NAME

hebcal - a Jewish calendar generator

SYNOPSIS

hebcal [ -8acdDEeFgHhiMoOrSstTWwXxyZ ]
[ -b minutes ]
[ --chag-only ]
[ -C city ]
[ --geo latitude,longitude ]
[ -G degrees ]
[ --help ]
[ -I input_file ]
[ --lang language ]
[ -l latitude -L longitude ]
[ -m minutes ]
[ --mevarchim ]
[ --mishna-yomi ]
[ --nach-yomi ]
[ --no-mf ]
[ --no-modern ]
[ --no-special ]
[ --schottenstein ]
[ --verbose ]
[ --version ]
[ -Y yahrtzeit_file ]
[ --years N ]
[ --yerushalmi ]
[ --ykk ]
[ -z timezone ]
[[ month [ day ] year | YYYY-MM-DD ]
hebcal help
hebcal info
hebcal cities
hebcal copying
hebcal warranty

DESCRIPTION

With no arguments, hebcal will print to stdout the dates of the Jewish holidays in the current secular year. Each line is prefixed with a Gregorian date of the form mm/dd/yyyy.

By specifying month, day, or year, output can be limited to a particular month or date in a particular year. Note that year is usually a four-digit integer, so 92 is during the Roman period, not the late twentieth century. If the Hebrew dates option (-H) is turned on, this number represents the Jewish calendar year. month is a number from 1..12, or the name of a Jewish calendar month. day is a number from 1..31.

A single day may also be specified as YYYY-MM-DD (ISO 8601 date format).

For example, the command

	hebcal 10 1992

will print out the holidays occurring in October of 1992 C.E., while the command

	hebcal Tish 5752

will print dates of interest in the month of Tishrei in Jewish calendar year 5752.

Note: hebcal 92 is not the same as hebcal 1992. The year is assumed to be complete, so the former calendar precedes the latter by nineteen centuries.

A few other bells and whistles include the weekly sedra as well as the day of the week, the count of the omer, and the Hebrew date.

Output from hebcal can be used to drive calendar(1). Day-to-day use for hebcal is provided for in the -T and -t switches, which print out Jewish calendar entries for the current date.

To get a quick-reference online help, run

	hebcal help

at the command prompt.

OPTIONS

-8

Use UTF-8 Hebrew (alias for --lang=he).

-a

Use Ashkenazi Hebrew transliterations.

-b mins

Set candle-lighting to occur mins minutes before sundown. Default 18 if unspecified (default 40 for Jerusalem, 30 for Haifa, 30 for Zichron Ya'akov).

-c

Add approximate candle-lighting times. See below.

--chag-only

Output only Chag and Erev Chag events (when melakha/labor is prohibited)

-C city

Set latitude, longitude, and timezone according to city. This option implies the -c option.

-d

Print the Hebrew date for the entire date range.

-D

Print the Hebrew date for dates with some events

-e

Change the output format to European-style dates: dd.mm.yyyy

-E

Output 24-hour times (e.g., 18:37 instead of 6:37)

-F

Output the Daf Yomi for the entire date range

-g

Emit ISO-8601 dates, i.e. YYYY-MM-DD

-G degrees

Set Havdalah to occur this many degrees below the horizon. Use 8.5 for three small stars or 7.0833 for three medium-sized stars.

--geo latitude,longitude

Set location for solar calculations to decimal values latitude and longitude. Requires -z timzeone switch. This switch is preferred over the legacy -l and -L switches as it offers more precision and follows the standard of negative longitudes being west of the Prime Meridian.

-h

Suppress holidays in output. User-defined calendar events are unaffected by this switch.

-H

When the -H switch is used, all dates specified on the command line are assumed to be Hebrew dates. So for instance,

example% hebcal -H 5754

will print data for 5754, starting in Tishrei, and ending in Elul. Hebcal is smart enough to detect a Hebrew month and infer that you want a Hebrew date range, so you could type

example% hebcal tish 5754

The -H switch would be superfluous in this case. Invoking hebcal with just the -H switch by itself will print data for the current Hebrew year, starting in Tishrei.

-i

Use Israeli holiday and sedra schedule. Defaults to Diaspora if unspecified.

-I file

Read extra events from file. These events are printed regardless of the -h suppress holidays switch.

There is one holiday per line in file, each with the format

MMMM DD description

where MMMM is a string identifying the Jewish month in question DD is a number from 1 to 30, and description is a newline-terminated string describing the holiday. An example might be

Adar 1 Start cleaning kitchen for Passover

-l deg,min

Set the latitude for solar calculations to deg degrees and min minutes. Negative values are south.

