The Hebrew Month of MarShevat
I call this month not Shevat but rather MarShevat - "Bitter Shevat." The prefix mar - bitter - is the same one that Jewish tradition appends to the Hebrew month of Heshvan, the only month on the Jewish calendar that does not have a single Jewish holy day.
The three yahrzeits that I observe occur in the month of MarShevat - my father's on the 2nd, my mother's on the 8th (this past Shabbat), and now the 25th - Avi's.
The three yahrzeits that I observe occur in the month of MarShevat - my father's on the 2nd, my mother's on the 8th (this past Shabbat), and now the 25th - Avi's.
posted by Jay Lapidus at 6:07 PM
1 Comments:
The month Marcheshvan comes from the Accadian "Marach Shevan", which is cognate to the Hebrew "Yareach Shemini". Accadian and Hebrew tend to have m to y/w letter swaps. In other words, the month's name is simply "Eighth Month", "Oct-ober".
Turning that into Mar + Cheshvan was a medieval medrash -- it's the one month with no joyous day in it (other than Rosh Chodesh). Nice idea, but not historically correct. The people who thought the month name is really "Cheshvan" simply took this folk etymology too seriously.
-mi
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