Jewish Time 2: Kiddush HaChodesh

In my previous post we explored the basic issues of time and how the world’s standard of time only makes sense if we accept that what the Holy Torah tells us is true. We all come from one family. We are all from the children of Noah.

In addition to the mishpachtologyia (family related stuff) the issues of time also do not make sense unless we also understand that even before the Sinai event there was Torah in the world and it was learned and studied in the houses of the Torah-greats of the pre-Avraham age Shem and Ever. As we will see if we don’t accept this there really is no reason to follow a solar-lunar year (and calendar).

Here’s why.

We already know that we Jews do it differently when it comes to time (and everything else)! Our day starts in the evening, our first month in the middle of the solar year and our solar year at the end of the summer. We have no standardization of the months, they can be either 29 0r 30 days with two “swing” months (cheshvan and teves) and during a leap-year we even have 13 months. But why is it that we do it this way?

The reason is that the Torah demands of us to have a double standard year, taking into account both the lunar cycle and the solar cycle in order to balance out the two.

On the one hand Moshe, our teacher, is told in next week’s parsha, parshas Bo, (Exodus 12:1-2)

{א} וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה אֶל מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אַהֲרֹן בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֵאמֹר: {ב} הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחָדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה:

(1) And HaShem said to Moshe and to Aharon in the land of Egypt to say (as follows). (2) This month is for you the head (rosh) of months. It is the first of months for you of the months of the year.

From these verses we learn that the the month of Nissan is the first of months only for us, (as a reminder and a symbol of how HaShem took us out of Egypt to be His people) and that it is the first of months of the year, clearly telling us that the accepted year of those days was comprised of months. In other words the calendar had both months and years.

Now if we had a purely lunar calendar there is no apparent problem from this verse, so long as we keep the laws of Passover during the first month, (i.e. Nissan) we’re just fine and dandy. However there is another clause which gives us pause. The Torah tells us elsewhere (Deuteronomy 16:1)

שָׁמוֹר אֶת חֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב וְעָשִׂיתָ פֶּסַח לַיהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כִּי בְּחֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב הוֹצִיאֲךָ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ מִמִּצְרַיִם לָיְלָה:

Guard the month of the Spring (aviv, which also refers to sprouting vegetation) and you shall do Pessach for HaShem, your G-d, for in the month of Spring HaShem, your G-d, took you out of Egypt. (You shall do so in the) night.

From here we learn that not only must Pessach be in the middle of the first Jewish month, but we have to insure (i.e. Guard) that the first month should always come out during the beginning of the Spring.

Now, if we follow a purely lunar year this is not possible for a very simple mathematical reason. The length of the solar year (from spring to spring) is approximately 365.25 days. It is because of the extra quarter day that a “leap year” (which really is just a leap day, as only one day is added) is added every 4 years so that the solar calendar should not lose a year, relative to the seasons, every year. Whereas the length of the average lunar year is 354 days (6 months of 30 days + 6 months of 29 days = 354), which makes for an annual “loss” of 11.25 days every year when compared to the solar year. That means that in 3 years there is a little more than 1 month’s difference between the lunar and solar years, and within 9 years more than three month’s difference. Clearly this is NOT the way to insure that the we keep the month of Nissan at the beginning of the spring! (It is for this reason that in Islam the month of Ramadan revolves throughout the seasons).

But here’s the thing.

If that’s the whole problem there is a very simple solution to the issue! Just keep a solar year — and you’re just fine! Why, indeed, should we keep the lunar year at all? What do we gain by it? Why did HaShem feel the need to make a double standard of calculating the year, which requires us to follow the moon, anyway?

I did quite a bit of looking around and I even consulted with people over the web. It was suggested to me to look in Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch in Shemos (Exodus) 12:1. I looked there but I didn’t really see that he addresses the above question. It was also suggested to me to look in the Artscroll book on Kiddush haChodesh/Hallel, but I don’t have that to look.

