Last night at dinner, my husband announced that Cheshvan is his favorite month.
I laughed. Nobody picks Cheshvan. People love Tishrei, with the shofar (ram’s horn), the sukkah (festival booth), and the tables full of guests. They love Nisan and the Passover seder. Some love the summer and the long, lazy days of vacation. Cheshvan, which began yesterday, has nothing. No holidays. No fasts. Nothing on the calendar except work, school, and laundry. Jewish tradition even nicknames it Mar-Cheshvan, “bitter Cheshvan,” and one popular explanation is exactly that emptiness.
But my husband loves routine. After weeks of holiday cooking, late nights, and a house that never quite got clean, he was ready for a month where nothing happens.
Later that night, I sat down with this week’s Torah portion, the story of Noah, and found myself coming around to his side.
Can a month with nothing in it actually be holy? Or is the ordinary just the waiting room between the days that matter?
The Bible dates the Flood with surprising precision:
The rain began on the seventeenth day of the second month. A year later, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. In Noah’s time, before the command to count the months from Nisan (Exodus 12:2), the months were numbered from the creation of the world in Tishrei, which made the second month Cheshvan. The Great Flood began and ended in this quiet month.
For a full year, Noah lived in a floating world where ordinary life stopped. No plowing, no planting, no harvest. Every creature on earth lived side by side in a single ship, sustained by God’s protection. Then the waters drained, the ground dried, and Noah stayed put.
Noah did not open the door until God told him to. The Sages put words in his mouth: just as he entered the ark only with God’s permission, he would leave only with God’s permission. Some read this as faithful obedience. Others hear a note of hesitation. Stepping out meant facing mud, ruin, and the enormous work of starting over.
When Noah finally came out, he built an altar. And God responded with a promise:
A world just wiped clean by catastrophe receives a gift, and the gift is not a miracle. It is a rhythm. Summer, then winter. Day, then night, over and over, without fail. After a year of suspended reality, God’s blessing to humanity is that life will become predictable again.
Routine, it turns out, is part of God’s promise to the world.
Cheshvan carries another lesson about the holiness of ordinary life. Israel is a dry land, and by the end of summer it is desperate for rain. The rainy season begins right after Sukkot, and right after the holidays, we begin praising God as the One who brings rain. But in Israel we do not actually ask for rain in the daily Amidah, the central standing prayer, until the seventh of Cheshvan, fifteen days after the holiday ends.
Why would people in a thirsty land hold back their prayer for rain? The Sages explain that in Temple times, pilgrims came to Jerusalem from as far as the Euphrates River. The community waited until the last traveler could reach home on dry roads before asking God for rain.
Before we pray for our own needs, we make sure everyone else gets home safely. That is what holiness looks like on an ordinary weekday.
There is one more surprise hidden in this month. The Bible records that King Solomon finished building the First Temple in Cheshvan:
Bul is the ancient biblical name for Cheshvan. By Solomon’s time, the months were counted from Nisan, so the month that was called the second month at the time of the flood became the eighth.
Solomon did not dedicate the Temple until Tishrei (1 Kings 8:2), almost a year later. Cheshvan finished the work and got no celebration. The Sages teach that God promised to make it up to this month: the dedication of the Third Temple will take place in Cheshvan.
Why Cheshvan? Perhaps it is because of what the redemption will look like. Maimonides teaches that when it comes, the world will not stop working the way it always has. Seasons will turn, people will work, and life will go on, but the whole world will be busy knowing God. The First Temple was celebrated in the month of holidays. Perhaps the Third Temple will be celebrated in the month of ordinary days because, in the end, the ordinary is where God was all along.
So my husband is on to something. The holidays lift us up, but they are not where most of life happens. Life happens in the ordinary weeks, when the guests go home, the dishes get done, and we have to decide whether the inspiration of Tishrei will turn into anything real.
Can a month with nothing in it be holy? Cheshvan answers yes. Holiness is Noah stepping out of the ark to plant again in the mud. It is a whole nation waiting to pray for rain until a stranger gets home safely. It is the quiet, steady work that builds a Temple.
Cheshvan asks the same of us. Step out of the ark. Get back to work. Look out for the people around you. And trust that the God who promised seedtime and harvest is present in the routine, too.
