Jewish Time
Link to presentation: opens at 1:04 into the video of Oct 8
https://youtu.be/hhvPCVmQJiw?t=3882
We are all on different time zones.
Yeke Time—10 minutes ahead.
Yemenite time- 15 minutes ahead.
Standard American Jewish- ½ hour late
Standard Israeli time- allow an hour till everyone is
organized
Farsi Jewish time- never be the first one to show up at an
event.
Chasidic time- when the Rebbe feels like it. Does God wear a
watch?
Of course, we are all time obsessed, ever since we put
clocks in those beautiful medieval towers.
Time is a universal topic- Stonehenge- in Britain- a system
to mark the seasons.
Mayans, Aztecs- had own calendar systems- 2 systems, one,
for agriculture, ,365 day solar, the
other a 260 day cycle for religious events- matched every 52 years.
Romans- The original calendar consisted of ten months
beginning in spring with March; winter was left as an unassigned span of days. These
months ran for 38 nundinal (nine day) cycles, each forming an
eight-day week (nine
days counted inclusively, hence the name) ended by religious rituals and a
public market. -later, refined by Julius and Augustus Ceasars with 2 extra
months, hence July, August. Then,
updated by Pope Gregory, to our current Western calendar.
Islam- pre-Islam, early Arabian calendars merged lunar and
solar, but following Mohammed, solely lunar cycle, which is ten days shorter. Basically,
then, religious dates move around, compared to the solar. Moslems states have
adopted the Gregorian calendar for government and business purposes.
How have we measured our years?:
Here is our very first Jewish calendar: Gezer calendar
Gezer,
20 miles west of Jerusalem. It is commonly dated to the 10th century BCE.
The inscription, known as KAI 182, is in Phoenician or paleo-Hebrew script:
|
ירחואספ
ירחוז רע ירחולקש ירחעצדפשת ירחקצרשערמ ירחקצרוכל ירחוזמר ירחקצ אבי (ה) |
yrḥw ʾsp/ yrḥw
z rʿ /yrḥw lqš yrḥ /ʿṣd pšt yrḥ qṣr šʿrm yrḥ qṣrw kl yrḥw zmr yrḥ qṣ ʾby [h] |
Two months gathering (October, November — in the Hebrew
calendar Tishrei, Cheshvan)
Two months planting (December, January — Kislev, Tevet)
Two months late sowing (February, March — Shvat, Adar)
One month cutting flax (April — Nisan)
One month reaping barley (May — Iyar)
One month reaping and measuring grain (June — Sivan)
Two months pruning (July, August — Tammuz, Av)
One month summer fruit (September — Elul)
Abij [ah][9]
May have been a school child’s homework assignment-which
means children in ancient Israel were being taught literacy! Abi-may be shirt
for Abiyah-Yah is my father- oldest form of “ Yah” found. Yarcho- would later
be vocalized as “ yarchei”-months of. Yarch- Yareach-month( moon). Connect to”
O-reakh”-a visitor- travelling across the night sky.
( Please note- in my video, the source I used for the Gezer
inscription had the name” Abij[ah] transcribed in reverse order. I have a better
image of the actual tablet, which shows the letters written top to bottom. The
student squeezed his name into the available space.)
_____
We know of only 4 months with names:
·
Biblical- marking from Chodesh Haaviv ( of the Springtime)
-using lunar sightings-Chodesh- from :Chadash” New- New Moon, Aviv –
first month[4]
·
Ethanim – seventh month[6] and
Months , like days, have numbers, not names, as they are not
associated with the gods!
Rishon, sheni-. Roman- not Janus, not Mars.
Why no names to days of week- associated with the planets,
in turn, each planet , a god- Sun-day, Moon-day,Tuesday ( Ti) Wed(Wotan) Thurs(
Thor) Friday-Friga-Sat-Saturn.
Months- Roman- not Janus, not Mars.
Why the disconnect? Probably an early concept that God
creates time as well as space. Not only is space inside God, but time is also.
Time and space are relative. Beat Einstein by a long shot.
Psalms-
Psalm 90:4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night. י אֶ֪לֶף שָׁנִ֡ים בְּֽעֵינֶ֗יךָ כְּי֣וֹם
אֶ֭תְמוֹל כִּ֣י יַֽעֲבֹ֑ר וְאַשְׁמוּרָ֥ה בַלָּֽיְלָה׃
The “ ashmurah”_ night watch-a third of the night ,only!
