[Avodah] The Molad of Tamuz

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Wed Jul 4 12:53:42 PDT 2018


On Wed, Jul 04, 2018 at 09:08:16PM +0300, Richard Fiedler wrote:
: I presume that you believe the start of the Hebrew Calendar was in
" Hebrew Year 4119, or 358/9 CE by a Hillel be R’ Yehuda.

: The primary source would be a responsum of R Hai Gaon cited by R’
: Avarham ben Hiyya.

I thought I saw it in the She'iltos.

But we know it happened when Abayei was alive, since he deels with
the first generation of chutznikim who didn't know whether to keep 2
days. Hillel II was nasi during Abayei's last years. It fits the gemara.
But I was vague because if it wasn't Hillel II, it could habe been
someone earlier in Abayei's lifetime.

In any case. you seem to be ignoring the fact that the lunation is both
a chatoic system (as it's a 3 body problem) that has a strange attractor
for which we can only give a mean and approximations, and that the mean
is lengthening as the centuries go by.

The molad is a constant, but it is a progressively worse approximation
every century since Hillel II -- or Abayei. And every century you work
earlier from the 4th cent.

: One would think if I was starting a new calendar system, supplanting
: the use of witnesses, that I would have started it Mon, September 22,
: 358 with O hours and 0 chalakim.

: Zero hours and zero chalakim occurred July 16, 791 BCE. The worldview
: of the majority of the traditional Jewish world – the view expressed by
: Artscroll and in the web pages of Chabad and Aish HaTorah – puts King
: Solomon’s year of passing at 796 BCE. Shortly thereafter, the Kingdom
: of Israel in the North, and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem)
: in the South, split.

Rabbeinu Chananel says al pi re'iyah was always pro-forma, just part of
the maaseh mitzvah, and the date was always computed.

But if bayis rishon were /our/ calendar, there would be no sefeiqa deyoma
as Adar (or Adar II) and Elul are always 29 days, And there would be no
discussion of the possible dates of Shavuos, and Megillah 1:1 would be
shorter, as Purim could only fall out on Sun, Tue, Thu or Fri.

I don't udnderstand your second paragraph anyway, because I thought we
use Molad Tohu. Do you mean the first molad that happened to be at
0:00 and 0 chalaqim?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Problems are not stop signs,
micha at aishdas.org        they are guidelines.
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