What I DO have is Rashi in Bereishis (Genesis) where we find a very interesting thing.

During the fourth day of creation the Torah describes to us the creation of the meoros, the light sources. It was on this day that all of the stars of the heavens above were either created, as the simple understanding of the verse implies, (and so say some of our holy sages, ob”m), or they were established in their present trajectories and orbits, as our sages, ob”m, tell us. I deal with this topic in-depth in the tenth chapter of CE1 “Hello? G-d?”. For more elaboration on the fourth day – look there.

Like all days the actual fourth day is divided into two sections: the “planning” section, where HaShem describes what will be created on that day and what it’s purpose is, and the “carrying-out” section, where the Torah describes the fulfillment of that days work.

(This has a great life-lesson for all of us, like all the word’s of the Holy Torah, when we take a good look at them. The lesson is that a person’s day should be planned and then we should act upon our daily plan. As a wise man once said “Those who fail to plan – plan to fail!”. However this isn’t the time to address this issue fully).

In any case during the planning stage of the fourth day, upon scrutiny, there are two types of jobs laid out for the meoros. The first is found in Genesis 1:14 the second is also there verse 15.

Job A: “…to separate between the day and the night and they should be for signs (otot) and for moadim (festivals) and for yamim (counting of days/months) and for shannim (years)”.

Job B: “And they should be as meorot (sources of light) in the rakiya of the shamayim (again, see the book for explanation) in order to shed light on the aretz (the “land”, i.e. the world. See the book).

Job A is a very general mission statement. Job B is much more specific as it explicitly describes that the meorot in the rakiya hashamayim have a much more specific job, as they are the sources of light for the aretz, which is the focal point of the entire Genesis narrative.

When the Torah then changes to the “carrying-out” section (verse 16) it starts out by saying “And HaShem (Elohim) made the two great light sources (meoros)”, both big, both great, both equal sources of light. The verse then continues to say “The large light source, to rule the day, and also the small light source, to rule the night, and also the stars”.

Rashi (ibid) quoting the Talmud (Hullin 60b) notes the apparent difference between what the verse opens with and what it finishes with and asks “Make up your mind! Are they both big or is only one big”?

To which Rav Shimon ben Pazi answers with a midrash:

The “moon” comes up to HKB”H and raises a serious problem “Is it possible”, said the moon, “for two kings to rule with the same crown”? To which HKB”H answers “Go and make yourself smaller”. An argument thereby ensues.

“Just because I noted a real problem I should be the one to lessen myself”, said the moon to HKB”H. HaShem responds “Go! For you will rule during the night and the day” (as the moon sometimes is visible even during the daytime). “Even so”, responded the moon, “what good is a candle during he daylight”? “Go!”, said HKB”H, “For by you will Israel count days and years”. “Even so”, said the moon, once again, “it’s not possible to NOT count the year by means of the tekufa (the cycle of seasons)”. … (HKB”H) saw that the moon was still upset by this. Said HKB”H “Bring a sacrifice (on Rosh Chodesh) as an atonement for My having made the moon lesser”.

The words of our holy sages, ob”m, are not to be taken lightly. This is not just a fable or a fairy-tale. There is depth beyond depth contained here to which I cannot do justice, but at least I would like to scratch the surface.

I know that the concept of the moon and other inert bodies having a conversation goes against our ingrained brain-washing that these are inanimate objects. They are, indeed, inanimate when compared to, say, plants, however it is clearly the opinion of both the written and oral Torahs that that does NOT mean that they do not have a soul. (For more on this issue wait for book two, when the topic of the soul will be, with HaShem’s help, fully explored). As the verses of Tehillim say (148:3)

הַלְלוּהוּ שֶׁמֶשׁ וְיָרֵחַ הַלְלוּהוּ כָּל כּוֹכְבֵי אוֹר.

Praise Him sun and moon, Praise Him all stars of light

Even the Rambam, the great philosopher, writes in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah (chapter 2) that the celestial bodies have a nefesh.

