JCC Association's Early Childhood Curriculum Project 'This New Month'

The name of 'This New Month' is Sivan

Rosh Chodesh Sivan is Wednesday, June 4 and the month of Sivan ends on Wednesday, July 2 2008

The Themes for Sivan are:

Shavuot
The Ten Commandments and Rules
Summer Harvest

Holidays in Sivan are:

Shavuot

The month of Sivan gets a little shortchanged. It is the only month with a holiday in it that isn’t mentioned as a significant month!

It is the third month of the year (if we consider Nisan, as does the Torah, to be the first month), but it never is mentioned as the month of the holiday of Shavuot. It’s true that in Exodus 19:1, it is written:

"In the third month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai."

However, that’s just an expression of how much time had passed since they left Egypt, not a name of the month. And, in fact, the Rabbis used this verse as proof that Shavuot was the holiday on which Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai. However, as far as the Torah is concerned, the holiday of Shavuot is simply referred to as a holiday which is seven weeks after Pesach rather than as a holiday which is on the sixth day of the third month:

"You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall observe the Feast of Weeks ...." Deuteronomy 16:9-10

Of course, the waters are a bit muddied by the fact that the name "Sivan" (like the other names of the months) is a name which dates from the Babylonian exile and isn’t mentioned in the Torah. (It is mentioned in the Book of Esther as the date on which permission was given to the Jews to protect themselves:

"Then were the kings scribes called at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan ...." Deuteronomy 16:9-10

Whew! It’s enough to make your head spin, but then who ever told you that the Hebrew Calendar was a simple affair? And of course, regardless of the confusion, Sivan remains important to us as the month of the holiday of Shavuot - a holiday that is the focal point of the Jewish religion representing a tradition begun by 600,000 people witnessing the revelation at Mount Sinai.

Facts about the month of Sivan:

The first of Sivan can never fall on a Monday, Thursday or Shabbat.
The holiday of Shavuot is on the Sixth of Sivan.
Sivan always has 30 days.
In Jewish art, the month of Sivan was associated with the zodiac sign of Gemini.

Facts about the word "Sivan":

The name "Sivan" does not appear in the Torah.
"Sivan" isn't actually a Hebrew word. Its Assyrian root means "to mark" or "to appoint".
By adding up the numerical values of the letters in the name "Sivan", if we spell it the traditional way without vowels we get a total of 132- the same as "B'Sinai" (at Sinai).

Note: Until recent times, Hebrew texts didn't use "Arabic numerals" as we do today, but rather Hebrew letters. A numerical value was assigned to each letter. Aleph--the first letter of the alphabet--was 1, Kaf-- the 11th letter-- was 20, lamed--the 12th letter-- was 30 and so on. Every word in Hebrew has a numerical value. This "science" of figuring out the significance of the numerical values of words is called "Gimatria". Sivan= 60 + 10 + 6 + 6 + 50 = 132. B'Sinai= 2 + 60 + 10 + 50 + 10 = 132.
Sivan isn't much good as an acrostic - there are only two possibilities of rearranging the letters and still making sense in Hebrew: "Y'nasu" (they will try) and "VaSin" (and China).
Of all the names of the months, Sivan is the only one that is popularly used as an Israeli name-- either first or last name.

CREDITS: The JCC Association would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to the Sivan portion of the "This New Month" Project.

Jody Hirsh
Simi Peters