter of all years, but molads between
6PM and midnight are already considered to be part of the
next day, so the result is the same!
Our molad occurs at 14h in Rambam notation, so it is not a
molad zakein and Rosh Hashanah stays on the calculated
date for now.
Note that when dechiyot like this apply, a day must be added
to the elapsed time for purposes of calculating the Gregorian
equivalent date, but the molad does not change. The
unchanged molad is used for purposes of calculating
subsequent years and for certain religious purposes. For

example, in 5760, the calculated molad was 6d 21h 801p.

Molad Zakein pushed Rosh Hashanah to the next day, but if
you were to calculate a subsequent date using 5760 as your
base, you would calculate from 6d (Friday), not from
Saturday. This is why it is best to start with a molad that is
not subject to postponements.
Dechiyah 2: Lo A"DU Rosh
The second dechiyah is known as Lo A"DU or
Lo A"DU Rosh. This rule states that
Rosh Hashanah cannot occur on a Sunday
(Day 1), a Wednesday (Day 4) or a Friday (Day 6). The
word Lo means "Not," and the word A"DU is a way of
pronouncing Alef-Dalet-Vav, letters with the numerical
values 1, 4 and 6 (see
Hebrew Alphabet - Numerical Values). If the calculated
molad occurs on one of these days of the week, Rosh
Hashanah is postponed by a day to prevent other problems
with the calendar. If Rosh Hashanah fell on a Wednesday or
Friday, then Yom Kippur would fall on a Friday or Sunday,
which is undesirable. If Rosh Hashanah fell on a Sunday, the
Hoshanah Rabbah would fall on a Saturday, making it
impossible to observe some of the day's customs.
This dechiyah is also commonly applied, as you might
imagine. It applies to three out of seven days, so one would
expect it to occur almost half of the time.
Note that the dechiyot of molad zakein and Lo A"DU Rosh
can work in combination: a molad at 5d 19h 0m 0p
(Thursday at 1PM) is rounded to Friday by the rule of Molad
Zakein, then postponed to Saturday by the rule of Lo A"DU
Rosh, even though the original molad was on a valid day of
the week. On the other hand, a molad at 4d 19h 0m 0p
(Wednesday at 1PM) is rounded to Thursday by Molad
Zakein, and Lo A"DU Rosh does not apply: even though the
molad occurred on Wednesday, Molad Zakein has already
moved it off of that date so Lo A"DU Rosh is not necessary.
This is why the rule of Molad Zakein must be checked
before the rule of Lo A"DU Rosh.
Our molad occurs on 4d, Wednesday, so it is postponed to
Thursday. You should add 1 to your elapsed time so your
secular date conversion will be correct. There are now
15,711 elapsed days.
Dechiyah 3: Gatarad
The remaining two dechiyot are much less commonly
applied.
Dechiyah Gatarad holds that if Molad Tishri in a simple (12month, non-leap) year occurs on a Tuesday at 9h 204p or
later, Rosh Hashanah is postponed to the next day (a

Wednesday, which by the effect of Lo A"DU Rosh would

then be postponed to Thursday).
The name, Gatarad, is a mnemonic for the
rule. In Hebrew, Gatarad it is spelled
Gimel-Teit-Reish-Dalet. Using letters as
numerals, Gimel is 3, and represents Tuesday. Teit is 9 and
represents the 9th hour (that is, 9h in Rambam notation, but
3h in midnight-based notation). Reish is 200 and Dalet is 4,
representing 204 parts.
Why does such a complicated rule exist? This rule prevents
the possibility that a year might be 356 days, an invalid
length. Consider: a Molad Tishri at 3d 9h 204p would not be
postponed by Molad Zakein or Lo A"DU Rosh. Add 12
lunar cycles (354d 8h 876p) to the next year's Rosh
Hashanah and you get 7d 18h 0p with 354 days elapsed.
Molad Zakein applies to the following year, postponing
Rosh Hashanah to the next day, a Sunday, with 355 days
elapsed. Lo A"DU Rosh is then triggered, postponing Rosh
Hashanah and leaving 356 days elapsed and making the
current year an invalid length. Gatarad takes days away from
the following year and adds them to the preceding year, so
both years are a valid length.
Note that Gatarad invariably triggers Lo A"DU Rosh.
Gatarad only applies when Rosh Hashanah is Tuesday and
Gatarad postpones Rosh Hashanah to Wednesday. Lo A"DU
Rosh then postpones Rosh Hashanah to Thursday. Some
programmers like to check Gatarad before checking Lo
A"DU Rosh; others check Gatarad after Lo A"DU Rosh but
use this rule to add two days (the Gatarad day plus the
resulting Lo A"DU Rosh day). Either way, if Gatarad
applies, Rosh Hashanah falls on Thursday.
Note also that this rule is not combined with Molad Zakein.
If Molad Zakein applies to the current year, Gatarad is
unnecessary; thus Gatarad applies only to molads between
9h 204p and 17h 1079p.
As you might imagine, this rule is not commonly applied. It
applies only in non-leap years (12 out of 19 years) when the
molad occurs on Tuesday (1 out of 7 days) between the 9th
hour and the 18th hour (9 out of 24 hours). It occurs about
three times a century. It last occurred in 5745 (1984-85) and
will not occur again until 5796 (2035-36).
Dechiyah 4: Betutkafot
Like Dechiyah Gatarad, this rule is not very commonly
applied and is designed to prevent a year from having an
invalid length. Dechiyah Betutkafot prevents a leap-year
from having 382 days (too few days) by postponing Rosh
Hashanah of the non-leap year following the leap year.

