[Avodah] 15 Av

[Akiva Miller]

.
I had a question over Shabbos. When I researched it later, I found that I
had this same question 19 years ago, and I asked it in this very forum. At
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol06/v06n015.shtml#14 R' Joel Rich offered
an answer according to "The yesh mfarshim in tosfot", but I have not yet
heard an answer which would follow Rashi. In hopes that perhaps someone can
answer, I'll ask it again:

Near the bottom of Taanis 30b, Rashi tells the story that in the Midbar, on
each Erev Tisha B'Av, everyone would dig a grave for himself and sleep in
it that night. Most people woke up in the morning, but not all. (Other
seforim do the math: 600,000 were to die each of the 40 years, which comes
to 15,000 each Tisha B'av.) In Rashi's words:

"They did it in the 40th year, and the next day, everyone got up alive.
When they saw that, they were amazed, and they said, 'Perhaps we made a
mistake in calculating the month.' So they lay down in their graves on the
nights until the night of 15 Av. When they saw that the moon was full on
the 15th, and not one of them had died, they realized that the calculation
of the month had been correct, and that the 40 years of the gezera were
already complete. That generation established that day as a Yom Tov."

Here's my question: If someone says 'Perhaps we made a mistake in
calculating the month,' then that person is clearly rejecting the halacha
that a declaration of Rosh Chodesh is valid even if the "wrong" day was
declared. Even if the "wrong" day was declared to be Rosh Chodesh Av in
that particular year, there is absolutely no need to worry that any day
other than the ninth was the "real" Tisha B'av. I imagine that anyone who
*would* have had such feelings would have been guilty of apikorsus or
something similar.

And yet, it seems (according to Rashi) that the entire People did in fact
go back into their graves for several more nights. I have not heard that
Moshe Rabenu or anyone else objected to this, and I'm trying to figure out
why.

I did come up with one possible solution. I noticed that Rashi never used
the phrase "Kiddush Hachodesh". Rather, he used the phrase "cheshbon
[ha]chodesh", and (perhaps significantly) he used it *twice*. Is it
possible that the Beis Din did not declare any particular day to be Rosh
Chodesh of that month? I have always thought that the Beis Din declared
every single month, from Nisan 2448 until some time after Churban Bayis
Sheni, and this would obviously include the time in the Midbar. But if this
did not actually happen, and rather each individual "calculated" the month
on their own, then Rashi could make sense.

Any thoughts? Did we do Kiddush Hachodesh in the Midbar? Or do you have a
different explanation?

Thanks!
Akiva Miller

POSTSCRIPT: Some might want to respond that the story as told by Rashi is
only a mashal of some sort, and not intended as a historical record. This
was answered by R' Micha Berger on this thread at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol06/v06n015.shtml#12 where he wrote: <<<
mishalim need to be halachically sound. ... the medrash wouldn't have
coined a mashal that is kineged halachah. >>>
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