Also, rejection of the power of heavenly forces that could
operate independently. “ Ain Mazal leYisrael”
אִיתְּמַר,
רַבִּי
חֲנִינָא אוֹמֵר:
מַזָּל מַחְכִּים, מַזָּל מַעֲשִׁיר, וְיֵשׁ מַזָּל לְיִשְׂרָאֵל.
רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן אָמַר: אֵין מַזָּל לְיִשְׂרָאֵל.
וְאַזְדָּא רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן לְטַעְמֵיהּ, דְּאָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: מִנַּיִין שֶׁאֵין מַזָּל לְיִשְׂרָאֵל?
שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר:
״כֹּה אָמַר ה׳ אֶל דֶּרֶךְ הַגּוֹיִם אַל תִּלְמָדוּ וּמֵאוֹתוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם אַל
תֵּחָתּוּ כִּי יֵחַתּוּ הַגּוֹיִם מֵהֵמָּה״ — הֵם יֵחַתּוּ, וְלֹא יִשְׂרָאֵל.
It was stated that Rabbi Ḥanina
says: A constellation makes one wise and a constellation makes one wealthy, and
there is a constellation for the Jewish people
that influences them. Rabbi Yoḥanan
said: There is no constellation for the Jewish
people that influences them. The Jewish
people are not subject to the influence of astrology. And Rabbi Yoḥanan follows his own
reasoning, as Rabbi Yoḥanan
said: From where is it derived that there is no constellation for the Jewish people? As it is stated: “Thus said the
Lord: Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of
heaven; for the nations are dismayed at them” (Jeremiah
10:2). The nations will be dismayed by them, but not the Jewish people.Talmud Shabbat 156 a
The basis for the calendar is then the month. Very
practical- travel at night- use as a guide.The phases of the moon make it easy
to track the days that pass. Psychological- it approximates a woman’s period.
Rosh Chodesh- a half day festival for women. Depends on witness sightings to
identify the first sliver for the New Moon/Month.
However, agriculture requires a different cycle- that of the
sun.The festivals are dated from the new moon, the 1st sliver-Rosh
Hashanah and Rosh Chodesh, but agricultural- the 15th-mid month,
full moon, but it Pesach must be spring harvest, Shavuot must be the conclusion
of that harvest time, sukkoth must be the fall harvest- these are solar events.
So we have cycles that need to be coordinated. - but also, solar, to match
seasons “tekufah.”
A moon-month- 28 , divide in half, 14 days, then half again,
quarter moon, 7 days, Shabbat. 7 becomes a basic cycle for everything-matches
the visible planetary objects-sun-moon-mercury, venus, mars ,Jupiter, Saturn,
It also includes a 7 day cycle, of the week-Shabbat, which
is repeated in the two anchor festivals of the year- Pesach and Sukkoth. Seven
months apart. Then, a 7 week cycle, Pesach to Shavuot. A 7 year cycle, Shmitah
year, a 7 Shmittah cycle, and a separate year- Yovel- Jubilee ( from trumpet
blast)-50 years total. Other uses of the 7 cycle-70 years ( Book of Daniel- 70
weeks- as a reference to 70 years- to deliverance.)
Sometime with the return from Babylonian captivity, we
accept the Mesopotamian names of months and cycle from Tishrei( tekufat
Hashanah), not Nisan( Aviv).same as we now accept Jan, Feb, etc
We now have multiple competing calendars among the children
of Israel.
Samaritans- student tour to Shechem- Gerizim, Samaritan
synagogue. They were all gathered, fasting- Yom Kippur, by their calculations,
about a month after ours.Indeed, their calendar cycle is very similar, but runs
one month behind.
Book of Jubilees-an “ external book”-( still preserved by
Ethiopian Jews) used a 364 Day Solar Year c 150 BCE.
From Prof Michael Segal-about the book of Jubilees:
Jubilees follows a
solar calendar of 364 days per year, to which it refers as a “complete year” (שנה תמימה):
“Now you command the Israelites to keep the years in this
number—364 days. Then the year will be complete and it will not disturb its
time from its days or from its festivals because everything will happen in
harmony with their testimony. They will neither omit a day nor disturb a
festival. (6:32)
A similar calendar has been discovered in some of the Dead
Sea scrolls from Qumran. A 364-day calendar is useful from the perspective that
the number of days in a year is divisible by 7 (52 weeks = 364 days.13 months of 28 days each). Every date in the
calendar is therefore anchored to a specific day of the week, and does not
change from year to year.