Also like Dechiyah Gatarad, the

name of the rule tells you how
it is calculated: if Molad Tishri
in a year following a leap year occurs on Monday (Beit, 2)
after the 15th hour (Teit-Vav, 15 in Rambam notation, but 9h
in midnight-based notation) and 589 parts (Tav-Kaf-Pei-Teit,
589), then it is postponed to the next day. The rule is applied
only if the actual molad occurs on Monday, not if it is
postponed to Monday. Like Gatarad, the rule really only
applies to molads before noon (18h), because Molad Zakein
handles the postponements for molads at or after noon.
Unlike Gatarad, Betutkafot does not trigger Lo A"DU Rosh,
because Betutkafot postpones Rosh Hashanah from a
Monday to a Tuesday and Tuesday is an acceptable day for
Rosh Hashanah.
The reasoning behind this rule is similar to the reasoning
behind Gatarad: the 13 lunar cycles of the preceding year are
383d 21h 589p. If this year's Molad Tishri occurs after 2d
15h 589p, then the preceding year's Molad Tishri must have
occurred on or after 3d 18h 0p. This is 384 elapsed days, but
the preceding year's Molad Tishri was a Molad Zakein
postponing Rosh Hashanah to Wednesday, which triggers Lo
A"DU, moving Rosh Hashanah to Thursday. The two
postponements shorten the preceding year to 382 days.
Dechiyah Betutkafot postpones the current year's Rosh
Hashanah by one day to increase the preceding year to a
permissible 383 days.
This is the rarest of the four dechiyot, applying only in the
year after a leap year (7 out of 19 years) when the molad
occurs on Monday (1 out of 7 days) between the 15th hour
and the 18th hour (3 out of 24 hours). It applies once or
twice a century. The last time it applied was 5766 (2005-06).
It will not apply again until 6013 (2252-2253)!
Step 6: Add Elapsed Days to Gregorian Starting Date
To determine the Gregorian date for Rosh Hashanah, you
must take the elapsed days calculated in Step 4, add any
additional days triggered by the dechiyot in Step 5, and add
this number of days to the date of Rosh Hashanah for your
known molad. For those following the script: JavaScript
doesn't do a great job of handling dates, but the ConvertGreg
function adds elapsed dates and returns a properly formatted
date (American m/d/yyyy format). If you're trying to do this
without writing a program, a spreadsheet such as Microsoft
Excel should be able to add a number of days to a date.
Rosh Hashanah Calculator
To calculate the date of Rosh Hashanah for any year after
5732 using the principles above:

1. Calculate the number of months between 5732 and

your year.
2. Calculate the amount of time elapsed in those months.
3. Add the elapsed time to the molad of 5732 to
determine the molad of your year, stopping to note the
elapsed days before adding the day of week from the
5732 molad.
4. Determine whether any dechiyot apply and if so, add
them to the elapsed days determined above.
5. Add the days elapsed to the date of Rosh Hashanah in
5732.
These steps are performed by the function CalcRH in the
JavaScript, used by the form below. Just type the Hebrew
year and the secular date will appear, using only the
functions discussed above. Click the button below to try it!
Hebrew Year

5772

Get Date!

Secular Date
Calculating Days Other Than Rosh Hashanah
The principles and JavaScript above are sufficient to allow
you to convert Rosh Hashanah to a Gregorian date for any
year. However, if you want to calculate a date other than
Rosh Hashanah, you will have to calculate either that year's
Rosh Hashanah, the following year's Rosh Hashanah or both
and use this information to work out the date. The
information you need varies depending on the month of the
date you are calculating
Tishri
Tishri is the month of Rosh Hashanah, so you simply
add the date of the month to Rosh Hashanah and
subtract 1 (because Rosh Hashanah is Day 1).
Cheshvan
Cheshvan is the second month of the calendar year,
and the preceding month of Tishri is always 30 days,
so you simply take the current Rosh Hashanah, add 29
days (30 - 1 for Rosh Hashanah) and add the date of
the month.
Kislev
Kislev is the hardest month to calculate. You cannot
simply work forward from the current year's Rosh
Hashanah, because the preceding month of Cheshvan
can be 29 or 30 days, nor can you work backward
from the next year's Rosh Hashanah, because Kislev
itself can also be 29 or 30 days. To calculate the length
of Kislev, you need to know the date of Rosh
Hashanah of both the current year and the next year,
then calculate the difference between them to
determine the length of the current year. If the year is

