[Avodah] rare pesach

[Simon Montagu]

On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:35 PM, kennethgmiller at juno.com <
kennethgmiller at juno.com> wrote:

> R' Saul Newman asked:
> > it there are 3  different simanim out of 14 possible year
> > combinations  that  sunday pesach can fall on [ 1 meubar, 2
> > pshutim], why  is the frequency so rare?  what dchiah causes
> > these combinations to be rare?
>
> R' Simon Montagu answered:
> > All other things being equal, you would expect Pesah to be
> > on any day of the week one year in 7, and it's on Sunday
> > about 1 year in 9 on average, so it's not really so rare,
> > it just seems that way because other days are more common.
>
> Perfect answer, except for the "1 in 9" part, which will vary wildly
> depending on which years one is looking at. Looking at the years 2001-09,
> the ratio is 1 in 3; for 2010-24 it is only 1 in 15; for 2001-49 it is the
> expected 1 in 7.
>

Yes indeed, but I was taking the long view :) The fixed calendar recurs on a
cycle of 689472 years, and within this cycle Pesah is on Sunday in 75657
years.

I don't know if there's any simple answer to the question why the frequency
varies so much in the short term.

Hodesh Tov!
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