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Transcript
THE JEWISH YEAR Jewish Month Nissan Jewish Month (Hebrew) יסן ָ ִנ Holidays in month Pesach Yom Hasho'ah Iyar ִאיָ יר Yom Ha'atzma'ut Lag Ba'omer Sivan Tamuz Av Elul Tishrei ִסיוָ ןShavu'ot שׁוֹאה ָ יוֹם ַה27th Contemporary יוֹם ָה ַע ְצ ָמאוּת 5th עוֹמר ֶ ַל"ג ָבּ18th Contemporary Rabbinic/Custom No Chameitz; Seder Holocaust Memorial Israel Independence Day Bonfires; end of mourning period of Sefirat Ha'omer Harvest and Giving of Torah Walls of Temple breached; Fast Day Temples destroyed; Fast Day Prophets ִתּ ְשׁ ָעה ְבּ ָאב9th Prophets Rosh Hashana רֹאשׁ ַה ָשׁנָ ה1st Torah-Leviticus New Years; Shofar Tzom Gedalia צוֹם גְ ַד ְליָ ה3rd Prophets Death of Leader; Fast Day Day of Atonement; Fast Day Eat in Sukkah; Lulav and Etrog ָאבTisha B'av ֶאלוּל ִתּ ְשׁ ֵרי Yom Kippur Kisleiv ִכּ ְס ֵלוChanuka Chanuka ֵט ֵבת 10th of Tevet ְשׁ ָבטTu Bi'shevat Ta'anit Esther Adar II ֶפּ ַסח15th Torah--Exodus Observance י"ז ַתּמוּז17th ַתּמוּז17th Tamuz ֶח ְשׁוָ ן Adar Origin Torah-Leviticus Cheshvan Shevat Date ָשׁבוּעוֹת6th Succot Teiveit Holidays in Hebrew ַא ָדר ַא ָדר ב Purim יוֹם כּפּוּר10th Torah-Leviticus סוּכּוֹת15th Torah-Leviticus נוּכּה ָ ַח25th Rabbinic (Talmud) Light Menorah נוּכּה ָ ַח Rabbinic (Talmud) Light Menorah ַע ָשׂ ָרה ְבּ ֵט ֵבת10th Prophets Siege of Jerusalem; Fast Day New Year for Trees; eat fruits of Israel ט"וּ ִבּ ְשׁ ָבט15th Rabbinic/Custom ַתּ ַענִ ית ֶא ְס ֵתּר13th Rabbinic/Custom Fast of Esther ProphetsMegillat Esther Story of Esther; Read Megilla; Shalach Manot, etc. פּוּרים ִ 14th Overview of the Jewish Calendar Days: The rhythm of Jewish time is determined both by the sun and by the moon. The basic unit of time is the day, which in the western world begins in the middle of the night and lasts until the next midnight. Since the standardization of time, days are divided into regular segments of twenty-four hours. The Jewish day is also ruled by the sun. However, it is more firmly rooted in simply observable phenomena than our standard day. Following Genesis, in which the refrain "it was evening and it was morning" sums up each day's creative work, Judaism measures its day from one evening to the next. Of course, the question arises how to define the exact moment when one day ends and the next begins. The rabbis determined that the new day begins at the moment when the sun sinks below the horizon. Unlike our secular day, in which the daylight hours are framed by night, the Jewish day begins with night and ends with day. This is the reason that all Jewish holidays begin in the evening before the first day of the observance. In fact, according to a Jewish reckoning of time, the evening before the day is indeed the beginning of the new calendar day. Weeks: The story of creation in Genesis 1:1-2:4 also establishes the next higher unit of measuring time, namely the seven-day week. This serves to place the week firmly within the divine plan, in which a six-day workweek is followed by the sacred Sabbath, a divinely ordained day of rest. Months: The months of the Jewish year are lunar in nature. Unlike the months of the Gregorian solar year that is the norm in the world today, the months of the Jewish year reflect the phases of the moon. This can be seen most clearly in the length of the months. Whereas the months of the Gregorian calendar vary in length between twenty-eight and thirty-one days in order to make a solar year of 365 (or, in leap years, 366) days, the months of the Jewish year are either twenty-nine or thirty days long. This reflects the fact that a lunar month is twenty-nine and a half days in length, and the months always must begin with the new moon. Years (and Leap Year): A year of twelve lunar months, however, is eleven days shorter than a solar year. Therefore, strict adherence to a lunar calendar would mean that the holidays would eventually take place at the wrong season, i.e., every now and then we would celebrate Chanukah, the midwinter festival of Lights, in the middle of summer and Sukkot, the autumn harvest festival, in the early spring. Therefore, in order to coordinate the traditional lunar year with the solar year, Judaism has worked out a system of 19-year cycles, in which there are seven leap years. In distinction to the day added to the secular leap year, the Jewish calendar adds a full month to the end of its year. In this manner the Jewish holidays fluctuate by about a month or so in relationship to the Gregorian calendar, but always fall at the same time of year. The schedule of leap years is now fixed in the third, sixth, eighth, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th years of the cycle. This cycle is traditionally ascribed to Rabbi Hillel II in the fourth century CE. (It is interesting to note that Islam also follows a lunar calendar. In distinction to Judaism, however, the Islamic calendar is strictly a lunar one and is not coordinated with the solar year. Thus, over the course of time, holidays such as Ramadan, occur at different seasons.) In order to further fine-tune their calculations, the rabbis determined that the months of Nisan (March-April), Sivan (May-June), Av (July-August), Tishrei (September-October), and Shevat (January-February) are always thirty days long. Iyyar (April-May), Tammuz (JuneJuly), Elul (August-September), Tevet (December-January), and Adar (March-April) are always twenty-nine days long. Cheshvan (October-November) and Kislev (NovemberDecember) are either twenty-nine or thirty days in length. In a leap year, there are two months of Adar, the last month of the year. When that occurs, Adar I is thirty days long, and Adar II twenty-nine. A short Jewish year, therefore, consists of 353 to 355 days, while a leap year varies between 383 and 385 days. Names of Months: The names that we use for the Jewish months are actually Babylonian in origin and were adopted by the Jews as of the time of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE. The Bible indicates that until then the months were oftentimes called simply by their numerical position in the year (First Month, Second Month, etc.), just as the days of the week--with the exception of Shabbat--still are in Hebrew. In addition, the Bible does record some ancient names for the months that disappeared once the Jews adopted the Babylonian names. These include the now forgotten months of Bul and Aviv, among others. The Gezer Calendar from the 10th century BCE, arguably the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, refers to the months according to the agricultural activities associated with them. The Jewish month begins with the first sighting of the new moon, the Rosh Chodesh. There are special prayers associated with the beginning of the month, and Rosh Chodesh ceremonies have oftentimes played an important role, particularly among the female members of the Jewish community. Although the Jewish new Year is celebrated at the beginning of Tishrei (Rosh Hashanah), this month is actually the seventh month according to the Torah's reckoning. The first month is actually Nisan, during which Passover (Pesach) falls. In this manner, the Jewish year begins with God's great redemptive act at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. Numbering the Years1 The Jewish calendar not only has its own unique months, but it also numbers years differently than the secular calendar. The basis of the Jewish annual calendar is ancient. The Torah speaks of the annual cycle of holy days and festivals, and it was systematized by the sages well before the fall of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. If one tries to ascertain the origin of our counting of years, however, the Bible does not seem particularly helpful. When providing a history, the Bible refers to lifetimes. For example, the Torah tells us that Abraham was 75 years old when he and his household were sent from Charan to Canaan (Genesis 12:4). In the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, dates are generally given according to the years of a sovereign's rule. Most often, the dates are consistent among these five books. During the time when two kings ruled the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel, the ascendance of one state's king might be given relative to the years of the other king's reign. For example, II Kings 14:1 reads: "In the second year of [the reign of] Yoash ben Yoahaz, King of Israel, Amatzyahu ruled [i.e. came to the throne] as King of Judah." During the fourth century B.C.E., a dating system was sought out for secular use on business and legal documents. At this time, the Jews borrowed the practice of the Greeks, who had introduced the practice of numbering time in "eras"--periods of time relative to a historical event, rather than the lifetime or rule of any one person. This new system is called the "Seleucid Era" by secular scholars and, in Jewish circles, it is known as "minyan shtarot"--"accounting of contracts." It counts time from the year 312-311 B.C.E., supposedly six years following the arrival of Alexander in the Land of Israel. For private records and Temple histories, a different era was established, one measured from the Exodus from Egypt. An example of this can be seen in I Kings 6:1, where the date for the construction of the First Temple is given as 480 of the Exodus era. 1. based on article by Rabbi Rachel Leila Miller is a Conservative rabbi and educator living in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2001 she received her ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism. Calculating the Birth of the World The Tannaim (sages of the late Second Temple Period and the century after the destruction) calculated the date of Creation. They did so by basing their work upon the Bible's account of lifetimes and kingdoms, thereby determining the period of time from Creation to a known date, in this case, the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. Many rabbis attempted this task, but the method attributed to Rabbi Yossi ben Chalafta, a second century C.E. sage, is the one which gained popularity. He calculated "molad tohu"-"birth from nothing"--to be in the fourth hour of Monday, October 7, 3761 B.C.E. (according to the Gregorian calendar used in the secular world today). To this day, those Jews who believe the biblical accounting of time to be literal still accept Rabbi Yossi's calculation, dating Creation to the year 3761 B.C.E. It is possible that there is a direct correlation between the seven days of Creation mentioned in Genesis and a specific Babylonian system, which would suggest that each Genesis "day" represents a specific number of solar years.