What is your Hebrew birthday?
Enter the Gregorian birth date and see it in Hebrew letters: the Hebrew day and month, the parsha read on the Shabbat after the birth, and when your next Hebrew birthday falls. Born after sunset? Tick the box: the Hebrew day had already turned.
Day, month and year as they appear on your ID.
The Hebrew day begins in the evening, so a birth after sunset already belongs to the next Hebrew date.
A full date is needed: day, month and year.
You were born on
- Day of the week
- Hebrew month
Your birth parsha
The tradition suggests reading this parsha on the Shabbat before your birthday and looking for one sentence in it that speaks to you this year.
Your next Hebrew birthday
Elazar shows you this every morning: the Hebrew date, the parsha, the next festival. Free to download.
What the Hebrew date is, and why it does not fall on the same day every year
The Hebrew calendar counts months by the ancient cycle of Rosh Chodesh: each month begins with the new month and lasts 29 or 30 days, and twelve such months add up to about 354 days. The solar year, which the Gregorian calendar follows, is about 11 days longer. So that Pesach stays in spring and Sukkot in autumn, the Hebrew calendar adds a whole month, Adar I, seven times in every nineteen years. That is a leap year.
This is why your Hebrew birthday wanders: one year it falls two weeks before the Gregorian date, another year two weeks after, and roughly once every nineteen years the two dates meet again on the same day.
Why the Hebrew day begins at sunset
"And there was evening and there was morning": in the Hebrew calendar the day starts in the evening, not at midnight. That is why Shabbat comes in on Friday at sunset and goes out on Saturday night, and that is why there is a checkbox here. If you were born after sunset, in the evening or at night, your Hebrew date is already that of the next Gregorian day. If you are not sure of the hour, ask someone who was there; the difference is a whole day, and sometimes a different parsha.
What a birth parsha is
The Torah is divided into 54 parshiot. Every Shabbat one is read (in some years two together), from Bereshit after Simchat Torah to Vezot Haberakhah on the next Simchat Torah. The week you were born in belongs to one parsha: the one read on the Shabbat after the birth, or that same Shabbat if you were born on one. On festival Shabbatot, such as Shabbat of Chol HaMoed, no weekly parsha is read, and the birth parsha is then that of the following Shabbat.
There is an old custom, found in Chassidic books and in the Ben Ish Chai, to treat this parsha as "your parsha": to read it on the Shabbat before your Hebrew birthday, to look for one sentence in it that speaks to you this year, and to return to it. Not a sign and not a charm: a page of the Torah that was given a date, and a moment in the year that invites you to open it.
Rosh Chodesh and the Hebrew birthday
Rosh Chodesh is a small festival in the tradition, and especially a festival of women: an ancient custom in which women rest from certain work on that day, in memory of their refusing to give their jewellery for the golden calf. A woman born on Rosh Chodesh celebrates a birthday that already has its own Hallel.
Of the Hebrew birthday itself the sources say it is a day on which a person's strength grows, and so people took to blessing others on it, giving charity, learning something, and saying thank you for the year that was. In the tradition's own words it is a good day for the person. Nothing is promised in it, but it offers a pause: to think about what has ended, what begins, and what you want to carry forward.
How Elazar carries this with you every morning
This calculator answers one question, once. In the Elazar app you enter a birth date once, and from then on every morning waits for you on the home screen and in the widget: today's Hebrew date, the week's parsha, the next festival, Rosh Chodesh and Erev Shabbat, in Hebrew, English and Russian. And on the morning of your Hebrew birthday Elazar remembers on his own. What else Elazar does in the app, and if anything is unclear, write to us here.
Questions people ask
How is a Hebrew date calculated from a Gregorian one?
The Gregorian date is turned into a running day count and divided by the rules of the Hebrew calendar: the length of the months, the leap years and the placement of Rosh Hashana. The calculator here does this exactly for any date from 1900 onward and shows the result in Hebrew letters, for example כ״ב סיון תש״ן (22 Sivan 5750).
I was born in the evening. Which Hebrew date is mine?
If the birth was after sunset, the Hebrew day had already turned, and your date is that of the next Gregorian day. Tick "I was born after sunset" and the calculator moves the date one day forward. If the hour is unknown, leave the box empty.
How do I know my birth parsha?
The birth parsha is the one read in the synagogue on the first Shabbat after the birth (or that same Shabbat, if you were born on one). The calculator checks that year's reading order by the custom of the Land of Israel, and if the Shabbat after the birth was a festival Shabbat, it moves on to the next Shabbat with a parsha. The tradition suggests reading that portion in the week of your Hebrew birthday and looking for one line that speaks to you this year; the Elazar app shows the current week's parsha every morning.
I was born in Adar. When is the birthday in a leap year?
A leap year has two months of Adar. Someone born in Adar of a regular year celebrates in Adar II in a leap year, and someone born in Adar I celebrates in Adar in a regular year. Someone born on 30 Cheshvan or 30 Kislev celebrates on the 1st of the following month in a year where that month is short. The calculator applies these rules by itself.
When is my Hebrew birthday this year?
Enter your civil birth date in the calculator on this page: it shows the Hebrew date in letters, your birth parsha and the civil date of your next Hebrew birthday with the days left. If you were born after sunset, tick the box. In the Elazar app (free on Google Play; Hebrew, English, Russian) today's Hebrew date appears every morning on the home screen and in the widget, with the parsha and the next festival.
What do you do on a Hebrew birthday, and what does it mean?
The sources describe the Hebrew birthday as a day when a person's strength is heightened, so the custom is to bless others, give charity, learn something and give thanks for the year that passed. Many also read their birth parsha on the Shabbat before it. Nothing is promised; it is a moment in the year to stop and think about what ends and what begins.
Why do my Hebrew and civil birthdays meet only once in 19 years?
A Hebrew year of 12 months is about 11 days shorter than a civil year, so the Hebrew date drifts against the civil one. To keep the festivals in season a whole month, Adar I, is added seven times in every 19 years. After such a cycle the two dates meet again on the same day or the day next to it, so at 19, 38, 57 and 76 the two birthdays nearly always fall together.
Want to see the Hebrew date every morning, without calculating? What Elazar does in the app
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