The other day I was thinking about how to delineate the seasons of the Jewish year and it occurred to me that there are six seasons as follows:
Elul and Tishrei – Yomim Noraim, Yom Tov, and back-to-school season
Cheshvan and Kislev – transition from fall to winter, culminating in the light of Chanukah
Teves and Shvat (and first Adar) – the deepest part of winter, when we need to create our own light
Adar and Nisan – early spring, a time of emergence and renewal
Iyar and Sivan – spring, Lag B’Omer, Shavuos, when winter feels like all but a dream
Tamuz and Av – summer, and then suddenly…
I did a search to see if anything like this has been written about because it just seemed to make sense to me, and lo and behold, check it out (starting from item 5). The Gemara in Bava Metzia references the six seasons of the year (I seem to be dividing them according to Rabbi Shimon?). Now this is probably really referring to the agricultural seasons in E”Y, but the Yomim Tovim are linked to the agricultural calendar so I think that still holds on some level.
I thought this could be a useful framework for planning out a year, and technically you can start with any season. I’m still in no-goal mode, but if I was going to look further ahead than I am, I’d probably make a chart with the months, secular dates, and seasons going vertically down the side (to show how it all fits together unless I’m overcomplicating this?), and various categories horizontally across the top (i.e. family, friends, self, work, fun, etc.) and plot what to do/what is happening when. I find two months to be a reasonable time frame to think about, and a series of two month pairs gives the calendar enough structure to make plotting things more obvious somehow.
What do you think?
