Every year, Jews wonder when Hanukkah starts. In the year 3031, the answer will be easy — it just won’t. Photo by iStock/chokkicx
By Adam KovacDecember 21, 2022
A year without Hanukkah may sound like the plot to a less-than-stellar Hallmark Channel movie but it’s also a mathematical certainty that’s just 1,000 years away.
In a TikTok video that’s been viewed more than 2 million times, Randolph College math and computer science professor Marc Ordower laid out the reasons why there will be no Festival of Lights in the year 3031.
The reasons have to do with the fact that no calendar perfectly captures the nuances of the Earth’s orbit around the sun and the Hebrew calendar in particular is “complicated,” Ordower told the Forward.
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While the Hebrew calendar’s system of leap years — seven of them in a 19 year cycle — is meant to compensate for discrepancies, it still “slips one day against the seasons in about 215 years,” said Ordower.
“The average length of the Hebrew calendar year is about six minutes and 40 seconds too long. And so every 216 years that accumulates to about one day, over what’s called the mean, tropical year.”
The result is that the Jewish holidays are gradually getting later and later. Add all that up and your distant descendants will one day celebrate Hanukkah on Jan. 1, 3032 — and again in December of that year.
Over a long enough period of time, the Hebrew calendar would slowly shift over the entire course of the Gregorian one — the only reason we haven’t had a year with no Hanukkah yet is because “it’s only been about 1,600 years since the Hebrew calendar was mathematized,” said Ordower.
Hanukkah isn’t the only holiday that might require some adjustment. In around 15,000 years, “You’ll have to have your Fourth of July hot dog on matzo.”
Ordower isn’t the first person to note the slipping nature of the Hebrew calendar. Ideas have been batted around for years on the best way to fix it. But he is likely the first to bring this somewhat arcane piece of Jewish trivia to the masses via the popular social media site. It’s not his first brush with viral fame. His videos on funky math problems regularly get hundreds of thousands of views. As for why his take on the precarious nature of Jewish time has gotten so much interest, he has a simple theory: It’s Hanukkah right now and TikTokers find the notion of calendar slippage bizarre, interesting and bizarrely interesting.
“When I was a kid in Hebrew school, I remember at least one of my Hebrew school teachers telling me about how wonderful and marvelous and accurate the Hebrew calendar was,” he said. “And it is a wonderful, marvelous calendar but I think they oversold me on the accuracy. And so a lot of people don’t understand that calendars can slip, and the consequences of that, so it’s interesting to people.”
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Adam Kovac is a staff reporter at the Forward, covering breaking news. He can be reached at [emailprotected]or on Twitter as @AdamJKovac.
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“The average length of the Hebrew calendar year is about six minutes and 40 seconds too long. And so every 216 years that accumulates to about one day, over what's called the mean, tropical year.” The result is that the Jewish holidays are gradually getting later and later.
However, the lunar-based Hebrew months do not perfectly coincide with the Gregorian calendar. Hanukkah usually begins in late November or December. However, in the year 3031, there will be no Hanukkah … and in the year 3032, there will be two: one in January and one in December.
The reason the date changes is because the lunar year is about 10 to 12 days shorter than the solar year, so the dates of Hanukkah retreat by 10 to 12 days each year. See below the dates for Hanukkah from 2023, 2024 to 2030.
The Hebrew calendar — also called the Jewish calendar — is timed according to the moon, with a "leap" month added seven times (including this year) in every 19-year cycle.
Unlike some Jewish holidays, we don't take any time off work or school for Hanukkah observances. The main religious observance for Chanukah is lighting candles on the Hanukkah menorah each night, generally in the home or wherever one might be. There are not special services added to the religious calendar.
History. Thanksgiving Day fell during Hanukkah at least twice between 1863 (when Thanksgiving was proclaimed a U.S. federal holiday by President Abraham Lincoln) and 2013: in 1888 Thanksgiving was the first day of Hanukkah, and in 1899 it was the fourth day.
For example, the first day of Rosh Hashanah can be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Shabbat—never Sunday, Wednesday or Friday. However since the month preceding Chanukah (Cheshvan) can have 29 or 30 days, Chanukah can actually begin on any day of the week besides Tuesday.
Hanukkah actually began nearly 600 years before the first Christmas celebration. Hanukkah and Christmas have overlapped over the years, though. In 2005, Hanukkah began on Dec. 25—and that will happen again in 2024.
Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.
Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabean (Hasmonean) victories over the forces of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reigned 175–164 bce) and the rededication of the Temple on Kislev 25, 164 bce. Led by Mattathias and his son Judas Maccabeus (died c.
Although the Jewish people only had enough oil to keep the flame burning for a single day, miraculously, the flames lasted for eight nights. During this time, they were able to find other oil supplies, and were inspired to dedicate an eight-day festival in celebration of this holy miracle.
The culmination of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is marked by the eighth day, known as Zose Hanukkah, Zos Hanukkah, or Zot Hanukkah. This day holds profound significance in Jewish belief as it commemorates the miraculous event of the oil lasting for eight days, symbolizing the survival of Judaism.
Why so many spellings? Transliteration. Hebrew does not use the Latin alphabet, which is the standard script of many languages, including English. Thus, when used in an English context, the sounds of the different Hebrew characters must be converted, or transliterated, into Latin letters.
The first written account of the story, in the First and Second Book of Maccabees, isn't even included in the Hebrew Bible. Like other so-called minor holidays, such as Purim and Tisha B'Av, Hanukkah was a creation of the ancient rabbis, and thus religiously carries far less weight than biblical holidays.
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