Thoughts on Marcheshvan’s Future Holidays

Earlier this week, we inaugurated the month of Marcheshvan following the holiday‑intense season of Tishrei. We have experienced the joy and solemnity of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We have sat in our Sukkah, celebrated the festival week, and danced with the Torahs on Simchat Torah. Last Shabbat we began the Torah anew with B’reishit. Now, as I wrote last week, we enter a quiet month — bereft of holidays — a kind of Jewish “ordinary time.” It is a month in which we reflect on the values of Tishrei and begin the slow work of integrating them into our lives.

Over the years, Hebrew School teachers have often lamented that the High Holidays arrive before they have had time to teach them properly. Once we reach Marcheshvan, time is no longer the problem — but there are no holidays to teach. Chanukah is nearly two months away. Surely, I thought, there must be something in Marcheshvan to celebrate.

I checked a seven‑volume set on the holidays, Moadim L’Simcha. Volume one covers Elul and Tishrei; volume two jumps straight to Kislev and Tevet, ignoring poor Marcheshvan entirely. Dalia Marx, in her wonderful anthology From Time to Time, notes several historical events in this month, but no actual holidays until recent times, when the Jews of Ethiopia brought us the beautiful holiday of Sigd, now recognized in Israel. It falls on the 29th of Marcheshvan — practically Kislev — and deserves its own future essay.

It was in a third work, the Chasidic classic B’nai Yissaschar by Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Shapira of Dinov (1783–1841), that I found a teaching pointing to a future holiday in this month — one that transcends all others.

Rabbi Shapira explains that this season is one of dedications. On Sukkot we read of the dedication of the First Temple by King Solomon in Tishrei — a moment of national unity, divine presence, and spiritual clarity. In Kislev we celebrate Chanukah, the rededication of the Second Temple by the Maccabees — a moment of fragile hope, rebuilding, and human courage.

But there is a third dedication. After Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam alienated the people with harsh words. Ten tribes rebelled under Jeroboam, forming the northern kingdom. To prevent his people from traveling to Jerusalem — under Rehoboam’s control — Jeroboam set guards on the roads and established rival shrines with images of bulls. He dedicated these shrines on the 15th of Marcheshvan, then called Chodesh Bul. It was meant to be a second Sukkot, but in truth it was a rebellion against the House of David — a misdirected dedication.

The rabbis criticize Jeroboam harshly. When they teach that all Israel has a place in the World to Come, Jeroboam is one of the exceptions. His dedication in Marcheshvan was seen as a desecration.

The B’nai Yissaschar teaches that this act will one day be atoned. The Third Temple — the one to be built in the days of the Messiah — will be dedicated in Marcheshvan. It will be an act of teshuvah, reclaiming misdirected spiritual energy. Israel will return to ancient glory, the Messiah will sit upon the throne of David, and the world will know peace.

Rabbi Shapira links these three dedications to the three patriarchs and their associated divine attributes in Kabbalah:

• Abraham — Tishrei — Chesed, lovingkindness.

• Isaac — Kislev — Gevurah, divine strength.

• Jacob — Marcheshvan — Tiferet, the harmony of truth.

Jacob, who vowed to build a House for God after his dream, represents the balance between kindness and strength — the quality needed to build the future.

Even the ancient name of the month, Bul, hints at this. Its letters — bet, vav, lamed — correspond to the first, middle, and last letters of the Torah. Marcheshvan becomes the month that holds the whole story together: beginning, middle, and end. Thus Marcheshvan becomes the month of re‑dedication. It invites us to build what we meant to build but didn’t. To return to commitments we abandoned. To reclaim energy we poured into the wrong things. It is the month of unfinished projects, unrealized commitments, misaligned priorities, and spiritual drafts that never became final.

Tishrei is the month of what we did — the holidays we observed, the prayers we said, the commitments we made. Kislev is the month of what we recovered — the light we rekindled, the courage we reclaimed. Marcheshvan is the month of what we haven’t built yet — the Third Temple, the one that exists only in potential.

Every one of us has a “Third Temple”: a relationship we haven’t repaired, a habit we need to form — or discard, a project we haven’t started, a spiritual life we haven’t yet lived. Marcheshvan invites us to dedicate what is not yet real. To complete the tasks that remain. To fulfill the resolutions we truly meant to keep.

The First Temple is memory. The Second Temple is history. The Third Temple is hope. Marcheshvan is the month of hope‑in‑progress. Most of our spiritual life is not in what we have already built, but in what we are still building. This is the month that blesses the unfinished and urges us to move forward.

There is an old Israeli song about three craftsmen who sit idle, dreaming of gifts they will present to Elijah when he announces the Messiah: a chair, a pair of sandals, a cornerstone for the Temple. They sit and they wait — matai kvar yagia hayom — when will that day come?

And during this month, when we dream of the dedication of the Third Temple, we also recall the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who died shortly after singing a song of peace that urges us: Al tagid hayom yavo — do not say a day will come. Haviu et hayom — bring that day.

Marcheshvan is the month when dreams may become reality. Don’t say the day will come. It is up to us to make it happen — to bring that day.