In any case.

The Torah here is telling us that originally the milky way galaxy was a binary system. It had two suns of equal strength. However, it was the job of all of the light sources to fulfill job A from above, to be signs and moadim and yamim and shanim. However as far as the aretz was concerned there were two main celestial bodies: the two suns. Both of them were to shine on the world during the day (verse 15) and to act as the sources of daylight. But then something happened and one of them changed. One of them became small and was no longer an actual source of light in it’s own regard.

To understand how this small midrash explains away many of science’s questions about the source of the moon – see the book in chapter ten!

But in addition this midrash also explains to us how the day of Rosh Chodesh attained a special status in the Torah and became similar to one of the moadim. Rosh Chodesh has a special mussaf (additional) sacrifice which no other day has, yet it, itself, is not one of the moadim enumerated at the end of Leviticus 23 (Vayikra).

So the midrash now tells us that there has been a significant change in physicality, but that still does not change the job description. Both celestial bodies are still charged with control over the year. It’s just that their specific jobs have changed.

You see there are two jobs, two aspects which “collide” (or perhaps “coexist”) during the year: the cycle of time and the agricultural cycle. Similarly we find that the moadim have two names, one commemorative of the moed’s special relationship with the Jewish people, and the other of agricultural significance. Both coincide in the moadim for a very clear reason. Simcha (the ability to rejoyce).

In reality, (i.e. it’s HaShem’s will) that the moon cycle decides the year. It is for this reason that the verse above (way back when) tells us that the month of Nissan is the head of the months of the year. It is for this reason that the three main moadim occur mid-month, (that being Pessach and Sukkot, which start on the 15th, and even Shavuot is semi-mid month, just that it is tied to Pessach). That was given over to the moon “to appease it”.

However at the same time (as it said in the Gemara above) it’s impossible that the year not be counted also according to the solar cycle. The reason for this is 100% agricultural in nature. As my good friend and neighbor, Rav Moshe Kahana, shlit”a, tells me (he is a farmer here in Israel, and a wonderful example of a Torah-true Jew) all agriculture revolves around the solar year.

Pessach is also called “the Festival of Sprouting” (chag ha’aviv), Shavuot is called “the Festival of Reaping” (chag ha’katzir) and Sukkot “the Festival of Gathering” (chag ha’asif). There is a very simple reason why HKB”H wanted these to coincide. Simcha.

We are commanded on the festivals ושמחת בחגך (and you shall rejoyced on your festival) and on sukkot, specifically, והיית אך שמח, (and you shall be only happy). When, indeed, is it easiest for a person to be happy? Only when he sees the fruits of his labor.

HaShem, in His infinite wisdom, set up the festivals to coincide with the times of year when the most important crops are either growing or being “deposited” into our bank accounts because that is when we can have the easiest time to rejoyce. יגיע כפיך כי תאכל אשריך וטוב לך says King David in Tehillim (the toil of your hands, when you eat them, (bring you to feel) praiseworthy and good to you).

In order to rejoice with HaShem we have to feel we have it good. So he made sure that at our times of simcha, our times of rejoicing, would coincide with the times that we experience the fruits of our labors. At Pessach we see that the work of our plowing, seeding, weeding, watering etc. begin to bear fruit as the new seedlings begin to show themselves, sprouting from the ground. At Shavuot we reap the grain that has now reached fruition and leave it in the fields to dry throughout the summer months. By Sukkos we have already finished the processes of gathering the wheat and doing all of the melachos required to make it into grain, ready to go to the mill when needed. It’s all there in our silo. Our “bank” account is full. The fruit of our labor has come to fruition at last. More-so, we have also just gone through Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur. We’re clean spiritually, we are all together in Jerusalem with the Beis haMikdash. We are ready for simcha, we will be אך שמח, only happy, because there is nothing in our way. No work, no worries about the future. We’re good.

