Happy Rosh Chodesh Sivan!
If you are thinking “What’s Rosh Chodesh?” <– click the link
Sivan is the ninth month of the Jewish Year, counting from Rosh HaShanah in the fall. It’s pronounced “see – VAHN.” In the Bible, though, where the year is counted from the first of Nisan, it is referred to as “the third month” (Exodus 19:1.)
Sivan begins at sundown on May 29 in 2014.
Its name comes from the Akkadian simanu, meaning “season.”
Sivan is the month of Shavuot, the festival on which we celebrate the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai (6 Sivan).
What will you do with your month of Sivan?
Toward the end of Sivan, I will head to Vermont for an intensive Hebrew immersion program at Middlebury. I’m so excited!
That is very exciting! B’chatzlecha (good luck!) with the program. I hope that it is a joy.
Thanks, Rabbi. I think (read: hope!) it’ll be bracing to dive headfirst into the language when pretty much all I can do right now is sound my way through the siddur. 🙂
I have grades to file this week and an online intersession class to teach through the end of June, so I’m still going to have regular work to do. In terms of leisure, I’m also going to be at West Hollywood Pride next weekend and at a couple of events for my medieval recreation group, including a heralds’ conference in Las Vegas mid-month. Professionally, I also have research to work on – interviews with college athletes for a paper that a friend of mine and I are presenting in August. This means that most of my Sivan will be dedicated to learning and studying – which is what I love, anyway. I plan to get better about my morning prayer practices (I’m still hit-and-miss) and once that’s an established habit, I’ll move into weekly Torah study. Eventually I’d like to start studying Talmud, too, but I’m not there yet. One step at a time, right?
I am excited this week as my Jewish friend is taking me to the Fairfax district in Los Angeles, and I am going to get my first kippah and my first Mogen David. There’s one I’d really like to get later (it’s the Mogen David inside a ring that is engraved with the Sh’ma), but for now I’ll look for something relatively understated.