Shabbat HaChodesh
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Saturday 14th March 2026 Shabbat HaChodesh 25th Adar 5786
Shabbat HaChodesh – The Sabbath of the New Moon
Shabbat HaChodesh is the Shabbat that falls before the start of a new month. Thursday 19th March is Rosh Chodesh Nisan. And, Nisan is the first month of the Biblical calendar. After the observance of the first Pesach while yet slaves in Egypt,
God said in Exodus 12: 2, 17-20 - “This month will mark the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year for you”. So you are to observe the Feast of Matzot, for on this very same day have I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you are to observe this day throughout your generations as an eternal ordinance.
During the first month in the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, you are to eat matzot, until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month. 19 For seven days no hametz is to be found in your houses, for whoever eats hametz, that soul will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an outsider or one who is born in the land. You are to eat no hametz; in all your houses you are to eat matzot.”
Passover – Pesach
Erev Pesach 14th Nisan (Wednesday 1st April 2026)
Chag HaMatzot 15th – 21st Nisan
We also begin to count the omer, a measure of the first ripening barley sheaves brought into the Temple and waved by the priest before HaShem, from the day after the festival Sabbath. The first and the least days of the festival was considered to be set-apart and treated with the respect and reverence of a weekly Shabbat i.e no normative work permitted. And so, the 2nd day of Unleavened Bread (Chag HaMatzot), we commence counting the omer for 49 days. The 50th day, is when we observance Shavuot.
Erev Shavuot falls on the evening of the 5th Sivan which is on Thursday 21st May 2026. On Shavuot, we celebrate the giving and receiving of the Torah as well as the outpouring of the Ru’ach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) as recorded in the Book of Acts chapter 2.
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