[Avodah] Birkas haChama

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 04:12:05PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: Or if once a year is too frequent, why not do it whenever the March
: Equinox falls on a Wednesday? ...
: to anything that we can observe with our eyes or instruments, but at
: least we believe that they are objectively real in ruchniyut.  The
: Julian calendar was only ever a human invention.

1- Please stop insisting we used the Julian calendar. Most achronim
(RMMS excepted) that it would have been assur for chazal to use it --
violates "hachodesh hazeh lakhem".

Rather, Shemu'el happened to use the same 365-1/4 estimate that the
Romans did. It's a logical enough estimate. Common cause with the Julian
calendar, not ancestry from it.

2- Tequfas Shemu'el is simply an approximation to the nearest 5 digits
for computing the March Equinox. And birkhas hachamah IS when that
approximate date is on Wed. I'm missing why you insist that we either
figure out when it was to more digits precision, or there is no point
to the berakahah at all.

Or are you asking why we're told how to compute it rather than left to
whatever computation or obserrvation we had at our disposal. That would
mean that nowadays we would have a more accurate birkhas hachamah date,
but in the Middle Ages, Ashkenazim (whose neighbors went back to thinking
the world was flat and few of them had a mill capable of producing flour
for bread in their town) might have gotten it way off.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
micha at aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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