Thoughts on Marcheshvan, Ordinary Time, and the Gift of Showing Up

After four remarkable weeks in Tishrei—Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah—we step this week with Rosh Chodesh on Sunday and Monday, into the quiet of Marcheshvan, a month with no festivals at all. Many people call it simply Cheshvan, but the older and more accurate name is Marcheshvan. The “mar” here does not mean “bitter,” as is often taught. It is a contraction of marach, meaning the eighth—because in the biblical calendar, months are counted from Nisan, the springtime month of the Exodus. So, Marcheshvan is the eighth month, a name that quietly reminds us of the Torah’s original rhythm of time. And yet, even with its ancient name, Marcheshvan feels “ordinary.” No holidays. No special liturgy. No dramatic rituals. Just the steady return to daily life. For Jews, however, even without holidays we are not bereft of rituals and prayers and opportunities to perform acts of lovingkindness for others. Our calendar is not empty, it is just less crowded, less hectic. Perhaps even a little less caloric. In Christian liturgical language, the long season without major festivals is called Ordinary Time. Not “ordinary” as in plain, but “ordinary” as in ordered, steady, lived. It is the season devoted to carrying the meaning of the holy days into the day-to-day. After the drama of Christmas or Easter, Christians enter a period where the question becomes: How do we live the teachings of faith in the ordinary rhythms of life? Marcheshvan asks the same of us. How can we carry forth and fulfill some of the promises and resolutions we were moved to make during the High Holiday season just past? Our sages urged us to make every day a holy-day, to inject some element of holiness into our lives. Perhaps setting aside a time each day or each week to study something Jewish, to offer a prayer, to set the table for Shabbos, light candles, and make kiddush and motzi with the family.

We have spent a month imagining who we might become in the new year—more patient, more grateful, more honest, more connected, more awake to the presence of God. Now comes the month in which we test whether those aspirations can survive the ordinary rhythms of our lives. No special liturgy will lift us. No holiday will remind us. It is just us, our habits, our relationships, and the quiet work of living our commitments. But we are not without resources. Our tradition is very rich in ways to connect our lives with the holy, with God and with others created in the divine image. And perhaps that is why Marcheshvan begins just as we read Bereishit again, the stories of creation. Creation itself unfolds not in fireworks but in steady, daily acts: light, water, land, seasons, life, culminating in the creation of man and woman. The world is built in the rhythm of the ordinary. So are we.

This year, I felt that rhythm very personally. We “squeaked by” with minyans for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah—something that truly lifted my spirits. Even without a minyan on the first days of the holiday, we had a joyous celebration of Sukkot both in the sanctuary and in the Sukkah. In a small congregation, every person who walks through the door changes the entire experience. Every presence matters. Every voice matters. Every shoulder helps carry the Torah. As we enter Marcheshvan—our own Jewish “ordinary time”—I want to gently encourage us to make Shabbat morning or Friday evening part of that steady rhythm. We are usually close: seven, eight, sometimes nine Jewish adults. Our non-Jewish friends and family members are often the most faithful attendees. And every week, without fail, we share a warm kiddush lunch and linger together, talking, laughing, catching up, building community in the most natural way. It would be a gift to all of us if we could turn that “almost-minyan” into a regular minyan—a dependable circle of ten who make prayer possible for everyone. Not out of obligation, but out of the joy of showing up for one another. Come when you can. Come as you are. Come knowing that your presence truly makes a difference. The holidays may be behind us, but the work of becoming—and the work of belonging—is just beginning.