Cheshvan חשוון

Its full name is Marcheshvan; folk reading took "mar" as "bitter": a month with no festivals. On the seventeenth of Marcheshvan, by the reckoning of Seder Olam, the springs of the deep broke open and the Flood began—and in this same month a year later the earth dried. In the Land of Israel the prayer for rain begins in Cheshvan: "and give dew and rain for a blessing".

The month names now in use are Babylonian: "the names of the months came up with us from Babylon", says the Jerusalem Talmud. In the Torah months are counted—"the first", "the seventh"—from Nisan, the month of the Exodus.