Adar

Adar is the twelfth month of the Jewish ecclesiastical calendar and the sixth month of the civil year, corresponding roughly to February–March in the Gregorian calendar. The name is of Babylonian origin, reflecting the influence of the exile on the Hebrew calendar's nomenclature. It is a month of 29 days, occasionally extended to a 30-day intercalary month (Adar Sheni, or Second Adar) in leap years of the Jewish lunar-solar calendar to keep the calendar aligned with the agricultural seasons.

Adar figures prominently in the book of Esther, where it is the month in which Haman cast the lot (pur) to determine the most auspicious date for the destruction of the Jews — and the month in which that plot was reversed by the courage of Esther and Mordecai. The fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar became the occasion for the festival of Purim, commemorating the Jewish deliverance in Persia.