Cheshvan is the eighth month of the Hebrew calendar counting from Nisan, and it arrives directly after Tishrei. It is the only month of the year with no observance in it at all: no festival, no fast, not a single day the Torah or the sages fixed anything to. After the most crowded thirty days in the calendar, which barely held one uninterrupted working week, comes a full month of ordinary life.
That is precisely its identity. In Israel Cheshvan falls across October and November: the first rain arrives, the prayer for rain begins, and the school year finally gets going. “After the holidays”, the phrase that pushed a month's worth of decisions and meetings into the future, comes due here.
Marcheshvan, and why the name is so long
The month's full name is Marcheshvan, and it came back from Babylon along with the rest. Originally it is a single word: an Akkadian compound meaning, plainly, “the eighth month”. In Hebrew it sounds like two words, mar and cheshvan, and two lovely folk readings grew out of that: mar as in a drop of water, for the rains, and mar as in bitter, for the month that never got a festival. Both are late, and both stuck.
Before the Babylonian name arrived the month had a Hebrew one of its own. The book of Kings records that the building of the First Temple was completed “in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month” 1, Bul, probably from the harvest, or from the mud that follows the first rain. It is one of only three Canaanite-Hebrew month names to survive in the Bible, and all three fell out of use.
The days of Cheshvan, in order
Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan (30 Tishrei and 1 Cheshvan). Two days, because Tishrei always has thirty. It is the first day after the holidays in the literal sense.
7 Cheshvan. The day the prayer for rain begins in the Land of Israel. The Mishnah records a dispute: “on the third of Marcheshvan we ask for rain; Rabban Gamliel says, on the seventh” 2, and the practice follows Rabban Gamliel. His reasoning is the memorable part: a fortnight after the festival, so that the last pilgrim walking home from Jerusalem gets there before the rain catches him.
11 Cheshvan. By tradition, the day Rachel died. Thousands travel to her tomb on the road to Bethlehem, one of the largest pilgrimages in Israel unconnected to a festival.
12 Cheshvan. The national memorial day for Yitzhak Rabin, fixed in Israeli law by the Hebrew date. Schools mark it, and the state ceremony is held on Mount Herzl.
29 Cheshvan. Sigd, the festival of Ethiopian Jewry, fifty days after Yom Kippur. Recognised in Israeli law as a state holiday since 2008, it draws a large gathering to the Armon Hanatziv promenade in Jerusalem.
30 Cheshvan (in the years there is one). Cheshvan is one of only two months in the calendar whose length changes from year to year: in some years it runs twenty-nine days, in others thirty.
“It falls to me to repay”
Of all the months, Cheshvan is the one the sages explicitly gave a sense of grievance, and an answer to it.
The background is that verse in Kings. The First Temple took seven years to build, and the work was finished in the month of Bul, that is, Cheshvan. But the dedication was not held then. Solomon waited almost a full year and dedicated the Temple in Tishrei, folding it into that month's festivals, and Cheshvan, in which the work had actually been completed, was left with nothing. Yalkut Shimoni tells the same story about the Tabernacle, finished on the 25th of Kislev and erected only in Nisan, and gives God's response in three words: “it falls to me to repay” 3. Kislev was repaid with the Hasmonean rededication, which landed on exactly that date. And of Cheshvan it says, without specifying when or how: “and likewise Marcheshvan — the Holy One is destined to repay it” 3.
Which may be the finest thing ever said about an empty month: not that it holds nothing, but that it holds an open promise.
The month the calendar leans on
Cheshvan has a job no other month does, and it follows directly from having nothing fixed in it.
The Hebrew year has to keep step with both the moon and the sun, so its length varies. The calendar makes that adjustment in two months only, Cheshvan and Kislev. In a “complete” year both run thirty days; in a “regular” year Cheshvan has twenty-nine and Kislev thirty; in a “deficient” year both have twenty-nine. Every other month is fixed absolutely. Put differently: the fact that Rosh Hashanah, Passover and Shavuot land exactly where they land rests on the one month with no observance of its own.
And the ordinariness is not really emptiness. Cheshvan is when the asking for rain begins, and in a country whose agriculture depends on the winter rains that is not a footnote: it is the season's central request. Tishrei is a month of a great deal of talking; Cheshvan is the month the waiting starts. After it comes Kislev, and with it the short days and Hanukkah.
Common questions about the month of Cheshvan
When is Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan?
It runs for two days (22-23/10/25), because Tishrei always has thirty. The first of the two is still the 30th of Tishrei; the second is the 1st of Cheshvan. Both count fully as the new moon.
When is the eve of Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan?
On the 29th of Tishrei (21/10/25), the day before, the last day that is not part of the new moon.
How many days are in Cheshvan?
Twenty-nine or thirty, depending on the year. Cheshvan and Kislev are the only two months of the Hebrew calendar whose length varies, and that is what lets the calendar adjust itself.
Cheshvan or Marcheshvan?
Both are correct. Marcheshvan is the full, original form; Cheshvan is the shortened version that took hold.
What holidays are in Cheshvan?
None: it is the only month of the year with neither a festival nor a fast. It has a two-day Rosh Chodesh, and in Israel it carries the Rabin memorial day on the 12th (3/11/25) and Sigd on the 29th (20/11/25). The full holiday calendar for the year shows just how wide the gap is.
A Cheshvan calendar: the whole month on one page
The grid at the top of this page shows Cheshvan as the Hebrew calendar sees it: the large numerals are the days of the Hebrew month, with the corresponding civil date printed beneath each one. You can see the two days of Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan at the start, the Sabbaths and Torah portions read during the month, and how long the month runs in the year selected, twenty-nine days or thirty.
Because Cheshvan always falls between October and December, a civil calendar splits it across two months. Here it appears as one unit. The button above the grid prints it to a single page, portrait or landscape, without the navigation or this text, and this is the month that hangs best on a wall, being the only one you get to fill in yourself.
- Every observance of the year in one table: Jewish holidays 2026
- The full printable calendar: printable 2026 Jewish calendar with holidays
- For a civil-month view, in which October and November appear separately: Gregorian month calendar
Related pages
References
- I Kings 6:38 מלכים א׳ פרק ו׳, פסוק לח
In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul — that is, the eighth month — the House was completed in all its details and all its specifications; he had built it in seven years.
source - Mishnah Ta'anit 1:3 מסכת תענית פרק א׳, משנה ג
On the third of Marcheshvan we begin asking for rain. Rabban Gamliel says: on the seventh of the month, fifteen days after the festival, so that the last Israelite may reach the Euphrates.
source - Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 184 ילקוט שמעוני, מלכים א׳, רמז קפ״ד
On the 25th of Kislev the work of the Tabernacle was completed, and it lay folded until the first of Nisan… Kislev thus lost out, though the work was finished in it. The Holy One said: it falls to me to repay… and likewise Marcheshvan — the Holy One is destined to repay it.
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