353, 354, 383 or 384 days, then Cheshvan is 29 days

and you can determine a date in Kislev taking the
current Rosh Hashanah, adding 58 days, then adding
the date of the month. If the year is 355 or 385 days,
then Cheshvan is 30 days and you can determine a
date in Kislev by taking the current Rosh Hashanah,
adding 59 days, then adding the date of the month.
Tevet, Shevat
The remaining months of the year are of unchanging
length, but the number of months varies depending on
whether the year is a leap year! Tevet and Shevat are
best calculated by working backwards from the
following year's Rosh Hashanah and subtracting an
additional 30 days in a leap year. Tevet's offset in a
non-leap year is -266; Shevat's is -237.
Adar, Adar I and Adar II
Adar is always offset -207 from the following Rosh
Hashanah; however, in regular years, Adar is the 12th
month of the year (starting from Nissan), and in leap
years, is known as Adar II and is the 13th month of
the year. Adar I, the extra month inserted as the 12th
month in leap years, is always offset -237 days from
Rosh Hashanah.
Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Elul
The remaining months of the year are all of
unchanging length and not affected by leap years.
Simply subtract the appropriate number of days from
the following year's Rosh Hashanah and add the date
of the month.
The form below uses the functions above to calculate the
dates of major Jewish holidays for any Hebrew year.
Holiday
Rosh Hashanah (1 Tishri)

Hebrew Year
5772
Get Date!

Encoding the Year

Calendar scholars use a system of encoding to describe each
Jewish year. This encoding consists of three Hebrew letters
that serve as a shorthand for important features of the
calendar, and once you work out the code, you know
everything you need to know about the calendar. You don't
need to know the encoding system to be able to calculate the
calendar, but it may help you understand important features
of the calendar.
The first letter is either Pei or Mem. Pei stands for the
Hebrew word P'shuta (simple), and refers to a 12-month
regular year. Mem stands for Me'uberet, and refers to a 13month leap year.

The second letter indicates which day of the week Rosh

Hashanah occurs. Letters of the Hebrew alphabet also serve
as numerals (see Hebrew Alphabet - Numerical Values), and
this letter indicates whether Rosh Hashanah occurs on a
Monday (Beit, that is, 2), a Tuesday (Gimel, 3), a Thursday
(Hei, 5) or a Saturday (Zayin, 7). Why not Alef (1), Dalet (4)
or Vav (6)? Because Dechiyah Lo A"DU Rosh, discussed
above, prevents Rosh Hashanah from falling on Sunday,
Wednesday or Friday.
The third letter tells you the length of the year, which can be
353, 354 or 355 days (in a leap year, 383, 384 or 385). This
variation comes in part from the length of the molad cycles
(which add about 8 or 21 hours to the time of day each year,
which sometimes rolls over to another day) and in part from
the application of the dechiyot. A year's length can be
encoded as Cheit for Chaseir (deficient or lacking, a 353 or
383 day year), Kaf for K'Seder (in order, a 354 or 384 day
year) or Shin for Shaleim (whole or complete, a 355 or 385
day year). In a Chaseir year, both Cheshvan and Kislev have
29 days. In a Shaleim year, both Cheshvan and Kislev have
30 days. In a K'Seder year, Cheshvan has 29 days and Kislev
has 30 days.
Under this system of encoding, the current year (5765) is
coded Mem-Hei-Cheit, because it is a leap year (Mem),
Rosh Hashanah started on a Thursday (Hei), and the year
will have 383 days (Cheit). Next year (5766) would be
encoded as Pei-Gimel-Kaf because it will be a regular (nonleap) year, it will start on a Tuesday, and it will have 354
days.
Some people code the years differently: the day of Rosh
Hashanah as the first letter (instead of the second), the length
of the year as the second letter (instead of the third), and the
day of the week that Pesach (Passover) starts as the third.
This third letter can be Alef (1, Sunday) through Zayin (7,
Saturday). The advantage of this system is that it tells you
the day of the week that both Pesach and Rosh Hashanah
occur, which has some effect on their observances, and once
these are known, we can infer the days of the other major
festivals (Sukkot and Shavu'ot). The disadvantage is that
nothing in this system tells you whether the year is a leap
year, although this can be inferred if you know the calendar
well enough.
Although there are many theoretical permutations of these
three-letter codes, only 14 of them are actually possible
given the constraints of calendar calculations. This means
that there are only 14 different possible layouts for an annual
Jewish calendar. Keep in mind, though, that these 14
different layouts don't necessarily correspond to the same
Gregorian days, but they do correspond to the distribution of
weekly Torah readings. For example, in the year 5765, a

