Purim Katan: The Little Purim of the Leap Year

Two Adars: Why the Calendar Has a Leap Month

The Torah commands, “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto Hashem thy God” (Deuteronomy 16:1). Aviv (אביב) is the stage of ripening barley, so Pesach must fall in the spring. But the Hebrew months follow the moon, and twelve lunar months are about eleven days shorter than the solar year. Left uncorrected, Pesach would drift backward through the seasons, as Ramadan does in the Islamic calendar.

The solution, already practiced in the Second Temple period, was to add a thirteenth month when needed. The Talmud records that the court in the Land of Israel intercalated the year on the basis of the ripening of the grain, the fruit of the trees and the spring equinox.¹ The added month was always a second Adar, placed just before Nisan. In the time of the Sanhedrin this was decided year by year. Later, according to a tradition recorded in the Middle Ages, Hillel II published a fixed calendar around 358–359 CE so that the scattered people of Israel could keep the appointed times together even without a court in the Land.² Historians debate how quickly the fixed system took its final form, but the result is the calendar still in use: a nineteen-year cycle in which years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19 are leap years.³

The leap year is a small act of faithfulness. It keeps the feasts where Hashem placed them, Pesach in the spring and Sukkot at the ingathering of the harvest. Benei Avraham, like the Jewish people as a whole, follows this calendar. See our calendar for which years are leap years and for the dates of Purim and Purim Katan.

Which Adar Is the “Real” Adar?

A leap year raises a question the Megillah never had to answer. Esther 9:21 commands the Jews to keep “the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly.” Which Adar?

The Mishnah gives the halacha in brief:

If they read the Megillah in the first Adar and the year was then made a leap year, they read it again in the second Adar. There is no difference between the first Adar and the second Adar except the reading of the Megillah and the gifts to the poor.

The Mishnah’s wording implies that the Purim mitzvot belong to the second Adar, but that in other respects the two months are alike.

The Babylonian Talmud expands this in a famous debate.⁴ A baraita (a teaching from the time of the Mishnah) presents three views:

• The first Tanna: if the Megillah was read in Adar I, it must be read again in Adar II.
• Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yose: it need not be read again, since all the mitzvot of Adar II may be performed in Adar I.
• Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, in the name of Rabbi Yose: it must be read again, since the mitzvot of Adar II cannot be fulfilled in Adar I.

All agree, the baraita adds, that eulogies and fasting are forbidden on the fourteenth and fifteenth of both months.

Rabbi Yochanan explains that both sides read the same words, “in every year” (Esther 9:21), differently. Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yose says: in every ordinary year Adar is the month that follows Shevat, so in a leap year the first Adar is the real Adar; and a mitzvah should not be postponed. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: in every ordinary year Adar is the month that comes right before Nisan, so the second Adar is the real one. Rabbi Tavi gives the reason behind his view: it is better to place “redemption next to redemption,” Purim next to Pesach.

The Talmud concludes that the halacha follows Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. Purim, with all its mitzvot and the special Shabbat readings that lead up to it, is kept in Adar II.⁵ The fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar I keep only a trace of festivity, the trace that all the sages agreed on: no fasting and no eulogies.

“Redemption next to redemption” is a beautiful phrase. It means that the deliverance from Haman, which came through hidden providence, should be kept a month before the deliverance from Egypt, which came through open miracles. The two redemptions explain each other. Whether Hashem splits the sea or works quietly through a sleepless king, He is the same Redeemer.

What Purim Katan Is and Is Not

The Shulchan Aruch summarizes the practice in a single short chapter:

On the fourteenth and fifteenth of the first Adar, one does not fall on one’s face (Tachanun), nor eulogize, nor fast; but in other matters there is no difference between them and other days.

In practice this means:

• No Tachanun. The supplication prayers said after the Amidah on ordinary weekdays are omitted, as on other days of joy.
• No eulogies and no public fasting. A funeral may take place, but formal eulogies are kept short or omitted, and a private fast, such as a bride and groom on their wedding day or a yahrzeit fast, is generally not observed on these days.
• No Megillah, no Al HaNissim, no mishloach manot, no gifts to the poor, no required feast. These all belong to Purim in Adar II.
• Shushan Purim Katan. The fifteenth of Adar I is treated the same way everywhere, just as Shushan Purim in Adar II is a day without Tachanun even outside Jerusalem.

The Rema, the great Ashkenazi commentator on the Shulchan Aruch, adds a gentle note:

Some say that one is obliged to increase in feasting and joy on the fourteenth of the first Adar. This is not our custom; nevertheless one should increase a little in one’s meal, to fulfill one’s obligation according to those who are strict; “and he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.”

The verse he quotes is Proverbs 15:15:

All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.

The Rema’s point is wise. Purim Katan does not demand a feast, but a heart trained in gladness will find a reason for one. Many families mark the day with a slightly nicer meal, a song, a Purim story for the children, or a gift to someone in need, without treating any of it as obligatory.

A leap-year note

Because Adar is doubled, a leap year raises other practical questions: in which Adar is a bar mitzvah celebrated for a boy born in Adar of an ordinary year, or a yahrzeit kept for someone who died in Adar? The poskim discuss these questions in detail, and communities differ.⁶ Anyone facing such a question should ask a rabbi they trust.

