The spiritual meanings of Hebrew months

Noah’s Flood

http://meaningfullife.com/torah/parsha/bereishit/noah/NoahDIVs_Flood.php

In the 600^th year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on this day, all the fountains of the great deep broke open and the windows of the heaven were opened… And the waters of the Flood were upon the earth…
The deeper significance of Noah’s Flood is also reflected in the fact that it began and ended in the second month of the Jewish year, the month of Cheshvan.
The first month of the year, the festival-rich month of Tishrei, is wholly devoted to spiritual pursuits: the renewal of our commitment to the Divine Sovereignty on Rosh HaShanah; repenting our failings on Yom Kippur; celebrating our unity as a people and G-d’s providence of our lives on Sukkot; rejoicing in our bond with the Torah on Simchat Torah. The following month, Cheshvan, marks our return to the “daily grind” of material life. On Cheshvan, rain begins to fall in the Holy Land and the Israelite farmer plows and sows his fields, signifying the return to a life that derives its nourishment from the earth. It is no coincidence that Cheshvan (also called Mar-Cheshvan—mar meaning both “bitter” and “water”) is the most ordinary of months —the only month of the year without a single festival or special occasion.[2]
The Jewish Calendar
Noah’s Flood commenced on the 17^th of Cheshvan in the year 1656 from creation, and ended on Cheshvan 27 of the following year.
The biblical commentaries explain that the Flood lasted exactly one year, and that the 11-day discrepancy in the dates represents the 11-day difference between the solar and lunar years.
This reflects the fact that different components of the calendar are based on a variety of natural cycles which do not easily lend themselves to synchronization. The month derives from the moon’s 29.5 day orbit of the earth; the year, from the 365-day solar cycle. The problem is that 12 lunar months add up to 354 days—eleven days short of the solar year.
Most calendars deal with this discrepancy by simply ignoring one or the other celestial timekeepers. For example, the Gregorian Calendar (which has attained near-universal status) is completely solar based. Its 365 days are divided into 12 segments of 30 or 31 days, but these “months” have lost all connection with their original association with the moon. There are also calendars (such as the Moslem Calendar) which are exclusively lunar-based, with months that are faithfully attuned to the phases of the moon. Twelve such months are regarded as a year, but these “years” bear no relation to the solar cycle (a given date in such a calendar will, in certain years, fall in the midst of summer and, in other years, in the dead of winter).
The Jewish calendar is unique in that it reconciles the solar and lunar time-streams. By employing a complex 19-year cycle in which months alternate between 29 and 30 days and years alternate between 12 and 13 months, the Jewish calendar sets its months by the moon, and its years by the sun, combining lunar time and solar time into a single system while preserving the integrity of each.
For the sun and the moon represent the two sides of a dichotomy which bisects virtually every aspect of our existence—a dichotomy whose differences we must respect and preserve even as we incorporate them in a cohesive approach to life.