This is what the Torah means when it says that the celestial bodies will be for otot, moadim, yamim and shannim. This is why Rosh Chodesh is ruled by moon, yet the Jewish year is balanced with the solar year as well.

It’s great to be Jewish!

Have a great Shabbos and Chodesh Tov

 

Jewish Time!

It’s amazing! Every time I think that I finally understand something in the Torah, (and sometimes in life), upon scrutiny it turns out that without a deep understanding of the Torah it makes no sense!

Case in point.

I was asked to give a lecture to a group of irreligious students from Ben Gurion University (in Hebrew). The general topic of the semester was “The Jewish Day”. So I thought that I would speak, generally, about how the Jewish people don’t work like the rest of the world when it comes to the topic of time. “Jewish Time”, I told them, “doesn’t work like any other time in the world. We have a different concept of a day, a week, a month, a year and more! Yekkim aside if an average Jew gets invited to a wedding and it is called for, say, 7 PM the Jewish brain translates that as … 7:30 PM at the earliest!”

It’s such a known phenomenon that part of the planning of any Jewish gathering starts with a calculation what time that they should put on the invitation if they actually want to start on time.

However as I was preparing the lecture, trying to figure out what questions might be asked and possible outside sources that would be worthwhile to quote I made an amazing discovery!!!

I discovered that without an understanding of both the Oral and the Written Torah – the way that the world counts time makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!

Let me explain what I mean.

We all know that there is a concept of A “day” and there is also a concept called “day and night”. In this regard the Jewish people are different than all other peoples of the world in that according to the Torah the day begins at nightfall. Come sunset on Friday – it’s Shabbos! We, of course, learn this (see berachos 2a) from the beginning when the Torah says “and it was evening and it was morning day one”. Everyone else either uses the contrived “day-line” of midnight or perhaps morning. In truth only nightfall or sunrise are logical times to set the beginning of A day as they are both at a point in time where there is a clear phenomenon that occurs signifying the changing of a significant point of time. Midnight is a practical contrivance which was decided upon at some point in time.

I just love pointing out logical inconsistencies!

Why did we choose midnight? Well, it’s because a day is 24 hours, made up of 60 minutes per hour and we really had to choose a point in time to begin counting the 24 hours that make up a day. Because both sunrise and sunset change all the time they couldn’t be used in order to scientifically begin a day therefore it was decided that the middle of the night should be used. After all high-noon couldn’t have logically been used to divide up the day. Just imagine if you would leave to work on Monday and came home the same day on Tuesday! But here’s the rub: WHY is a day made up of 24 hours?

The answer according to the wise-men of the world? IDK (that’s texting short-hand for I Don’t Know). Really it would seem that a 24 hour day is a human invention, but there is no clear reason why everyone would count 24 hours in a day. Even stranger than that is that the entire world not only does it, but has been keeping a 24 hour day (or a 12 hour day and a 12 hour night) for… forever! The only logical reason for this is if there was, at one point in time, a consensus or a decision by all of humanity from a central point in time and space that this is what we do and that this is the way it must be done.Since it has been done this way forever no-one ever really thought to change it. But why the number 24? It could have been any multiple of 6, or 5, or 4, or 3, or whatever!

The answer lies in the words of our sages, ob”m, on the verse in Genesis (Berishis) (1:14) “And E-lohim said  There shall be sources of light in the Rakiya of the shomayim to separate between the day and the night and they should be for signs (otot) and moadim (festivals) and days (yamim) and years (shanim)“. This verse teaches us that it is the celestial bodies that “rule” time in the Torah and it is based on them that we decide when the days, years, and various “pit-stops” of the year are. But what, exactly, are the otot, (signs)? They are the signs of the zodiac. Amazingly there are 12 signs of the zodiac and our sages in many places (see Shabbos 75a, for example) tell us that they “rule” the sky for exactly one hour each per day.

