[Avodah] Some Interesting Remarks About Birchas HaChama

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 04:35:21PM -0400, Yitzchok Levine wrote:
: 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.

How is astronomy relevent?

The even being commemorated, is the first sunrise after the tequfah
occuring during the begining of the rule of Shabetai (Saturn) on or
layom revi'i. That hour has no astronomical meaning, it's when the planet
happens to be in force with no regard to where it or anything else is.

So why are we assuming the tequfah is an astronomical season? Perhaps in
addition to the tropical year and the sidereal year, there is a totally
distinct astrological year.

This would explain the minhag of not drinking water during the 1st hour
of each of the 4 tequfos, unless someone placed iron in it. It's in the
BY OC, after 455 besheim the Mordechai, and in the Rama YD 116:5. It
fits the notion that we are clocking a metaphysical cycle.

In fact, this would give us an explanation to the masqanah of the gemara
on Berakhos 12a. It would only work according to the Ramban (Bereishis
5:8) which says we assume creation was in Tishrei. Not Rabbeinu Tam.
We count physical phenomena from the start of the physical year. And
we therefore switched for it to the closer estimate of tequfas R'
Adda. Although it doesn't explain why we start with a molad 1 yr early.
We count metaphysical phenomena from Nissan, which is the more spiritual
new year. And this cycle of astrological tequfos doesn't get more exact.

So (in addition to my earlier post about my belief that a Nissan
creation implies the sun started its trip at noon), it is consistent to
say that the whole thing is being treated as a pedagogic opportunity,
a commemoration of a hypothetical.

And therefore the driving issue was making an event rare enough to
become a big deal (unlike thunder or seeing the ocean or a desert) and
yet frequent enough for most people to do it more than once, and that
it be transmittable mimetically.

After all, the berakhah is acknowleding Hashem's constant creation of
the universe, and doesn't even mention the sun.

LAD, this whole description everyone is gfiving to the occasion for
making the berakhah isn't the right mindset. Being moderns, in this
technologically oriented age, they're trying to brag about scientific
precisision when in reality it's about using a mythical approach to
history (in the sense of caring about message, rather than caring whether
or not it really happened) to come up with an excuse to remember that
G-d created the sun.

And all the circumlocutions (never mind the ones that go overboard and
use the words "exactly the same place" ukhedomeh) just make more problems
for the nevuchim than they resolve. As RYL's correspondent noted.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's never too late
micha at aishdas.org        to become the person
http://www.aishdas.org   you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507      		- George Elliot