-L deg,min

Set the longitude for solar calculations to deg degrees and min minutes. Note: Negative values are east.

--lang lang

Display calendar in the lang language, which must be specified as one of the ISO 639-1 codes of “en”, “ashkenazi”, “he”, “ashkenazi_litvish”, “ashkenazi_poylish”, “ashkenazi_romanian”, “ashkenazi_standard”, “de”, “es”, “fi”, “fr”, “hu”, “pl”, “ro”, “ru”, “uk”

-m mins

Set havdalah to occur mins minutes after sundown (default 72).

--mevarchim

Include Shabbat Mevarchim HaChodesh.

--mishna-yomi

Output the Mishna Yomi for the entire date range.

-M

Print the molad on shabbat mevorchim

--nach-yomi

Output the Nach Yomi for the entire date range.

--no-mf

Suppress minor fast days.

--no-modern

Suppress modern Israeli holidays.

--no-special

Suppress Special Shabbatot.

-o

Add the count of the omer to the output.

-O

Output sunrise and sunset times every day.

-r

Use a tab-delineated format, and somewhat terser strings. Instead of saying “ 13th day of the omer ” hebcal will say “ Omer: 13 ”

-s

Add the weekly sedra to the output on Saturdays. See -i.

-S

Add the weekly sedra to the output every day. When this option is invoked, every time a day is printed, the torah reading for the Saturday on or immediately following that date is printed. If there is no reading for the next Saturday, then nothing is printed. See -i.

--schottenstein

Use Schottenstein edition of Yerushalmi Yomi (default Vilna page numbers). This option implies the --yerushalmi option.

-t

Print calendar information for today's date only. -d and -o are asserted with this option.

-T

Same as -t, only without the Gregorian date. This option is useful in login scripts, just to see what's happening today in the Jewish calendar.

-w

Add the day of the week to the output.

-W

Weekly view. Omer, dafyomi, and non-date-specific zemanim are shown once a week, on the day which corresponds to the first day in the range.

-x

Suppress Rosh Chodesh

-X

Exit silently with non-zero status if today is Shabbat or Chag; exit with 0 status if today is chol.

-y

Print only the last two digits of the year.

--years n

Generate events for n years (default 1)

--yerushalmi

Output the Yerushalmi Yomi for the entire date range.

--ykk

Include Yom Kippur Katan, a minor day of atonement occurring monthly on the day preceding each Rosh Chodesh.

-Y file

Read a table of yahrtzeit dates from file. These events are printed regardless of the -h suppress holidays switch.

There is one death-date per line in file, each with the format

MM DD YYYY description

where MM, DD and YYYY form the Gregorian date of death. description is a newline-terminated string to be printed on the yahrtzeit. An example might be

12 29 1957 Menachem Mendel's yahrtzeit.
5 15 1930 Benjamin's yahrtzeit.

-z timezone

Use the specified timezone, overriding the -C (localize to city) switch. For correct DST rules, use a full timezone name (such as “America/New_York”) instead of a timezone abbreviation (such as “EST”).

-Z

Add zemanim (Alot HaShachar; Misheyakir; Kriat Shema, sof zeman; Tefilah, sof zeman; Chatzot hayom; Mincha Gedolah; Mincha Ketanah; Plag HaMincha; Tzait HaKochavim)

--help

Show help text

--version

Show version number

CANDLE-LIGHTING TIMES

Hebcal's candlelighting times are only approximations. If you ever have any doubts about its times, consult your local halachic authority. If you enter geographic coordinates above the arctic circle or below the antarctic circle, the times are guaranteed to be wrong.

In addition to candle-lighting on Erev Shabbat and Chag, the -c switch also generates Havdalah and fast start/end times.

By default, candle-lighting times are 18 minutes before sunset (see -b option above for exceptions).

Chanukah candle-lighting times are at civil dusk (solar depression of 6 degrees) on weekdays. Chanukah candles are lit just before Shabbat candles on Friday, and immediately after Havdalah on Saturday night.

Havdalah time defaults to 72 minutes after sunset (Rabbeinu Tam). Adjust with the -m (minutes) option or with -G (havdalah degrees below horizon).

Minor fasts begin in the morning at alot haShachar (solar depression 16.1 degrees) and conclude at tzeit for 3 medium sized stars (solar depression 7.083 degrees). Major fasts (Yom Kippur and Tish'a B'Av) begin just before sunset (at regular candle-lighting time) and conclude at Havdalah time.