What this means is that at different times of the day one of the signs of the zodiac has “power”. It is for this reason that the day (and the night) were divided into 12 parts and 12+12 = ???? You guessed it! 24 hours!

Afterwards I found this explicitly in the words of the Tanna d’bei Eliahu Rabbah chapter 5:12 which says “And when Ya’akov left his fathers house to go to the house of Lavan the Shechina came and stood above him/ It answered him and said ‘Ya’akov, my son! Raise your eyes to the heavens and see the twelve mazalot (signs of the zodiac) and the stars in the heavens and the twelve hours of the day and the twelve hours of the night, all of them are against (=corresponding to) the twelve tribes that I will give to you”.

If you research the topic of “astrology” we find that it is an ancient topic. It was practiced by the Babylonians, the Accadians and all of the ancient peoples. This, of course, leads the learned of the world to the amazing conclusion that “it was the Jews that took it from the peoples of ancient civilizations”.

Now we REALLY get into the spicy stuff!

Why did the ancient peoples keep it? What was it to them?

Let’s keep this in mind for just now. We’ll come back to it later, with HaShem’s help.

Let’s skip, for a moment, to the issue of a month. Where does a month come from? The answer, of course, is from the moon-phase cycle. It is for this reason that the average length of a month is roughly 30 days. No argument there. In Hebrew a month is called a chodesh, from the root of chadash, new, because it goes through a cycle of renewal every month.

Where does a year come from? Well, that’s also pretty clear! It’s the amount of time that it takes to run through the four seasons of the earth, winter, spring summer and fall! This cycle take 365.25 days to complete. In Hebrew a year is called a shanna, which also means “to repeat”, as the seasons that make up a year go through a repetitive cycle.

Now let’s get a little deeper. Why are there 12 months in a year? Why that’s so obvious! It’s because we can complete a total of 12 lunar cycles during the course of one 365 day year! After all 12 x 30 = 360! But there’s just one problem: who cares?

Let’s stop and think for a second. If I have a purely solar calendar – who cares how many lunar cycles there are during my year? They are irrelevant! In reality it would make more sense to have 4 months a year. One for each of the seasons! Whereas if I have a purely lunar calendar – then what is the purpose of a year? It has no relevance whatsoever! The Islamic calendar has no real need for a year, as it makes no difference whatsoever in what season Ramadan falls out in.

Only within the context of a Lunar-Solar calendar does it make sense to have a 12 month year. Which we Jews happen to have.

The reality that we live in is even kind of funny when you think about it.

Realistically in a solar year there should be 7 months of 30 days and 5 of 31 days in order to “cover” the 5 extra days in a solar year (and 6 and 6 every 4 years). So why does “30 days hath September, April, June and November”? Why does “February alone hath 28 days”? Well it’s because in the times of the Romans two emperors decided to name a month after themselves (Augustus and Julius (August and July)) and since the months that had 31 days were named after the Roman gods – so, too, their month should also have 31 days! So instead of being logically divided as above we have 7 months with 31 days, so someone had to lose out! Why not February?

Whereas in the Islamic calendar, at it’s inception, there was no year. Until they discovered that the counting of years also had a very practical side. I mean, did the sale go through this Ramadan, or was it last Ramadan… So they, also, started counting the years, as well.

Getting back to the lunar-solar year.

In this regard we are not the only people on the face of the planet to have a Lunar-Solar calendar. In reality it turns out that all of the ancient peoples of the world used it! It was used by the Babylonians, the Accadians, the ancient Chinese and many (all?) of the ancient peoples of the world.

The question is: why? What purpose does the Lunar-Solar calendar serve? Amazingly it only makes sense if there are festivals (moadim, as mentioned in the verse in Bereshis, (Genesis)) which are tied to specific seasons of the solar year! But then why have a lunar calendar at all? Keep a solar one! Unless there is some specific reason for the existence of the months and that they should be counted based on the lunar cycle! What we find is that we have two conflicting time schedules which must be used simultaneously and balanced out between each other in order to make a Lunar-Solar year. That is the only reason why we would require the double standard year.

Yet if all of the people of the ancient world kept the lunar-solar year that would mean that they also had a common reason for doing so.

Now we get to the real heart of the issue!

Where do we get a week from?

Can you guess? What do you think that the world’s most learned have to say about this? I’ll give you a little hint: I………………………D………………………………K!

Realistically there is neither rhyme nor reason for the existence of a week. A day – yes. A month – yes. A year? Also yes. But what’s a week for? “Well”, say the experts, “it’s about 1/4 of a month, so that’s good. Right?”

But all of the world’s people since time immemorial have been keeping a seven day week. In fact in the amazing book “The Kuzari” by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, from the 9th century, he tells us an amazing thing: the fact that there are no people in existence who keep a week of any other standard other than 7 days is a clear proof as to the commonality of the world’s people. We are all children of Noah.

Why does the world keep a seven day week? Unless you have a Torah and that Torah tells you that the seventh day of the week has special significance – there is no answer.

Here is the real issue.

All scientific “facts”, “data” and “findings” are just bits and pieces of information. They can be indicative of many things but what they really lack, in most cases, is CONTEXT.

When historians, archaeologists, paleontologists and any other learned individuals who deal with historical data look at their findings they, (like their brethren in the “exact” sciences), make up the context so that the data fits their (many, many (x 1,000,000) pre-conceived) notions.

Let’s take a look at the facts:

1. All of our time-related counting is universal and has, basically, (with the exception of some places in time which decided to do their own thing against what everyone else was clearly doing), always been done that way.
2. The month-year thing only makes sense within the context of a lunar-solar year
3. For much of our types of counting there is no logical reason why we should do it that way.
4. For a significant amount we would have NO reason whatsoever without the explanation of the Jewish tradition.

Which brings us to the Jewish view of ancient (pre-Avraham) history. (i.e. the context)

We all have read many things in the words of our sages about the world before the Torah at Sinai, but in truth much of it (all?) really doesn’t make sense because we – too – have no context. I will try, with HaShem’s help, to present the authentic Jewish context here.

We have all heard that Ya’akov, our father, on his way to Haran, to his uncle Lavan, made a pit-stop on the way which lasted for 14 years. What was he doing, ask our sages, ob”m? Why he was learning Torah at the houses of Shem and Ever!

“Torah?”, we ask “There was no Torah yet! How could he have been learning Torah?”

The answer, my friends, can be found in Rashi throughout sefer Bereshis (Genesis). Yes. There WAS Torah before THE Torah at Sinai. In fact there was quite a bit of it, says Rashi. Before Sinai there was a Pascal lamb (one of the two goats served to Yitzchak) there was matzah (Lot gave them to the angels) there was Yibum (leverate marriage, by Judah’s sons) and more! All of this was Oral Torah. Rashi makes all sorts of time-related calculations during the time of the flood based on the words of our sages, ob”m, in how to calculate the months before Sinai.

There was Torah, there were mitzvos (seven up until Avraham and then we had 8, including bris mila) and there were things that in the future would become mitzvos. But it would seem that all of them, that were eventually commanded to the children of Israel, were known and taught in the house of Shem and Ever.

All of humanity emanates from what is referred to as the “Fertile Crescent”, this includes Mesopotamia, Babylon, Accadia and many other places, all the way to Egypt.

All of these places are listed explicitly by the Torah in Genesis as the original source of humanity and all of the ancient peoples of the world were influenced by the central doctrines of the houses of Shem and Ever.

Why do we have a 24 hour day, a seven day week, a 30 day month and a 365 day year? Because they are mandated by the Torah and were taught and lived by all of humanity during the days when we were all one big mostly happy family.

None of the above makes sense without the Torah.

But life WITH the Torah? That makes life make SO MUCH sense.

Have a great Shabbos.

For more on this issue please check out the following articles from Aish.com’s wonderful website.