[Avodah] Some Interesting Remarks About Birchas HaChama

[Yitzchok Levine]

One of the people on my list sent me the comments at the end of this 
message to me. He is someone with an avid interest in and a good 
knowledge of astronomy.

When he sent me these comments, I asked him if I could send them out. 
He replied, "If you don't think this will cause some people who 
accept b'emuna p'shuta that the sun will be in the exact position 
that morning that it was at briyas haolom - and that they will feel 
their emuna challenged and damaged, then it is okay with me.  But 
please consider this issue carefully.  I sent you the note because I 
knew you could handle it.  It any event, please don't use my name, so 
I will not be attacked."

I am assuming that anyone on my list can handle the comments below 
without losing their faith. >:-}

The fact that he did not want his name attached to this out of a 
concern for being personally attacked says much too much about the 
environment in certain Orthodox circles. YL

"I think the 'early as possible' thing is because the actual correct 
time is supposed to be immediately after nightfall the day before, 
when the sun can't be seen.  So this is the first chance!   In any 
event, it can't be said at hanetz, because the full orb of the sun 
takes 3 minutes to rise!

It is worth noting that anyone who is familiar with the gemara 
discussion on this, and knows a drop of astronomy or celestial 
mechanics understands that the whole calculation is based upon the 
gross approximation that the year is 365.25 days long, which of 
course it is not, which is why this event is coming out on April 8 
instead of at the vernal equinox, tekufas Nisan - that slippage is 
equivalent to the slippage of Tal umatar from 60 days after the 
autumnal equinox (tekufas Tishrei) to December 5, which uses the same 
calculation.
Other issues emerge, because if it indeed would have come out at the 
equinox at the time of the gemara, then at briyas haolom, 
extrapolating back, it would come out somewhere in February, which 
makes no sense.

We thus see that the entire exercise is actually symbolic, because 
the reality differs with the facts of astronomy, as the chachomim who 
chose this calculation (rather than the more exact one which is used 
to keep Pesach in season, for example) certainly understood.  But if 
the more exact calculation were used, there would almost never be a 
time when the sun could be said to be at the same position as it was 
that first yom revii.  (See R'Bleich's discussion in the ArtScroll 
volume.)  The chachomim exercised this discretion to give us an 
opportunity to thank Hashem for the orderly continuance of the orbits 
of the celestial bodies (think of it as thanking Hashem for passing 
the law of conservation of angular momentum), which otherwise would 
not have been possible.

Possibly for the hamon am, the physical realities were not deemed of concern."

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