[Avodah] Birkat Hachama

[Motti Yarchinai]

Hi all, I'm new here, so I'll introduce myself first. I live in 
Australia and I just joined Avodah today.

My immediate motivation for joining (let me not be shy about 
admitting this) is to generate some interest in, and discussion of an 
article I recently wrote. Last night I trawled through the Avodah 
archives, to see what others before me have written on Birkat Hachama 
(or Bircat, Birchat, Birkhat, Birchas; something needs to be done 
about this), and I think my article answers pretty much all of the 
questions that have been posed here about it and then some. Most of 
what I have written is neither original nor novel, it's just the 
product of much reading, thinking and computation about the subject. 
It is NOT a halachic treatise, just a thorough, cohesive and rational 
explanation of the system as it is practiced today and how it came 
about.

It does contain one explanation that IS original and novel though: 
The last part (section 7) of the article presents a theory as to the 
process by which its permanent date was originally set. It fully 
accounts for an anomaly that is otherwise inexplicable.

The whole article, and that theory in particular, needs peer review. 
But in my cursory explorations of the web over the last few days, it 
seems to me that this is a subject on which ignorance abounds and on 
which there is a paucity of discussion that is both informed and 
intelligent. So, apart from putting my article up on the net, I also 
created a discussion forum on Yahoo Groups for discussion and debate 
regarding the article and about the workings of the Jewish calendar 
in general.

My article, entitled "Myths and Maths of the Blessing of the Sun", is 
available at: http://www.geocities.com/calendar.luchot

It is available there in two versions - the full article and a 
heavily abridged, digest version. Discussion should focus on the 
former, but the latter is worthwhile reading as well. It is written 
in a style (and length) suitable for an article in a Jewish newspaper 
or shul newsletter, and presents a good overview of the subject 
suitable even for the non-technically minded.

I would like to pose one question about the subject that I am still 
looking for an answer to, and have been ever since I finished writing 
it. I would like to know if anyone knows of a source (other than 
Berachot 59b) for the tradition that the Sun was created at zero 
hours on a Wednesday. Not the Wednesday bit -- that is obvious, but 
the zero hours.

I believe that Abbaye's statement cannot be a "foundation" source for 
this, because it sets up a circular argument: He says that we wait 28 
years for the tekufah (Shmuelian, nominal March equinox) to re-occur 
on a Wed at zero hours, which is popularly understood as implying 
that the Sun was created at exactly that time of week. Then, when we 
ask, "how do we know this?" (the zero hours part), the best answer we 
can come up with is we know it because Abbaye said it? Most 
unsatisfactory, I think -- also for the reasons I gave here:

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/AID/867456/ShowFeedback/true

(look at the posts of 2009, April 20.)

(Note: it is not absolutely necessary to assume that the Sun was 
created at zero hours; it could just as easily be that we wait for 
zero hours because it is significant in some other way, such as 
suggested in my article, though admittedly that is a weak point in 
the article. The suggestions I gave there are, I think, a little 
feeble.

Motti.Yarchinai (at) (Ya-who?) (dot) com (dot) au