In late Second
Temple times (i.e., 1st century BCE to 70 CE), calendrical matters were
regulated by the Sanhedrin, or council of elders, at Jerusalem. The testimony
of two witnesses who had observed the new moon was ordinarily required to
proclaim a new month.
Start counting from Rosh Hashanah- but it is in first of
month-what if witnesses come late? Origin of 2 day Rosh Hashanah in Israel.
Once, Rosh Hashanah is declared, the other holidays are fine. All of the land
of Israel is maybe a fews day hike in any direction. However, how to announce
dates of the festivals to Babylonia-hundreds of miles away? Signal
flares-Masuot. Set by watchmen on a series of hilltops.
Mishna on Rosh Hashanah-
Initially, they would light torches on the mountaintops, from one peak to
another, to signal to the community in Babylonia that the month had been
sanctified. After the Samaritans [Kutim] corrupted and ruined
this method by lighting torches at the wrong times to confuse the Jews, the
Sages instituted that messengers should go out to the Diaspora and
inform them of the start of the month.
With that, the communities outside of Israel added one day to each Festival,
just in case the messengers would come late.Hence, inUS, 8 days Pesach, 2
day Shavuot, etc, but in Israel one 7, 1, etc.
Leap years were proclaimed by a council of three or more
rabbis with the approval of the nasi, or patriarch, of the Sanhedrin.
The problem of Pesach- leap year-is added the month before
Pesach, Adar. Adar I & Ii. depended at first on witness sightings of signs
of spring. What if the witnesses were blocked from appearing? Pesach and
Shavuot would be thrown off kilter.
What interference- fight between the eastern and western empires,
and the bishop of Rome vs Bishop of Constantinople. 2 different approaches to
calculating Easter- based on the start of Pesach. Both churches based
themselves on Easter being after Pesach. Eretz Yisrael-under Eastern Empire. If
Jewish court could not meet to announce Pesach, the other church could not know
when to start Easter!
Jewish persecution under the Roman emperor Constantius
II (reigned 337–361) and advances in astronomical science led to the
gradual replacement of observation by calculation.
Finally, Palestinian patriarch Hillel II introduced a fixed
and continuous calendar in 359 CE.
What is the result? This is for the mathematicians:
Leap years
The Jewish calendar is based on the Metonic
cycle (when the lunar year meets up with the solar year ) of 19
years, of which 12 are common (non-leap) years of 12 months and 7 are leap
years of 13 months. To determine whether a Jewish year is a leap year, one must
find its position in the 19-year Metonic cycle.
This position is calculated by dividing the Jewish year number
by 19 and finding the remainder. (Since
there is no year 0, a remainder of 0 indicates that the year is year 19 of the
cycle.) For example, the Jewish year 5783 divided by 19 results in a remainder
of 7, indicating that it is year 7 of the Metonic cycle.[h]
Years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 of the Metonic cycle are leap
years.
To assist in remembering this sequence, some people use the
mnemonic Hebrew word GUCHADZaT גוחאדז״ט,
where the Hebrew letters gimel-vav-het aleph-dalet-zayin-tet are
used as Hebrew
numerals equivalent to 3, 6, 8, 1, 4, 7, 9. The keviyah records
whether the year is leap or common: פ
for peshuta (פשוטה), meaning simple and
indicating a common year, and מ indicating a leap
year (me'uberet, מעוברת).[88]
Another memory aid notes that intervals of the major
scale 
follow the same pattern as do Jewish leap
years, with do corresponding to year 19 (or 0): a whole
step in the scale corresponds to two common years between
consecutive leap years, and a half step to
one common year between two leap years. This connection with the major scale is
more plain in the context of 19 equal temperament: counting the tonic as 0,
the notes of the major scale in 19 equal temperament are numbers 0 (or 19), 3,
6, 8, 11, 14, 17, the same numbers as the leap years in the Hebrew calendar.
A simple rule for determining whether a year is a leap year has
been given above. However, there is another rule which not only tells whether
the year is leap but also gives the fraction of a month by which the calendar
is behind the seasons, useful for agricultural purposes. To determine whether
year n of the calendar is a leap year, find the remainder on
dividing [(7 × n) + 1] by 19. If the remainder is 6
or less it is a leap year; if it is 7 or more it is not. For example, the
remainder on dividing [(7 × 5783) + 1] by 19 is 12, so the
year 5783 is not a leap year. The remainder on dividing
[(7 × 5784) + 1] by 19 is 0, so the year 5784 is a leap
year.[89] This
works because as there are seven leap years in nineteen years the difference
between the solar and lunar years increases by 7/19-month per year. When the
difference goes above 18/19-month this signifies a leap year, and the
difference is reduced by one month.
