Luach

365 days? Or 364? 12 or 13 months? Sunrise to sunset, for seasons and centuries, the Jewish calendar has gone through some surprising changes and is a remarkable testimony to the not so humble human aspirations to master time. Discover a hidden Hebrew calendar and cultivate new ways to celebrate the secrets of Jewish time.

The Jewish Year

Our year begins with burnished leaves,
That flame in frost and rime,
With purple grapes and golden sheaves
In harvest time.
Our year begins with biting cold,
With winds and storms and rain;
The new year of the Jew grows old
In strife and pain.
When others say the year has died,
We say the year is new,
And we arise with power and pride
To prove it true.

For we begin where others end,
And fight where others yield;
And all the year we work and tend
Our harvest field.
And after days of stormy rain
And days of drought and heat,
When those that toiled have reaped their grain,
And all’s complete.
Oh then, when God has kept his word,
In peace we end our year.
Our fruit is certain from the Lord.
We shall not fear.

Jessie E. Sampter

...The Jewish calendar gradually evolved from considerable diversity to normative unity. From the second century BCE to the first century CE, solar and lunar calendars are both attested in the sources; whereas from the first century CE the Jewish calendar becomes exclusively lunar. From this point until at least the sixth century CE the lunar calendar was reckoned by different communities in a wide variety of forms. But by the tenth century, a single lunar calendar had taken shape, that of rabbinic Judaism...in the course of time, it was to become universal and standard throughout world Jewry. The evolution of the Jewish calendar reflects, in a sense, a wider historical pattern. To some extent, it epitomizes the gradual development of solidarity and communitas among the Jewish communities of late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and hence, the development of an increasingly united culture and religion.

Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community A History of the Jewish Calendar, Second Century BCE–Tenth Century CE

The absence in the Bible of any direct allusion to the methods of intercalation should cause no surprise. The cuneiform texts recovered from Mesopotamia include some that were intended solely for the narrow circle of the priesthood. But the Bible as we have it was intended for the use of the public. It holds no secrets that the public should not know. And the secrets of the calendar, like the secrets of priestly divination, must have been guarded by the priests with jealous care. Such continued to be the practice in Palestine in later times also. Not only did the priests themselves examine witnesses to the appearance of the new moon in the Mishnaic period, but the Nasi' reserved to himself the sole authority in calendrical matters. We read that "a year cannot be declared embolismic unless the Nasi' sanctions it". The secrets of intercalation were handed down by the Nesi im from father to son. They were not known outside the group of three or five or seven '"wise men", and others were forbidden in Mishnaic times to presume knowledge of them; and we may recall the incident, about the end of the 1st century A.D., when the celebrated Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah was forced publicly to proclaim his error in fixing the calendar not according to the ruling of the Nasi' Rabban Gamaliel.

J. B. Segal, Intercalation and the Hebrew Calendar

HELPFUL VOCABULARY

• Intercalate: To insert (something, such as a day) in a calendar
• Nasi: President, Leader of the Jewish community (Nesi’im is the plural)
• Embolismic: A leap year, in Hebrew Me’u’beret, literally ‘pregnant’

The Gezer Calendar, on display in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, is a small limestone tablet with an early Canaanite inscription discovered in 1908 by Irish archaeologist R. A. Stewart Macalisterin the ancient city of Gezer, 20 miles west of Jerusalem. It is commonly dated to the 10th century BCE. This calendar, in Phoenician script, divides the year according to agricultural labors, reflecting the centrality of farming in the lives of the Israelites.

Inscription: "The (two) months of harvest; the (two) months of sowing; the (two) months of late planting; the month of reaping flax; the month of reaping barley; the month of reaping and measuring; the (two) months of (vine-)tending, the month of summer(-fruit)."

The first commandment given to the Jewish people was to construct their own calendar. What resulted was one of the most precise calendars ever produced. The Hebrew calendar (along with the Chinese, Tibetan and Hindu calendars) is a lunisolar calendar; it functions in harmony with both the solar and lunar cycles, whereas our current (Christian) Gregorian calendar is purely a solar calendar. A solar calendar is very effective in keeping holidays in prescribed seasons; Easter in the spring and Christmas in the winter. However, the Gregorian calendar makes no attempt to harmonize with the lunar cycle. As a result, New Year's Day or any month of the year can and does appear during any phase of the moon. On the other hand, the Islamic calendar is purely a lunar calendar and is very effective at beginning each and every month with a new moon. However, the Islamic calendar makes no attempt to harmonize with the solar cycle. As a result, Islamic holidays can and do appear in all different seasons from year to year. The Hebrew calendar (along with the Tibetan, Hindu and Chinese calendars), in comparison, is far more complicated and maintains harmony with both the solar and lunar cycles.

