# A very dumb question about Jewish holidays **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778 "2006-11-01T20:21:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/1 "2006-11-01T20:21:32Z")
Firstly, please confirm the following: All Jewish holidays are from sunset to sunset, not just some of them, right? If so, it’s because for some reason the Jewish people have historically followed a lunar calendar, correct? So by the traditional Jewish calendar, the fifth of April in fact starts when the sun goes down on the fourth. Is it simply a matter of “the ancient Israelites measured days from sunset to sunset, rather than sunrise to sunrise”? Or is there some religious reasoning for it? I don’t remember anything in the bible about it, but I could very well be mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/2 "2006-11-01T20:23:54Z")
Yes. In the jewish calender all days start and end at sunset, not midnight. So every holiday also starts and ends at sunset, because the day the holiday falls on starts then. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/3 "2006-11-01T20:25:55Z")
Yes, all Jewish holidays (and all days in the Jewish calendar) start and end at sunset. The explanation I’ve heard is that saying a day starts at sunset comes from the “then there was evening and then there was morning” passages about creation in Genesis. Days starting at sunset doesn’t really have anything to do with the lunar calendar. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/4 "2006-11-01T20:32:51Z")
And this has nothing in particular to do with the fact that the Jews use a solunar[sup]\*[/sup] calendar. When you start a day has no relation to how you reckon the months and years, and you could in principle start at sunset in a pure solar calendar, or start at midnight (or sunrise, or noon, or 3:17 PM) in a lunar calendar. \*A solunar calendar has leap months, to keep it approximately matched to the solar year, so (for instance) Passover always falls in the early spring. A pure lunar calendar, such as is used by the Muslims, drifts over time, so some years Ramadan is in the summer, and some years it’s in the winter. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/5 "2006-11-01T20:42:38Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] And this has nothing in particular to do with the fact that the Jews use a solunar[sup]\*[/sup] calendar. When you start a day has no relation to how you reckon the months and years, and you could in principle start at sunset in a pure solar calendar, or start at midnight (or sunrise, or noon, or 3:17 PM) in a lunar calendar. \*A solunar calendar has leap months, to keep it approximately matched to the solar year, so (for instance) Passover always falls in the early spring. A pure lunar calendar, such as is used by the Muslims, drifts over time, so some years Ramadan is in the summer, and some years it’s in the winter. [/QUOTE] This is a very good point, and now has sort of messed with my mind. (Time moves the same no matter how we measure it…) Bonus Jewish question (can’t stop at just _one_…): A church has pews. A synagogue has…pews, also? Seating? Obviously I’m just looking for a general term - I’ve been in synagogues that have nothing more than folding chairs, but IME most have some manner of permanant bench-esque seating. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/6 "2006-11-01T20:54:36Z")
What I wonder about the Jewish calendar is this: Why is the date of Shabbat determined by the civil calendar, while the dates of holidays are determined by the Jewish calendar? AIUI, the Jewish calendar was the only calendar in use in Israel in Biblical times- how did they determine when Shabbat should be? [QUOTE=NinjaChick] Bonus Jewish question (can’t stop at just _one_…): A church has pews. A synagogue has…pews, also? Seating? Obviously I’m just looking for a general term - I’ve been in synagogues that have nothing more than folding chairs, but IME most have some manner of permanant bench-esque seating. [/QUOTE] Mr. Neville and I call the ones in our synagogue pews. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/7 "2006-11-01T21:12:37Z")
Anne Neville: > [@](#): > > What I wonder about the Jewish calendar is this: Why is the date of Shabbat determined by the civil calendar, while the dates of holidays are determined by the Jewish calendar? Because “Shabbat” is a day of the WEEK, not a day of the YEAR. So it doesn’t matter what overall calendar you use, if you have a seven-day week, one of those days will consistently be the Jewish Sabbath. The Holidays are days of the YEAR. You need to follow a specific calendar to have the right month and day as defined thereby. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/8 "2006-11-01T21:17:32Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] What I wonder about the Jewish calendar is this: Why is the date of Shabbat determined by the civil calendar, while the dates of holidays are determined by the Jewish calendar? [/QUOTE] There are seven days of the week in either calendar. Why would those need to change? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/9 "2006-11-01T21:21:57Z")
[QUOTE=Telemark] There are seven days of the week in either calendar. Why would those need to change? [/QUOTE] Shabbats could fall on specific dates of the Jewish months, as the holidays do. There would be some problems with that, though, since some Jewish months have different lengths in different years (like February in leap years, though there’s more than one month that can vary in length). I’m wondering when and how it got decided that Saturday was Shabbat. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/10 "2006-11-01T21:36:25Z")
Well, the orthodox answer is that ever since the first week of creation, there has been an unbroken string of weeks since then. And every seventh day since the day God rested from his labors has been the Sabbath. I don’t know when we have solid historical information about when the ancient hebrews started observing Sabbath, but it’s part of the earliest writings in the Bible. You might try this reference: > **[Week](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week)** > > A week is a unit of time equal to seven days. It is the standard time period used for short cycles of days in most parts of the world. The days are often used to indicate common work days and rest days, as well as days of worship. Weeks are often mapped against yearly calendars, but are typically not the basis for them, as weeks are not based on astronomy. > The modern seven-day week can be traced back to the Babylonians, who used it within their calendar. Other ancient cultures had different we... ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-dumb-question-about-jewish-holidays/378778/11 "2006-11-02T03:41:08Z")
With regards to pews, in my synagogue, we call them benches, on the rare occasion that we refer to the seating at all. If I referred to them as pews, people would probably (although not definitely) know what I was talking about, but would think it odd because of the church-y overtones.