The Jewish Talmudic Calendar assumes that a month is uniformly
of the length of an average synodic month,(lunar) taken as exactly 2913753⁄25920 days (about 29.530594 days,
which is less than half a second from the modern scientific estimate); it also
assumes that a tropical
year is exactly 127⁄19 times
that, i.e., about 365.2468 days. Thus it overestimates the length of the tropical
year (365.2422 days) by 0.0046 days (about 7 minutes) per year,
or about one day in 216 years. This error is less than the Julian
years (365.2500 days) make (0.0078 days/year, or one day in 128
years), but much more than what the Gregorian years (365.2425 days/year) make
(0.0003 days/year, or one day in 3333 years).
In every 19 years, the solar and lunar calendars basically
synchronize, with only about 2 hours of difference.
Thus each 19 years is called a "small mahzor"
in the Jewish Talmudic calendar, which is equivalent to the Greek metonic
cycle, although they do not start on the same year. The year of
creation according to the Rabbinical Chronology (3761 BCE) is taken as year 1
in the first Small Mahzor. The Greek cycle begins from an arbitrary year,
usually from the beginning of the Common Era (Anno
Domini).
If every 13 Small Mahzor is called an Iggul, because 12 times 2
hours is a day, and 30 days are a month, then in less than 30 Igguls a whole
intercalary( ibbur) month should be removed.
The position of the years in a small Mahzor is called the golden number. The pattern of the leap
years change slightly in each Iggul, but the Jewish Talmudic
calendar fixed the leap
years in the year with golden numbers 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19.
If a Leap year marked
L, and the Following year F, and the other common year as O, then
|
Golden numbers |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
|
Year types |
F |
O |
L |
F |
O |
L |
F |
L |
F |
O |
L |
F |
O |
L |
F |
O |
L |
F |
L |
There are other Tweeks in the system: some months 30, some,
29. Which depends on what part of the cycle, because:
"לא אדו ראש
(ראש
השנה לא יחול
בימים א, ד, ו) לא)
לא בדו פסח" (פסח לא יחול בימים ב, ד, ו) "
1st Day Rosh hashanah cannot fall on Sunday,
Weds, or Friday,( and so Yom Kippur will never fall on Friday or Sunday (
can’t cook a proper meal to eat after
the fast on Friday, can’t prepare a good meal for before the fast, and Hoshanah Rabbah never on Shabbat , because you
can’t break the willows, and 1st Day Pesach never on Monday, Weds,
Friday, so that it is always the same number of days after Rosh H.
This is only the tip of the iceberg!
|
Year 5783 since the
creation of the world, |
|
·
This year has 355 days, ·
In 5783, Rosh Hashanah is on Monday, |
|
According to the Machzor Katan, the 19-year (Metonic) cycle used to keep the Hebrew calendar aligned
with the solar year: ·
This year is the 7th year of the 305th cycle. |
|
According to the Machzor Gadol, a 28-year solar
cycle used to calculate the
date to recite Birkat Hachama, a blessing on the sun: ·
This year is the 15th year of the 207th cycle. |
|
According to the current reckoning of sabbatical (shmita) years: ·
This year is the 1st year of the cycle. ·
It is a maaser sheni year. |
As a measure of global world events: The seven cycle on a
scale of world history:
It is taught in a baraita in accordance with the opinion of Rav Ketina: Just as the Sabbatical Year abrogates
debts once in seven years, so too, the world abrogates its typical existence
for one thousand years in every seven thousand years, as it is stated: “And the
Lord alone shall be exalted on that day
תנא
דבי אליהו
ששת אלפים שנה הוי עלמא שני אלפים
תוהו שני אלפים תורה שני אלפים ימות המשיח The school of Eliyahu taught: Six thousand years is the duration of
the world. Two thousand of the six thousand years are characterized by chaos;
two thousand years are characterized by Torah, from the era of the Patriarchs
until the end of the mishnaic period; and two thousand years are the period of
the coming of the Messiah.Talmud Sanhedrin 97 a
