3.1. What does a Hebrew year look like?
Description
This article is from the Calendars FAQ, by Claus Tondering claus@tondering.dk with numerous contributions by others.
3.1. 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:
Length in a Length in a Length in a
Name deficient year regular year 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.
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