Appointed time
רֹאשׁ חֹדֶשׁ
The new moon
The quietest appointed time, and the one every other date depends on.
In one minute
The start of each month, fixed by the new moon. It gets its own offerings in the Torah, which puts it among the appointed times. No story turns on it, but without it none of the other festivals have a date to fall on.
Why this matters to anyone
Every calendar is a decision about what to count from, and someone has to make that decision out loud. This is the day that job gets done. Before clocks and printed almanacs, a month began when people looked up and agreed that they had seen it begin.
There is something worth noticing in a tradition that builds a small marker into the moment of starting over, twelve or thirteen times a year, with no requirement to feel anything in particular about it.
Read the text
Start with the words themselves, before anyone explains them to you.
The biblical year is lunar in its months and agricultural in its seasons, so the sighting of the new moon is what starts a month and fixes when everything else falls. Numbers 28 assigns it its own offerings, which puts it among the appointed times rather than outside them.
It is easy to overlook because nothing dramatic happens on it. But the dates in Leviticus 23 are all counted from the beginning of a month, and this is the day that beginning is declared.
“And in your new moons ye shall present a burnt-offering unto the LORD: two young bullocks, and one ram, seven he-lambs of the first year without blemish;”
“Also in the day of your gladness, and in your appointed seasons, and in your new moons, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings; and they shall be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the LORD your God.’”
“Who appointedst the moon for seasons; The sun knoweth his going down.”
Learn three words
You do not need Hebrew to read well, but these few change what you can see.
- חֹדֶשׁchodeshmonth, new moon
- Built on a root meaning new. The word for month is the word for renewal.
- מוֹעֵדmo'edappointed time, meeting
- The word behind the whole category. It is a diary word before it is a religious one.
- עִבּוּרibburintercalation
- The addition of a thirteenth month to keep the lunar year in step with the seasons.
Notice what is odd
The details that do not quite fit are usually where the meaning is.
It fixes every other date
Passover falls on the fourteenth day of the first month, atonement on the tenth of the seventh. Those numbers only mean something once someone has declared the month begun.
Months are numbered, not named
The Torah numbers its months. The familiar names, Nisan, Tishrei and the rest, come into use later; several of them appear in the Hebrew Bible only in the book of Esther.
Observation became arithmetic
For centuries the month began when witnesses reported seeing the new moon. The fixed calculated calendar in use today replaced that, which is why dates can now be worked out years ahead.
How it is kept
What the text requires, and what tradition added afterwards. Worth telling apart in both directions.
- In the Bible
- Additional offerings, and trumpets blown over them. 1 Samuel 20 shows it as a social occasion with an expected place at the king's table, so it clearly meant something in ordinary life.
- Later
- In Jewish practice it became a minor marker: an announcement in the synagogue, additions to the liturgy, and in many communities a day with particular associations for women. None of that is commanded in Leviticus.
- If you want to notice it
- Look for the thin crescent just after sunset. That sliver is what a month used to begin with, and seeing it once changes how the dates in Leviticus read.
Questions to sit with
Do not answer these quickly. A study that ends in a better question has gone further than one that ends in a tidy answer.
- 01
Exodus 12:2 resets which month counts as first. What does it mean to be handed a new beginning to the year?
- 02
A lunar month and a solar year do not divide evenly. What problems does that create for a calendar of harvest feasts?
- 03
Why might a festival with no story attached still be worth marking?
Common questions
Open any that apply to you. Skipping this step is fine.
Is the Hebrew calendar lunar or solar?
Both, which is the interesting part. Months follow the moon, but the festivals are tied to harvests, so the year has to keep pace with the sun. A whole extra month is added in seven years out of every nineteen to stop Passover drifting out of spring.
Why does the year number change in the autumn if Nisan is the first month?
The Torah counts months from Nisan in spring, but the year number advances in the autumn, at the first of the seventh month. The calendar carries more than one kind of beginning at once.
How can dates be known in advance if it depends on sighting the moon?
They cannot, under observation. The calendar was fixed by calculation in late antiquity, and the arithmetic is what this site uses to work out the dates shown.
Go further
Pick the one that matches the time you actually have.
Ten minutes
Read Exodus 12:2 and Numbers 28:11 to 15. One resets the calendar, the other gives the day its offerings.
An evening
Add 1 Samuel 20:5 to 34 and watch how much ordinary social life is organised around the day.
A month
Find the new crescent once, then keep track of the moon for a full cycle. The festivals stop being abstract dates.
Every passage on this page
- Exodus 12:2
- Numbers 10:10
- Numbers 28:11 to 15
- 1 Samuel 20:5 and 18
- 2 Kings 4:23
- Psalm 81:3
- Isaiah 66:23
- Amos 8:5
For a method you can use on any passage, see the method, or check the calendar for what is next.
Check yourself
Four questions, answered by clicking. You get the reason either way, so being wrong is useful.
Question 1 of 4
What does the new moon determine?