Hebrew Calendar
Shevat 5791

Shevat lands in the middle of winter, somewhere between January and February, in the shortest and wettest weeks of the year. And this is exactly the month in which the Hebrew calendar announces a new year: the fifteenth of Shevat, the new year of the trees. Nothing is visible outside yet, and the calendar already knows something has started.

Shevat has thirty days. It contains no public holiday and no fast, and yet several of its dates have stuck: the 1st, when Moses began his farewell address; the 10th, a central date in Chabad; Shabbat Shira, which usually falls inside it; and, right in the middle, Tu BiShvat.

The month named only once

The Hebrew month names in use today came back from Babylon with the returning exiles, Shevat among them. In the Bible the name appears exactly once, in Zechariah, and even there it is pinned to the ordinal number so that no one can mistake it: "On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month — the month of Shevat" ¹. Everywhere else scripture simply calls it the eleventh month.

Hidden under that plain label is one of the great dates of the Torah. Deuteronomy opens with an exact timestamp: "It was in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, that Moses addressed the Israelites" ², that is, the first of Shevat. Five weeks before his death, in the fortieth year in the wilderness, Moses began the longest speech of his life. The month opens with a farewell and ends with spring already in the air.

Four new years, and one of them is here

The tractate Rosh Hashanah opens with a line that sounds strange to anyone who assumes there is only one new year: "There are four new years." One of them sits in Shevat, and the schools of Hillel and Shammai disagreed about its date: "On the first of Shevat is the New Year for the tree, in accordance with Beit Shammai. Beit Hillel say: on the fifteenth of it" ³. The law follows Beit Hillel, which is how the fifteenth became the date that stayed in the calendar.

What is a "new year for the tree"? Originally an accounting boundary: fruit that formed before the date belongs to the previous tithe year, fruit that formed after it to the new one. A line in a ledger, not a celebration.

So why place that line in midwinter? The Talmud asks precisely this and answers in a single clause: "Since most of the year's rains have already fallen, and most of the season is still to come" ⁴. The winter rain has largely arrived, the sap is already rising in the trunk, but the season itself is far from over. The tree opened a new year before the weather agreed.

The dates of Shevat, in order

Rosh Chodesh Shevat (1 Shevat). A single day, because Tevet always has twenty-nine days and therefore no thirtieth to lend. It is also the day Moses began the speech that became Deuteronomy.

The 10th of Shevat. In Chabad this is the yahrzeit of the sixth Rebbe and the day the Lubavitcher Rebbe accepted the leadership; in the Hasidic world it is known simply as *Yud Shevat*.

Shabbat Shira. The Sabbath on which the portion of Beshalach is read, with the Song of the Sea inside it. In most years it falls in Shevat, and some communities put out food for birds that morning.

Tu BiShvat (15 Shevat). The new year of the trees, exactly halfway through the month. In Israel it is the day school planting is attached to, and it has a page of its own with dates and customs.

After it, winter runs on for another fortnight, until Rosh Chodesh Adar opens an entirely different kind of month.

Planting a tree you will not eat from

The Talmud carries a short story that has become, over the centuries, the story of this month, even though it never mentions the date.

Honi is walking down a road and sees a man planting a carob tree. He asks how long the tree takes to bear fruit, and the man answers: seventy years. Honi asks the obvious question: "Is it obvious to you that you will live seventy years?" The man does not argue with him at all. He replies: "I found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, so I plant for my children" ⁵.

That is probably why this particular month attached itself to trees. Shevat is the time for doing something whose result will not arrive this year, and may not arrive in our lifetime.

A new year you cannot see

The other three new years in that mishnah are easy to spot. The first of Tishrei is a festival; the first of Nisan opens the month of spring; the first of Elul was fixed for counting animal tithes. The new year of the trees is the only one with no outward sign at all. Nothing sheds in Shevat and nothing ripens; sap rises under the bark, and that is the whole event.

And yet there is one visible sign, and every child in Israel knows it: the almond tree, which blossoms in late January and whitens entire hillsides before any other tree wakes up. The song *HaShkediya Porachat* ("the almond tree is blooming") is by now as much a part of the month as the mishnah is.

Perhaps that is what makes Shevat so likeable. It marks a beginning while the beginning is still invisible: winter at its deepest, the calendar already counting a new year, and the almond tree agreeing with it.

Common questions about the month of Shevat

When is Rosh Chodesh Shevat?
On the 1st of Shevat, and for one day only: Tevet always has twenty-nine days, so Shevat never gets a two-day new moon. The civil date shifts each year and usually falls in January; this year it falls on 25/1/31.

What civil month does Shevat fall in?
January into February. The Hebrew year is about eleven days shorter than the civil one, so the overlap slides: in some years Shevat opens in mid-January, in others it runs well into February.

How many days are in Shevat?
Thirty, always. Shevat is one of the fixed-length months of the Hebrew calendar and does not vary between a full and a deficient year.

What happens during Shevat?
Tu BiShvat, the new year of the trees (8/2/31), in the middle of the month, plus two dates that are not days of rest: the 10th of Shevat and Shabbat Shira. Shevat has no public festival and no fast.

When does Shevat end?
On the 30th of Shevat (23/2/31), which is also the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar. The next day is the 1st of Adar, or, in a leap year, the 1st of Adar I.

Shevat in the calendar: Hebrew and civil dates side by side

The grid at the top of this page shows Shevat as the Hebrew calendar sees it: the large numerals are the days of the Hebrew month, with the matching civil date printed beneath each one. You can see at a glance which civil date the 1st of Shevat falls on in the selected year, where Tu BiShvat sits, and which weekday each lands on.

Because Shevat always straddles January and February, a civil calendar splits it across two separate pages; here it appears as a single unit. The button above the grid prints it to one page, portrait or landscape, without the navigation or this text.

• Every date in the year in one table, and from there each festival's own page: Jewish holidays 2026
• The full printable calendar: printable Hebrew calendar
• For a civil-month view, in which January and February appear separately: monthly calendar

Related pages

• January 2031
• February 2031
• The Hebrew month of Sh'vat 5791