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The solution is to add a "leap month."
Every so often, as the lunar cycle pushes the month in which Passover
falls, Nisan, back toward winter, an extra month is added. This pushes
Passover forward again toward spring.
Spring, of course, is a season on the solar calendar. Therefore, the
addition of a leap month is a reconciliation of the lunar and solar
calendars. This is "intercalation."
To move from intercalation in principle to intercalation in practice is
very complicated. How often does one add a leap month? How many days
should each one be? For that matter, how is it possible to standardize
any month in the lunar cycle?
This question stems from the fact that no lunar month corresponds to a
solar month. Solar months are 30 or 31 days (and in one case, February,
28 or 29 days). A lunar month, however, is roughly 29.5 solar days. An
odd number. This means that the lunar calendar requires more than a
simple addition of one extra leap month every so often. The calculation
must be more sophisticated. Any day added to the solar calendar is, by
definition, in "whole solar days," but the lunar time that the addition
compensates for is not in whole solar days.
To figure out exactly how often a leap month needs to be added to the
lunar calendar, and exactly how many solar days it needs to be, a
prerequisite is an accurate calculation of the lunar month.
Here is where Judaism's deepest secret begins to emerge.
According to calculations derived from satellites orbiting the earth,
the lunar month is exactly 29.530588 days long. When the Jewish calendar
originated in antiquity, there were no satellites. Think, for a moment,
what else there were none of---no computers (not even slide rules), no
telescopes, no watches. Picture yourself looking up at the sky, lacking
even the crudest instrument of measurement, and then figuring out the
length of the lunar month.
Before satellites, before telescopes, before virtually anything but the
naked eye, the Jewish sages of antiquity calculated the lunar month at
29.53059 solar days.
29.53059 days = Sages' measure
29.530588 = satellite measure
The difference is 00.00002 = two one-millionths of a day.
Other ancients also calculated the length of the lunar month, and also
came close to the satellite measure, but not nearly so close as the
ancient sages of Judaism. How did they know this? This is Level 1 of the
"sod ha'ibbur," of the "secret of intercalation."
Level 2 of the deep secret is the age-old philosphic issue of Divine
omniscience and human freedom. If G-d knows everything, He knows in
advance what any human being might "choose." G-d's advance knowledge is
determinative. In other words, a person has no freedom of choice.
But both G-d's determinative omniscience and the human being's freedom
of choice are necessary.
The sun represents steadiness, easy measurability, determinism. The Book
of Ecclesiastes says of the sun, "there is nothing new under the sun"
(1:9). The Book of Psalms says of the sun, "the sun knows [the regular
timing] of its appearance" (100:14)---the sun is as it always was and
always will be. Determinism.
The moon's appearance is not regular. It represents unpredictability,
difficult measurability, freedom.
The unit of the sun is the "year," which in Hebrew also connotes
"repetition"---determinism.
The unit of the moon is the "month," which in Hebrew also connotes
"newness"---freedom. The deepest secret, the "sod ha'ibbur," is the
combination of determinism and freedom. The reconciliation of the solar
and the lunar calendars. Divine guidance ("determinism") together with
human responsibility ("freedom").
Rabbi Aaron Lopiansky observes that humanity tends to the one asix or
the other, to determinism or to freedom. Either: G-d is in control,
human freedom is an illusion, life is a tragedy, moral effort is a waste
(or, per Camus, meaningless): determinism. Or: Man is in control, Divine
guidance is an illustion, life glorifies the successful, moral effort is
a measure of preference: freedom.
The Jewish perspective is not either/or---determinism or freedom---but
both/and. The Jewish perspective is the "sod ha'ibbur," the
interrelationship of sun and moon. The "secret of intercalation" is the
combination of G-d's determinative and guiding hand and of man's freedom
of choice and responsibility.
The Jewish people's embrace of both is Level 2 of the deepest secret of
Judaism.
Sabbath literally rolls around every seventh day. The human has no role
in its schedule. Sabbath represents G-d's absolute guidance.
Moed, or Jewish festival, is a consequence in antiquity of the human
sighting of the "New Moon," the first sliver of the renascent moon in
the sky. Later, when the "secret of intercalation" was in danger of
being lost, Hillel, a fourth-century sage, fixed the Jewish calendar for
all time. The schedule of Jewish festivals is now based on that calendar
(itself based on Level 1 of the secret of intercalation). In principle,
however, the Jewish festivals stem from the human sighting of the moon
each month. Moed, or Jewish festival, represents the human role in human
freedom.
Sabbath and festival together represent the interrelationship of the
determinsim of G-d and the freedom of man. Sod ha'ibbur---the deepest
secret of Judaism.
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, Ph.D.(hillel@ijn.com), is executive director of
the Intermountain Jewish News (www.ijn.com). Reprinted with permission
of the Intermountain Jewish News. |
