[Avodah] Zayin Adar

[Zev Sero]

Saul Guberman wrote:
> See the 
> link below for detailed discussion (more than you ever wanted to know) 
> of Moshe's birth & death date calculation.  This also effects 
> celebrating Adar yahrzeits in general.
> 
> http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/tetzaveh/mrz.htm

>From that link:
    but regarding those who say on the twenty-first of Nisan, it is
    not clear, yet this is not an insurmountable problem, since that
    year was a leap year, and the greater part of the first month [Adar],
    plus the greater part of the last month [Sivan] and the entire
    month in between [Nisan] could be counted as totaling three months.

This is obviously a mistake, and should read: "the first month [Adar I],
plus the greater part of the last month [Nisan] and the entire month in
between [Adar II]".

                    ===========

Also from that link:
    Tradition has it that Moses was born in the year 2,369, counting
    from Creation.  If we extrapolate the fixed Jewish calendar back
    to the time of Moses, assuming the same calendar were in use then,
    we arrive at the fact that 2,369 was not a leap year [1].  The
    year in which Moses died, however, was 2,489, which by similar
    computations  [2] comes out to have been a leap year.   Therefore,
    according to the sources which we have cited, we can conclude
    that Moses died in Adar II.

The *traditional numbers* are not 2369 and 2489 but 2368 and 2488.
But those numbers are from the Seder Olam, which used a different
calendar than we do.  The question is how far off it was from ours.
The author of this piece assumes it was only one year off, and thus
comes up with the above cheshbon, seeming to disprove the opinion in
the medrash that Moshe was put in the River on Shevi'i Shel Pesach,
as well as to raise the question of in which Adar he passed away.

But it seems to me that the Seder Olam's calendar is in fact *two*
years behind ours.  We use a 1-origin calendar that starts nearly a
year before creation; the world was created on 25 Elul 1, and Adam
was created on 1 Tishri 2.  But the Seder Olam seems to use a
0-origin calendar that starts from Adam's creation.  In the SO's
calendar, Adam was created on 1 Tishri 0, and had he been alive at
Yetziat Mitzrayim he'd have been 2450 years old.  Therefore on our
calendar Moshe Rabbenu was born in 2370, which was a leap year,
and died in 2490, which wasn't.

(This assumes the anachronism of projecting our 19-year leap-year
cycle backwards, but since there was no kiddush hachodesh when Moshe
was born, that is the only way to get any sort of calendar.  For the
year of his death, when there was kiddush hachodesh, we must still
project our system backwards, but with caution; however, since the
non-tekufah reasons for declaring leap-years would have been irrelevant
in the midbar, ISTM that it's valid to assume the 19-year-cycle was
adhered to, unless there's evidence otherwise.)

                   =====================

More from that link:
    This view is more in line with our standard Jewish calendar,
    according to which the seventh of Adar never falls on the Sabbath,
    neither in a regular year, nor in Adar I or Adar II in a leap year.   

I don't see how this is relevant, since this is only so because we
deliberately manipulate the calendar, by means of the ADU dechiyah,
to make it so, and because our entire year depends on the keviut of
Tishri.  I see no reason to assume the ADU dechiya was used in the
midbar, and in any case its effect would have been completely gone
by Adar.  There is no calendar-related reason to assume 7 Adar that
year *couldn't* have been on a Shabbos; the reasons are those given,
that Moshe seems to have written on the day of his death, so it must
not have been Shabbos.

OTOH, calculating the molad of Adar 2490 by our current method
yields 4:23:01:16, which should give us Rosh Chodesh on Thursday,
and make the 7th a Wednesday.  Even adding a month for an out-of-
cycle leap-year yields a molad of 6:11:45:17, which should give us
a Friday Rosh Chodesh, and put the 7th on a Thursday.  But if we
go back a year to 2489, the molad of Adar II is 7:14:13:4.  By our
current rules, we would call this a Molad Zaken and declare Rosh
Chodesh on Sunday, which would put the 7th on Shabbos; but given
how early in the afternoon it is, it might not have been unreasonable
for Moshe Rabbenu's beth din to have declared Rosh Chodesh on Shabbos,
putting the 7th the next Friday.  This would explain the machlokes.
While for many reasons I still believe that the difference between
the SO's calendar and ours is 2 years, this would indicate that the
people who argued whether Moshe died on a Friday or a Shabbos assumed
the difference is only one year.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas