Jewish Calendar Demystified (2007)
This Rosh Hashanah I switched to the Jewish calendar full-time. I know this may sound impractical (it is) but it has always felt like an important issue to me as a mostly secular Jewish American. In my opinion the Gregorian calendar offers very little advantage (perhaps even disadvantage) over lunar-solar alternatives. Its popularity has been deeply tied to Christian imperialism and its adoption has often been forced. The Gregorian calendar is technically more accurate as it is off by 27 sec&#x2F;year (1 day in 3236 years) compared to the Jewish calendar which is off by 7 min&#x2F;year (1 day in 216 years). This, however, has always felt to me like comparing apples to oranges. The accuracy of the Gregorian calendar comes at the expense of functionality (lunar calculations) which I find to be incredibly useful. With the Jewish calendar you always know what phase the moon is in as the start of each month is a new moon and the middle is a full moon. Not only does this have real-world application in terms of tides, agricultural conditions, night light, animal behaviors, and etc but I have found myself feeling more mindful of nature as a result. It still trips me out that I can go outside and know exactly what the moon is going to look like without googling it! Furthermore, days ending at sundown makes so much more sense to me! There is a certain satisfaction that comes with watching the sunset and it marking the end of your day compared to the day ending in the middle of the night while you are asleep. Lastly, I have felt myself feeling far more connected to my culture as I am more aware of holidays and other traditions that were lost when the Gregorian calendar took over.<p>Some resources for those who are interested:<p>libhdate (Jewish date + cal alternative for Linux)
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sourceforge.net&#x2F;p&#x2F;libhdate&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Home&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sourceforge.net&#x2F;p&#x2F;libhdate&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Home&#x2F;</a><p>hebcal (RSS, CSV, Google&#x2F;Apple&#x2F;etc calendar integration)
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hebcal.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hebcal.com&#x2F;</a><p>On my android phone I used KLCK and KWGT with the hebcal RSS feed above to create a lockscreen and homescreen Jewish calendar widget. On my laptop I run Sway+Waybar and created a custom waybar module with libhdate. It&#x27;s not perfect but it&#x27;s working for now!