Hebcal contains a small database of cities with their associated geographic information and time-zone information. The geographic and time information necessary to calculate sundown times can come to hebcal any of three ways:

1)

The default: the system manager sets a default city when the program is compiled.

2)

Hebcal looks in the environment variable HEBCAL_CITY for the name of a city in hebcal's database, and if it finds one, hebcal will make that the new default city.

3)

1 and 2 may be overridden by command line arguments, including those specified in the HEBCAL_OPTS environment variable. The most natural way to do this is to use the -c city command. This will localize hebcal to city. A list of the cities hebcal knows about can be obtained by typing

	hebcal cities

at the command prompt. If the city you want isn't on that list, you can directly control hebcal's geographic information with the --geo and -z switches.

For a status report on customizations, type type

	hebcal info

at the command prompt.

EXAMPLES

To find the days of the omer in 1997, printing the days of the week:

example% hebcal -how 1997


4/23/97 Wed, 1st day of the Omer


4/24/97 Thu, 2nd day of the Omer


4/25/97 Fri, 3rd day of the Omer


 .


 .


 .


6/9/97 Mon, 48th day of the Omer


6/10/97 Tue, 49th day of the Omer

To print only the weekly 
sedrot 
of Nisan 5770




example% hebcal -hs Nisan 5770


3/20/2010 Parashat Vayikra


3/27/2010 Parashat Tzav


4/10/2010 Parashat Shmini

To find out what's happening in the Jewish calendar today, use




example% hebcal -TS


19 of Nisan, 5752


Parshat Achrei Mot


Pesach V (CH"M)


4th day of the Omer

ENVIRONMENT

Hebcal uses two environment variables:

HEBCAL_CITY: Hebcal uses this value as the default city for sunset calculations. A list of available cities is available with from hebcal with the command:
hebcal cities
HEBCAL_OPTS: The value of this variable is automatically processed as if it were typed at the command line before any other actual command-line arguments.

AUTHORS

Danny Sadinoff
Michael J. Radwin

DIAGNOSTICS

hebcal help: Prints a shorter version of this manpage, with comments on each option.
hebcal info: Prints the version number and default values of the program.
hebcal cities: Prints a list of cities which hebcal knows about, suitable as arguments to the -C city option. If your city does not appear on this list, put the necessary defaults in the HEBCAL_OPTS environment variable.
hebcal copying: Prints the GNU license, with information about copying the program. See below.
hebcal warranty: Tells you how there's NO WARRANTY for hebcal.

DISCLAIMER

This is just a program I wrote during summer school and while avoiding my senior project. It should not be invested with any sort of halachic authority.

HISTORY

hebcal first appeared in comp.sources.misc on November 4, 1992.

For version 3, much of the program was rewritten using Emacs 19's calendar routines by Edward M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz. Their program is extremely clear and provides many instructive examples of fine calendar code in emacs LISP.

In version 4.x (released in 2015), the sunrise/sunset engine (used for candle-lighting times and zmanim) was rewritten using Derick Rethans's excellent timelib.

Version 5.x (released 2022) was completely rewritten in Go.

BUGS

Hebrew dates are only valid before sundown on that secular date. An option to control this will be added in a later release.

When specifying geographic coordinates with the legacy -l and -L switches, negative longitudes are east of Greenwich.

Some combinations of options produce weird results, e.g.,

hebcal -dH nisan 5744
hebcal -dH 5744

This comes into play when you use the HEBCAL_OPTS environment variable.

The sunup/sundown routines aren't accurate enough. If you enter geographic coordinates above the artic circle or below the antarctic circle, the times are guaranteed to be wrong.

Hebcal only translates between the Gregorian calendar and the Jewish calendar. It does not take into account a correction of eleven days that was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII known as the Gregorian Reformation. Wednesday, 2 September 1752 was followed by Thursday, 14 September 1752.

This means that the results will be at least partly useless where and when the Gregorian calendar was not used, e.g., before 1752 in Britain and before circa 1918 in Russia. See the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Adoption_by_country for a splendid chart depicting when the changeover from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars occurred in various places.

Hebcal cannot handle date computations before 2 C.E. Sorry.

BUG REPORTS TO

https://github.com/hebcal/hebcal/issues

COPYING

For a full text of the copyright and lack of warranty information, run

hebcal copying

at the command line.