Mem-Hei-Cheit year, the Torah portion Emor was read on 5

Iyar, which was May 14, 2005. The next Mem-Hei-Cheit
year will be 5768, and Parshat Emor will be read on 5 Iyar in
that year too, but 5 Iyar will occur on May 10, 2008.
Contrast this with 5766, a Pei-Gimel-Kaf year, when Emor
will be read on 15 Iyar (May 13, 2006).
The following table shows which parshiyot are combined in
which year encodings:
Year Encoding

Parshiyot Combined

Mem-Beit-Cheit

Chukat-Balak
Matot-Masei
Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Mem-Beit-Shin

Matot-Masei

Mem-Gimel-Kaf

Matot-Masei

Mem-Hei-Cheit

none

Mem-Hei-Shin

Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Mem-Zayin-Cheit Matot-Masei
Nitzavim-Vayeilech
Mem-Zayin-Shin Chukat-Balak
Matot-Masei
Nitzavim-Vayeilech
Pei-Beit-Cheit

Vayakhel-Pekudei
Tazria-Metzora
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Behar-Bechukotai
Matot-Masei
Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Pei-Beit-Shin

Vayakhel-Pekudei
Tazria-Metzora
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Behar-Bechukotai
Chukat-Balak
Matot-Masei
Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Pei-Gimel-Kaf

Vayakhel-Pekudei
Tazria-Metzora
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Behar-Bechukotai
Chukat-Balak
Matot-Masei
Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Pei-Hei-Kaf

Vayakhel-Pekudei
Tazria-Metzora
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Behar-Bechukotai
Matot-Masei

Pei-Hei-Shin

Tazria-Metzora
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Behar-Bechukotai
Matot-Masei

Pei-Zayin-Cheit

Vayakhel-Pekudei
Tazria-Metzora
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Behar-Bechukotai
Matot-Masei

Pei-Zayin-Shin

Vayakhel-Pekudei
Tazria-Metzora
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Behar-Bechukotai
Matot-Masei
Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Accuracy of the Jewish Calendar

At one time, the accuracy of the Jewish calendar was
proverbial. But how accurate is it really?
The average lunar month on the Jewish calendar is 29d 12h
793p. The average lunar month as calculated by modern
astronomers is 29d 12h 44m 2.8s, that is, 29d 12h 792.84p.
so the variation is less than two tenths of the smallest unit of
measurement recognized by the system, about half of a
second. That is quite remarkably accurate. Of course, those
lost half-seconds do add up: within in a century, you're off
by 10 minutes.
How well does the calendar correspond to the solar year?
The rabbis recognized long ago that the calendar gains 1h
485p in every 19-year cycle, adding up to a day every 300
years or so. This was important to the rabbis in scheduling
certain rituals that are based on the solar year rather than the
lunar year. We can see this effect when we examine the dates
of Rosh Hashanah over time.
Rabbi Hillel II developed the Jewish calendar in the Jewish
year 4119. Using his calendar methods as described above,
and artificially assuming that the Gregorian calendar we use
today was in effect at that time, the date of Rosh Hashanah
ranged from August 29 to September 28 between the years
4100 and 4200 (the 42nd century). In the present Jewish
century (the 58th), the dates of Rosh Hashanah range from
September 5 to October 5, a gain of 6 or 7 days. This is
considerably more accurate than the Julian calendar used by
Christians in Rabbi Hillel's time (which had to be corrected
by 11 days a few centuries ago), but you can see that it is
gaining some time.
The discrepancy in the Jewish calendar, however, is still less
than a lunar month and is therefore as accurate as it is

possible to be in a lunisolar calendar. In fact, it takes about

9300 years for this discrepancy to accumulate to a full
month of time. The rabbis were aware of the problem, but
were quite confident that a new Sanhedrin will be
established long before this discrepancy becomes
problematic. We still have more than 3500 years to go.

Suggestions for Further Reading

The book that most people recommend for learning about
the Jewish calendar is Rabbi Nathan Bushwick's
Understanding the Jewish Calendar. I ordered this book
while I was writing this page; it took about a month to
arrive, and I confess I was a bit disappointed by it. About
half of the book was basic astronomy that I learned in fourth
grade, and most of the calendar calculations I had learned
before the book arrived. Nevertheless, the book did have
some interesting insights and thorough citation to Torah,
Talmud and Rambam that you may find useful or interesting.
Copyright 5765-5771 (2005-2011), Tracey R Rich
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