[Avodah] Molad Alert: Friday night

[David Cohen]

R' Micha Berger wrote:
> After meeting up here, RYGB and RYZ collaborated on a paper on the
> subject of R' Saadia Gaon's calendar controversy for JO a"h. One of the
> more central points of the controversy was whether the Gaon had authority
> as the globally accepted gadol hador, or whether R' Aharon ben Meir had
> priority as he led the qehillah within EY. That sounds like it could be
> what RET is talking about.

I figured that RET was probably referring to the machalokes between the
Rambam (today's chachmei EY) and the Ramban (advance kiddush hachodesh by
beis din of Hillel II) about what gives the force to our calendar today.

But since RMB brought up the dispute between R' Saadya Gaon and R' Aharon
ben Meir:

RAZ and RYGB had a very creative suggestion as to the origin of RAbM's
position, which you can see in the article to which RMB linked.  A different
suggestion was given in an article in Tradition about 5 years ago, in which
the authors suggested that RAbM's motivation was to account for the
"slippage" of the molad that is being discussed on this thread.  A third
hypothesis is proposed by R' Remy Landau at
http://hebrewcalendar.tripod.com/overposo.html.

But I am convinced that the correct explanation is the one given by R'
Rahamim Sar-Shalom in his book on the Jewish calendar.  Perhaps I'll explain
it in greater detail when I have access to the book for reference, but in a
nutshell the suggestion is that RAbM's position is a consequence of
calculating the molad by working forward from a "first molad" that took
place in Nissan, rather than in Tishrei.  So it really all goes back to R'
Eliezer vs. R' Yehoshua.  I am convinced that this explanation is correct
because it is the only explanation that accounts for the *exact number of
chalakim* (642) by which RAbM wanted to adjust the cutoff for molad zakein.

-- D.C.
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