[Avodah] Ta'am of eating matzah

[Michael Makovi]

>  I am struck by a different question, however, related to this issue.  We
>  are told that Avraham baked matzos on Pesach.  In the above inyan we see
>  that matzah is connected to leil seder.  So who set the calendar before
>  the mitzvah was given in Parshas Bo?
>  R' Daniel M. Israel

Midrash Tanchuma says that it is like a father who wound a clock
everyday, and then gave it to his son to wind. G-d kept the calendar,
and then gave it to us to wind.

Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer says that Adam was taught the calendar, who
gave it to Shet, who gave it to...all the way down to Avraham and Bnei
Yisrael. Sounds rather Kuzari-ish, IMO.

I agree with R' Israel that it's a good question - if we say that the
world was created on Rosh Hashana, and that various other events
happened on other pre-Exodus dates, it presumes a calendrical
continuity between pre-Exodus and post-Exodus. Therefore, these
midrashim suggest that either a core group of people kept the
calendar, or that G-d privately kept his calendar. R' Micha too
suggests the Jewish calendar was always kept, and I'd opine that
perhaps it was kept not by a small core group (as per Pirkei d'Rabbi
Eliezer), but rather maybe by society in general even:

> The calendar is mentioned in Chumash as early as Parshas Noach (Bereishis 7:11, 8:4,
> among other places).  Thus, the question (at least in my mind) is not where did the calendar > come from, but rather, what is the chiddush of HaChodesh Hazeh Lachem?
> R' Micha Berger

I believe Ramban says it could have been a solar calendar that was
being referred to. Even if we say that it was a lunar calendar,
perhaps G-d, in that tzivoy, fixed certain astronomical practices that
were common minhag but weren't set as actual law and were subject to
some leeway previously? (I am supposing that perhaps the Jewish
calendar is the same, or almost the same, as some other Eastern
calendar of antiquity, and that there is nothing so remarkable in our
calendar. If our calendar IS remarkable, then our question disappears,
for the significance of the tzivoy would largely be the uniqueness of
our calendar.) Or perhaps our calendar was *exactly* the same as the
ancient gentile one, except their first month wasn't Nissan. Or
perhaps it was a formality, with G-d formally (ceremoniously, so to
speak) handing down authority over the calendar to us, to fix our
holidays; without His command, we'd still be fixing the same calendar
with the same laws and procedures, but now, it was formally commanded,
and became a mitzvah and not a mere stam thing we do because we choose
to.

Mikha'el Makovi