Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, is a treasured eight-day Jewish holiday celebrated annually on the 24th day of the Hebrew calendar month of Kislev. It commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after its liberation from its Syrian-Greeks conquerors in the 2nd century BC. But how is the date of Hanukkah determined?
The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar system, meaning that its months are based on the cycles of both the moon and the sun. This unique system requires periodic adjustments to ensure that the date of Hanukkah and other Jewish holidays fall in their proper place on the Gregorian calendar. The adjustments are made by adding an extra month or day seven times every 19 years.
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How Is the Date of Hanukkah Determined?
The Lunisolar Hebrew Calendar
The Jewish year is composed of twelve lunar months, each approximately 29.5 days long. This would cause the months to drift away from the solar seasons unless additional months or days are added to compensate. The lunar year is therefore adjusted to the solar year by intercalation—or the addition of an extra month or day—seven times every 19 years in a cycle known as the Metonic cycle.
The Metonic Cycle
The Metonic cycle is based on the 235 lunar months that correspond roughly to 19 solar years. This provides an accurate method of determining when a leap-month or leap-day should be added. The extra month is known as an embolismic month and is inserted after the 11th month of Adar. If the embolismic month is skipped, an extra day is added to the month of Adar II, making it a 30-day month.
Adjusting Hanukkah’s Date
By inserting leap months or days every 19 years, the date of Hanukkah is adjusted to keep it within the bounds of the Hebrew calendar. Each month of the Jewish year begins on the new moon and culminates with the full moon fifteen days later. To accommodate for the extra leap-months or days, the month of Kislev is alternately 29 days and 30 days, until the entire Metonic cycle is completed and the Jewish calendar realigns with the solar year.
Taking all of these factors into consideration, the determination of the date of Hanukkah is a highly intricate process. It involves a careful study of lunar cycles, the insertion of leap days and months, and an understanding of how the Jewish calendar adjusts to the solar calendar. Although this date is constantly shifting, the near 2,000-year-old commemoration of the Hanukkah story remains an integral holiday in Jewish life.
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Last update 2023-11-27. Price and product availability may change.