| Biblical Calendars:
Calendars for each month are offered on these pages free for you to use. Each month begins with the sighting of the first visible sliver of the new moon in Israel and reflects the annual Torah reading cycle for the diaspora. Click on the link below each calendar for a printer-friendly pdf file. (If you don't have the current version of the free Adobe Reader software installed to open and print these files, click here.)
Our halakha for these calendars:
- The beginning of the year is based on the aviv barley in Israel.
- The beginning of the month is based on the sighting of the first visible sliver of the new moon from Israel.
- We follow the “Actual Visibility with 30-Day Maximum” opinion, which states that a month can be 28, 29 or 30 days, but a month cannot be longer than 30 days.
- We do not follow the “potential visibility” opinion, which states that if the new moon is astronomically expected to be visible (not borderline) but is not seen due to weather, then it will be declared even though it was not visible. We believe that YHVH sets the times and the seasons and controls the weather. We are instructed to declare what we see, not to declare what is calculated that we may potentially expect to see. If we are meant to see it, then witnesses will see it.
- We show the potential visibility of the new moon on these calendars and post the actual sighting information with links to witness reports on our home page in the section “Rosh Chodesh.”
- The calendars of the 1st, 3rd and 7th months are updated on Rosh Chodesh to show the Moedim based on the above criteria.
For further study on a moon that is astronomically expected to be visible (not borderline) but is not seen due to weather, here is a synopsis of opinions on this subject from the Karaite Jews, who also follow the scripture commands to begin our months at the sighting of the first visible sliver of the new moon from Israel as well as using the abiv barley to determine the beginning of the new year.
Attention webmasters:
You are welcome to link to these free calendars we provide. We request that you please link to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/calendars.html instead of directly to the calendar .pdf or .gif files unless you are updating your link every month. We only keep the old .pdf and .gif files on the server for a short time. Each calendar has an anchor, so you can append the URL to link directly to the month. The anchors use the month abbreviation then the 2-digit year designation, such as #sept10 or #dec10.
Planning Ahead for the Moedim:
Only YHVH sets the dates for his Moedim and he tells us when these times are in Scripture. We understand that we live in a fast-paced society that can be difficult to make plans if we don't know the dates much in advance. This is one reason many give for holding on to the traditional Hillel II calendar... because it just simply makes planning easier. We run into these same hurdles when reserving a venue 6-months to a year in advance, so we know it is doable, and when we sign contracts with venues, they have always worked with us when we explain why our dates may move a day or even a month out.
Links to the resources we use to anticipate when the appointed times will fall are on our website links page. We publish the calendars on this page as well as flyers for the dates of the Miqra Kodesh once they've been established. Each year we receive e-mails asking when this or that Miqra Kodesh will be farther out than our published calendars and flyers cover. Again, we do not set the dates, but we are now sharing Sandi's personal planning calendar for the Moedim (view by month is recommended). The usual disclaimers apply as this is only a personal planning calendar that we are sharing in hopes that it is helpful to you and all dates must be confirmed. Just ignore most of the times of the day (such as "7:00 pm") as that is automatically added by the calendar software and Sandi ignores it, not bothering to change it, so it has no meaning. This calendar will automatically update online whenever Sandi updates her calendar. Please give Sandi any feedback or suggestions you may have, and encouragement is always welcomed.
2010:
All dates are anticipated (for planning purposes) and are not established until the actual sighting of the new moon from Israel has been declared).
Yom Teruah (Trumpets) — Begins sunset 9/10/10, ends sunset 9/11/10 (anticipated)
Yom Kippur (Atonement) — Begins sunset 9/19/10, ends sunset 9/20/10 (anticipated)
Chag Sukkot (Tabernacles) — Begins sunset 9/24/10, ends sunset 10/1/10 (anticipated)
Shemini Atzeret (8th Day) — Begins sunset 10/1/10, ends sunset 10/2/10 (anticipated)
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PDF calendars (to print or view): 
