ORDINARY YEAR EMBOLISMIC YEAR
DAYS DAYS
Tishri 30 30
Heshvan 29 + 29 +
Kislev 30 - 30 -
Tebeth 29 29
Shebat 30 30
Adar 29 30
Ve-adar ... 29
Nisan 30 30
Yiar 29 29
Sivan 30 30
Tamuz 29 29
Ab 30 30
Elul 29 29

The Jewish month, therefore, continues to be essentially a true lunar
one, though the exact definition of each month is, to some extent,
conventional, and the words of the Son of Sirach still apply to the
Hebrew calendar--

"The moon also is in all things for her season,
For a declaration of times, and a sign of the world.
From the moon is the sign of the feast day;
A light that waneth when she is come to the full."

For so God--

"Appointed the moon for seasons."

CHAPTER IV

THE YEAR

The third great natural division of time is the year, and, like the day
and the month, it is defined by the relative apparent movements of the
heavenly bodies.

As the Rabbi Aben Ezra pointed out, _shanah_, the ordinary Hebrew word
used for year, expresses the idea of _annus_ or _annulus_, a closed
ring, and therefore implies that the year is a complete solar one. A
year, that is purely lunar, consists of twelve lunations, amounting to
354 days. Such is the year that the Mohammedans use; and since it falls
short of a solar year of 365 days by 10 or 11 days, its beginning moves
backwards rather rapidly through the seasons.

The Jews used actual lunations for their months, but their year was one
depending on the position of the sun, and their calendar was therefore a
luni-solar one. But lunations cannot be made to fit in exactly into a
solar year--12 lunations are some 11 days short of one year; 37
lunations are 2 or 3 days too long for three years--but an approximation
can be made by giving an extra month to every third year; or more nearly
still by taking