Adar (month)
Adar ( Hebrew אדר) is the sixth month according to the "civil" Jewish calendar and the last month according to the "religious" calendar. According to the Gregorian calendar , Adar begins in mid-February.
Since the Jewish calendar is based on a lunar calendar, the month of Adar - like the other eleven months - lasts either 29 or 30 days. A lunar year with 354 days is basically 11 days short of the 365-day solar year; (12 × 29.5 days = arithmetically 354 days, specifically consisting of a six-time sequence of the interval of a 29- and a 30-day month). However, in order to adapt the lunar calendar to the solar year, the Jewish calendar is designed in such a way that the annual 11-day gap is regularly compensated in the form of a leap month . This happens every second or third year in the form of a leap year , which then consists of 13 months with usually 384 (= 354 + 30) days.
Since the leap month also bears the name Adar, which is inserted immediately before the "normal" Adar, two consecutive months of the same name can be found in the structure of the Jewish leap year . In order to be able to differentiate between them, they have expanded names: The additional month is called Adar aleph or Adar rischon (first Adar) and lasts 30 days, the “normal” one is called Adar bet or Adarscheni (second Adar).
All celebrations take place in the Adar bet . These include in particular the Purim festival (14th or 15th Adar) as well as the Esther fast before it (13th Adar or 11th Adar, if the 13th is a Sabbath ). In leap years is in aleph Adar then Purim Qatan (small Purim) celebrated. In contrast to rabbinical Judaism, the Karaites celebrate Purim in principle in the Adar aleph, i.e. the first Adar.
