The boring month. The empty month. The back-to-routine month. Cheshvan, the second month of the Hebrew calendar, follows Tishrei, a month packed with the holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. For Jews everywhere, Tishrei is a whirlwind – a month of cooking, eating, praying and celebrating. Then Cheshvan arrives. The holidays are over, the shofar stored away, the sukkah dismantled. Life returns to normal. There are no festivals, no celebrations, nothing to mark the days. The month feels like such a letdown that it is even referred to by some as “Mar Cheshvan,” “The bitter month of Cheshvan.”
But is Cheshvan really as bitter and boring as it seems? Ethiopian Jews would beg to differ.
The Jews of Ethiopia, isolated from world Jewry for 2,500 years, descend from the tribe of Dan. Dan strayed early in Israel’s history. They were among the first tribes to turn their backs on Jerusalem, worshipping Jeroboam’s golden calves:
During the First Temple era, the Assyrian king Sennacherib exiled Dan. Over generations, their descendants made their way to Ethiopia. There, deep in exile, Ethiopian Jews confronted the consequences of abandoning Jerusalem. They established the holiday of Sigd as a communal answer to that failure. Sigd—which we are celebrating today—is a holiday of humble recommitment, a turning back to God through Jerusalem. The word Sigd itself means “prostrating” or “bowing down,” emphasizing humility before God and the centrality of Jerusalem in Jewish life. Its defining feature is a profound longing for the holy city. In Ethiopia, this longing took physical form: communities would climb to the top of high mountains, where they looked and prayed toward Jerusalem.
Sigd falls on the 29th of Cheshvan—exactly fifty days after Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Where Yom Kippur asks for atonement for all sins, Sigd atones for one sin in particular: turning away from Jerusalem. It was a time for Ethiopian Jews to reflect, atone, and draw closer to God through their longing for the holy city. People would fast, pray, and face Jerusalem, scattering seeds for birds to carry their prayers there.
The timing matters. Fifty days after Yom Kippur‘s intensity, Sigd fills Cheshvan—the supposedly “empty” and “bitter” month—with visible yearning. Even far from Jerusalem, the Jewish heart never stops longing for its holy city.
This yearning reflects the agricultural reality of Cheshvan in the land of Israel. During Cheshvan, Israeli farmers sow winter wheat and pray for rains that might not come.
Cheshvan is a time of preparation and waiting. Most of all, it is a time of hope and yearning for a future harvest, for greater days to come.
The Hebrew calendar follows a deep inner logic: every month has a counterpart six months apart, and these pairs reflect and complete each other spiritually. Cheshvan, the so-called “empty” month after Tishrei, finds its opposite in Iyar, the month following Passover. Cheshvan is a time of planting—of longing, prayers, and spiritual work. Iyar, by contrast, is a month of growth and harvest, where these seeds of hope begin to bear fruit.
But here is the incredible thing. Sigd, the day of yearning for Jerusalem, falls on the 29th of Cheshvan. Exactly six months later, on the 28th of Iyar, we celebrate the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. The day of longing is mirrored by the day of return. Sigd is the prayer rising from the heart; Jerusalem Day is the answer we can see and touch. Together, these months complete each other, showing how the month of longing and prayer can blossom into real, tangible joy.
Is Cheshvan really the month of bitterness?
Ask the Ethiopian Jews who climbed mountains to pray toward a city they’d never seen. Ask the farmers planting seeds in dry soil, trusting rain will come. Cheshvan is only bitter if you mistake waiting for emptiness, if you confuse preparation for doing nothing. The month teaches that yearning itself is a form of work. Longing is not passive. It’s the seed before the harvest, the prayer before the answer.
Today, Ethiopian Jews celebrate Sigd in Jerusalem itself. The birds no longer need to carry their prayers—they stand in the city they longed for. Yet the longing continues. We’re still yearning for the Temple to be rebuilt, for the full and final redemption. But we are closer now, closer than ever before. The seeds planted in exile have sprouted. The return has begun—and the harvest is closer than it’s ever been.
