"Hey, when is Chanukah?" It's only when I get asked that question by a non-Jewish friend that I mumble something and then remind myself that I must look at a calendar. Christmas is December 25th, year in and out, because Christian holidays are based off the Gregorian calendar. July 4th never fails to come out between the 3rd and the 5th. But the Jewish calendar is on the lunar year, which means that holidays always come out on the same day on the Jewish calendar, but seem to move without rhyme or reason on the Gregorian calendar.

There is actually some method behind the madness. The lunar year is shorter than the solar year, so if nothing was done to adjust the cycle, holidays would literally circle around the year, and in just a short time we'd be celebrating Chanukah in the middle of the summer and Passover in the midst of snow drifts. To keep holidays in their seasons - many are thematically tied to their time of the year - leap years were instituted long ago to keep the holidays in the same approximate time of the year. In the Gregorian calendar, we add one day every four years. In the Jewish calendar, we add one month every two to three years for a total of seven times every nineteen years. Even so, the exact days of the holiday shift from year to year - on the Gregorian calendar. Chanukah always starts on the 25th day of the month of Kislev, but I doubt that my friend would find that answer remotely helpful.

Chanukah, for those of you who have yet to look at a calendar or ask your Jewish friends when the holiday is coming this year, starts this coming Friday evening...um...tomorrow. Holidays on the Jewish calendar start at night and end at night, so even though Friday is the first night of Chanukah, Saturday would be considered the first day.