The Hebrew months always begin with the new moon and the holidays always occur in a prescribed season. Passover is always in the spring, Rosh Hashanah always in the fall, and Hanukkah is always in the winter. Therefore, from this calendric perspective, Judaism and Christianity share the love of holidays occurring in prescribed seasons. In the winter, while Christians celebrate Christmas, Jews celebrate Hanukkah. In the spring when Christians celebrate Easter, Jews celebrate Passover. Likewise from this calendric perspective, Judaism and Islam share an appreciation of the moon's phases. For Jews and Muslims, looking at the moon is like looking at a calendar. If it's a full moon, it's always the 15th of the month…Like the Passover Seder.

Rabbi Shaul Marshall Praver, Hebrew calendar is one of the most accurate on earth

And from the sons of Issachar who are familiar with the science of astronomical time; they possess the knowledge of determining the new year, the new month, how to intercalate the months and the years; professors of the lunar conjunction necessary for calculating the holidays in their proper time, expert in calculating the seasons of the sun, Astronomers, familiar with the movements of the Sun, the Moon, the stars, in order to determine what is fit for the house of Israel to do, their Rabbis, the leaders of the Sanhedrin, 200 in number, and all their brothers fulfill the words of the Torah, and become wise from the words of their mouths.

Aramaic Translation/I Chronicles 12:33

A dissident, non-lunar calendar appears for a brief historical period in Jewish literary sources from the late third century BCE to the first century CE, in the books of Enoch, Jubilees, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This calendar consists of a fixed year of 364 days (with months of 30 or 31 days, arranged in a regular pattern) or exactly 52 weeks; in this calendar, therefore, the New Year and festivals recurred every year on the same day of the week. Since it is slightly shorter than the solar or seasonal year of approximately 365 1/4 days, this calendar gradually drifts away from a correct alignment with the seasons...The extent to which this calendar was used in practice, for example, at Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered), as well as its relevance to Qumran sectarianism, remains unclear. However, this is the earliest calendar to be explicitly described in any Jewish source.

…The origins of the 364-day calendar are much debated. Some see it as the original, cultic calendar of ancient Israel , but this theory is not supported by evidence.

After the first century CE, the 364-day calendar fell into oblivion, while the lunar calendar remained dominant among all Jews.

Sacha Stern, Ancient and Medieval Jewish Calendars

The Qumran manuscript 11QApocryphal Psalms (11Q11) contains a series of four compositions concerned with the exorcism of a demon...The manuscript was, in all probability, a library copy, used as a manual for appointed days, in special liturgies against physical harms and sicknesses brought by demons...This psalm, unknown outside the Dead Sea Scrolls, states that David wrote 3600 psalms; 364 songs (šyr) to sing before the altar accompanying the daily perpetual burnt-offering (tamyd), for all the days of the year; 52 songs for the Sabbath offerings (qorban); 30 songs for the New Moon offerings, festival days and the Day of Atonement. In addition to this total of 446 Davidic Psalms, there are four “songs for charming the demon possessed with music”. Sanders (1965) and others after him have suggested that the four songs are probably connected to the 364-day calendar known from Qumran representing the extra day at the end of the quartiles... The number 364 refers to the number of the days in the schematic calendar attested in several Qumran texts. Fifty-two is the number of weeks of a 364-day year. As it is made of a full number of weeks, the 364-day calendar fixes all the festivals to the same day of the week perpetually and is thus a blueprint for determining the liturgical year in which the times of the festivals are determined as are the days of the week. In the Qumran ideal calendar the year was divided into 12 months of 30 days, a total of 360 days. An additional day was inserted at the end of every third month. The extra days at the end of the quarters were the days of the solstices and equinoxes. Equinoxes and solstices are turning-points of the year and considered in various cultures as liminal days, significant segments of time.

