|
|
dar occurs twice this year, "Adar 1" and "Adar
2." The periodic need to add a month to the Hebrew calendar is based on
Deuteronomy 16:1, which requires that the festival of Passover always
occur in the spring.
Left to
its own devices, a calendar based solely on the lunar cycle would move
Passover away from spring. The Moslem calendar is strictly lunar; its holy
month of Ramadan moves steadily backwards, eventually circling all the way
around the solar calendar. In 1999, for example, Ramadan began on Dec. 9; in
2000, Ramadan begins on Nov. 27. Judaism needs an exception to its lunar
cycle in order to ensure that Passover, each and every year, remains in the
spring.
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. |
