[Avodah] Birkas haChama

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 04:38:18PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: I have wondered about that.  The best I could come up with is that
: it's significant to "us", who use a 7-day week and the Julian calendar;
: the sun was created on Wed 26-Mar, in the year after a leap year, so
: every time that date comes around again it reminds us of the creation
: and we say a bracha.
: 
: But this is less than satisfactory for a number of reasons, including
: the big one - *we* *don't* use the Julian calendar any more...

IMHO, the question isn't the Julian calendar but tequfas Shemuel. IOW,
I don't think the fact that nachriim happened to use the same 365-1/4
days per year approximation as Shemuel did is relevent.

Shemu'el's tequfah gets that 1/4 of a day to drift through an even number
of weeks to get back to Wed in 28 years (4 * 7).

R' Ada'a tequfah would mean having another 19 yr cycle to multiple they
28 yr cycle by in order to have tequfos Nissan that are a whole number
of weeks apart.

Any tequfah would be only an estimate; the actual number of days per year
is an irrational number. (Like getting pi down exactly.) So, why not
pick an estimate that both makes the mitzvah rare enough to be special
without so rare people couldn't remember having done it before and the
mesorah would be lost?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Mussar is like oil put in water,
micha at aishdas.org        eventually it will rise to the top.
http://www.aishdas.org                    - Rabbi Israel Salanter
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