Local Purims and Family Purims

The idea that a day of deliverance should be remembered “throughout every generation, every family” (Esther 9:28) gave rise to one of Jewish history’s most moving customs. When a community was saved from a massacre, or a family from a deadly danger, they would sometimes declare their own annual “Purim,” complete with a festive meal, thanksgiving, and occasionally a scroll recounting the events and a fast the day before. These are sometimes called “second Purims” or “special Purims.”⁷

A few of the best known:

• The Purim of Saragossa (17 Shevat), remembering the deliverance of a community from a charge of treason in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Its scroll names Saragossa, though some historians argue that the events took place in Syracuse in Sicily.
• The Cairo Purim (Purim Mitzrayim, 28 Adar), remembering the rescue of the Jews of Cairo in 1524, when the governor Ahmed Pasha, who had threatened them, was overthrown.
• Purim Vinz (20 Adar), remembering the return of the Jews of Frankfurt in 1616 after their expulsion in the riots led by Vincent Fettmilch.

Family Purims include one kept by the descendants of Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (author of the Mishnah commentary Tosafot Yom Tov) on 1 Adar, remembering his deliverance from imprisonment and a death sentence in 1629, and the “Gunpowder Purim” of the family of Rabbi Avraham Danzig, author of Chayei Adam, remembering the family’s survival of an explosion in Vilna in 1803 or 1804.⁸

These local and family Purims are a living commentary on the Book of Esther. They show that Jews understood Purim not as a single event in the distant past but as a pattern: Hashem acts, often hiddenly, to preserve His people, and those He saves must give thanks and remember.

Rejoicing Always: A Messianic Reading

Purim Katan has no direct parallel in the Brit Hadashah (the New Testament), and it would be forcing the text to claim one. But the day’s spirit, joy that is not tied to a required ritual, is close to the heart of the apostolic writings.

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Messiah Yeshua concerning you.

Paul wrote to the believers in Philippi, from prison, “Rejoice in the Master always: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). His joy was not the absence of trouble. It was confidence in the One who delivers. In that sense Paul’s instruction is very close to the Rema’s: “he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.”

Yeshua spoke of a joy that the world cannot remove: “ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16:22). The disciples’ sorrow at his death was turned to joy at his resurrection, a reversal very much like the Megillah’s “turned unto them from sorrow to joy” (Esther 9:22).

The local and family Purims also speak to followers of Yeshua. Scripture constantly calls Hashem’s people to remember: “Bless Hashem, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2). Many believers can name a day when Hashem rescued them from danger, illness or despair. There is nothing in Torah or the Brit Hadashah against marking such a day each year with thanksgiving, a meal shared with others, and a gift to the poor, in the spirit of the Purims kept by Jewish families for centuries. This is a pious custom, not a commandment, but it is a deeply biblical one.

Purim Katan also teaches patience. The great feast is still a month away; the little Purim keeps the joy alive while we wait. Followers of Yeshua live in a similar season, between the first coming of Mashiach and his return, between the first fruits of the resurrection and the full harvest (1 Corinthians 15:20–23). We do not yet see the full redemption, but we rejoice now.

Later Deliverances: The Prophetic Horizon

The prophet Jeremiah makes a startling promise:

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Hashem, that it shall no more be said, Hashem liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, Hashem liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

The sages discussed this promise in connection with the daily mitzvah to remember the Exodus. The Mishnah records the Sages’ teaching that the Exodus will be remembered even in the days of Mashiach. In the Talmud, Ben Zoma objects from Jeremiah’s words (Jeremiah 23:7–8), and the answer is given: the Exodus will not be uprooted, but it will become secondary to the greater redemption that follows it.⁹

This is the logic of Purim Katan on a cosmic scale. Each later deliverance is placed alongside the earlier ones, “redemption next to redemption,” and the last will be so great that it outshines them all. Isaiah says the same: “Remember ye not the former things… Behold, I will do a new thing” (Isaiah 43:18–19). The former things are not erased; they are fulfilled.

The Brit Hadashah sets this hope in the return of Mashiach. Yeshua promised that at his coming the Son of Man will “send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds” (Matthew 24:31), echoing the great shofar of Isaiah 27:13 that gathers the exiles to worship “in the holy mount at Jerusalem.” The dead will be raised (Daniel 12:2), Israel will be regathered and restored (Ezekiel 37:21–28), and the nations will come up to Jerusalem to keep the feasts (Zechariah 14:16). On that day every little Purim and every great one will be gathered into one song of praise.

Keeping Purim Katan

Purim Katan asks very little, and that is part of its charm. In general terms:

• Know the date. Purim Katan exists only in a leap year, on 14 Adar I; Shushan Purim Katan is 15 Adar I. See our calendar for this year’s dates.
• Omit Tachanun in weekday prayers on both days, and avoid fasting and eulogies.
• Add a little joy. Following the Rema, make the day’s meal a little more festive. Sing, tell the story of Esther to children, or begin preparing for the full Purim a month later.
• Remember your own deliverances. Use the day to give thanks for the ways Hashem has saved you and your family. Consider a gift to someone in need.
• Look toward Purim and Pesach. In a leap year, Purim Katan is the first signal that the season of redemption is coming: Shabbat Shekalim, Shabbat Zachor, the Fast of Esther, Purim itself, and then Pesach.

He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.