[Avodah] Ta'am of eating matzah

[Michael Makovi]

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 10:20 PM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Tue, May 6, 2008 7:14 am, R Michael Makovi wrote:
>  : Guilty as charged - paraphrase. I'll have to check my Sefer Ha-Aggadah
>
> : again for where that Tanchuma is, but the gist is the same, whatever
>  : it says. G-d kept the calendar for a while, but handed the buck off to
>  : us.
>
>  Except that the calendar is the most clear case of halakhah being as
>  we decide it rather than as someone might objectively determine a
>  truth. Meqadeish Yisrael vehazmanim -- the qedushah of the zemanim is
>  DERIVED from our being maqdish them. Similarly, the diyuq halashon in
>  "hachodesh hazah LAKHEM" -- we decide and define (not discover) the
>  chodoshim.
>
> ...
>
>  So I'm not clear exactly what meaning the words "our calendar" have
>  without a beis din hagadol defining it.
>
>  SheTir'u baTov!
>  -micha

I suppose we could say the general method of going by the new moon,
and then reconciling it with the solar calendar according to a certain
method. The only question remaining is, is a given month 29 or 30 days
long, and which particular years are leap years (which doesn't matter,
AFAIK, as long as you have enough leap years in a given number of
years). But the general method would remain.

Of course, we'd still have the question of how G-d would decide
whether a certain month is 29 or 30 days long, and whether a given
year is leap or not - being omniscient, He can't exactly use His
imperfect intellect to judge the situation as best He can, or however
it is one wants to define "elu v'elu". On the other hand, perhaps He
could simply use a certain strict mathematical formula, as we do
today.

But what if we follow Rambam, that Chazal were using Greek astronomy?
What would Midrash Tanchuma mean, that G-d followed our calendar, if
Greek astronomy didn't exist yet?

Mikha'el Makovi