Ida Frohlich, Magical Healing at Qumran and the Question of the Calendar

On Hoshana Rabbah 921 C.E. The Palestinian Gaon Ben Meir or his son proclaimed on the Mount of Olives that the months of Marheshvan and Kislev of 4682 would be defective. As a result Passover 922 would fall on Sunday instead of the following Tuesday if the year had been made full. And in fact, in 922 the Jews of Palestine and probably the communities in Egypt celebrated Passover on Sunday, two days before the Jews of Babylonia. This split between the communities of Palestine and Babylonia caused considerable agitation throughout world Jewry. References to this event can be found in non-Jewish documents. The Syrian Elias of Nissibis wrote that in the year 1232 of the Seleucid era dissension broke out between the Jews of the West (Palestine) and those of the East (Babylonia) with regard to the calculation of their holiday. The Jews of the West celebrated Rosh Hashanah 4683 on a Tuesday and those of the East celebrated it on the next Thursday.

The conclusion of the R’ Saadia Gaon-Ben Meir controversy at the advantage of the Babylonians had a tremendous consequence at the level of the unity of the Jewish people. Before 922 C.E, the Jewish calendar was communicated by the Palestinian Gaon on an annual or multi-annual basis. It appears that from about 838 onwards, the Babylonians were able to make their own calculations and during the period of about eighty years preceding 922 C.E. they always agreed with the ruling/keviyah sent from Palestine.... Only after the end of the dispute, did the rules of the calendar and the Four Gates Table became universally known and only then was the complete unity of the Jewish communities of the Diaspora achieved in the celebration of their festivals...

It is interesting to note that this important event of 922-924 remained unknown until the beginning of the twentieth century, until the discovery and the study of the documents of the Cairo Geniza. It is a fact that R’ Sherira Gaon and R’ Hai Gaon did not mention the event at all. At first glance we could think that the leaders of the Babylonian community did not want to leave a remembrance of this schism for posterity; it could have thrown a shadow on the authority of the Jewish calendar and on the doctrine of its Sinaïtic origin taught by R’ Sa’adia Gaon. This, however, is not the case. We know that R’ Sa’adia Gaon wrote two books: הזיכרון ספר and המועדים ספר .The first book was intended to be read publicly in order to recall the event. The second book was probably a treatise on the festivals and the Jewish calendar and it probably also mentioned the events of the famous dispute of 922- 924 in order to prevent the possibility of a new schism in the future. It was the fear of maḥaloquet that prompted him to write the first and probably the second book. R’ Sa’adia’s works on the calendar are lost, although they appear to have been well known in the middle ages (Rashi, R’ Tam and R’ Jacob ben Shimshon refer to it). It is a mystery why these two books did not survive.

By contrast, it is evident that the Palestinian side was not interested to speak about this event and indeed they never did mention this dispute again... The present day calendar was the calendar of the Babylonians since about 838 C.E. that emerged after the dispute of 922-924. This calendar did not change any more.

Currently: The Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar consisting of 12 months annually of 29 or 30 days. An extra leap month of 30 days is added every 2 or 3 years (7 leap months in 19 years) for a total of 235 lunar months in 19 years. This 19-year cycle is called the Metonic cycle and results in the 19 Jewish years approximating 19 solar years. In this way, the Jewish holidays are always in the same season and vary by less than a month in the solar calendar.

The Beginning of the Jewish Calendar By Bernard Dickman

...Here we stand in a circle, the oldest meeting,

the shape women assume when we come together that echoes ours, the flower, the mouth,

breast, opening, pool, the source.

We greet the moon that is not gone but only hidden, unreflecting, inturned and introspective,

gathering strength to grow as we greet the first slim nail paring of her returning light.

Don’t we understand the strength that wells out of retreat?

Can we not learn to turn in to our circle,

To sink into the caves of our silence, to drink lingering by those cold wells,

To dive into the darkness of the hearts’ storm

Until under the crashing surge of waves it is still except for our slow roaring breath?

We need a large pattern of how things change

That shows us not a straight eight-lane tearing through hills blasted into bedrock; not stairs

mounting to the sacrificial pyramid where hearts are torn out to feed the gods of power, but the coil of the moon, that epicycling wheel that grows fat and skinny, advances and withers, four steps forward and three back, and yet nothing remains the same, for the mountains are piled up and worn down, for the rivers eat into the stone and the fields blow away and the sea makes sand spits and islands and carries off the dune.

Let the half day festival of the new moon remind us how to retreat and grow strong, how to reflect and learn, how to push our bellies forward, how to roll and turn and pull the tides up, up when we need them, how to come back each time we look dead, making a new season shine.

Marge Piercy Rosh Hodesh: At the New Moon