What Have Jews Done Lately?

The title of this post is a pun. By "lately" I don't mean "recently". I mean, "in a late fashion".

Regarding time, I grew up confused. My father's side of the family was Hungarian - notorious for being late. Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, and all affairs started late. People showed up late and kept others waiting for them. No apologies. It was expected to be late. My father would buy antique clocks and watches and sometimes fix them. I'm almost sure that he gave me a watch that ran backwards; just to make me late!

My mother's side of the family was Germanic. They were always early. Every clock in my grandmother's home was 10 minutes fast, because my grandmother always worried about being late. I lived in my granparents' home for most of the winter months, and only during that tuime did I come to my school classes early. My teachers thought that after about 3 months of being late, something finally sank in.

Well, if we look at the Judiac calendar, and follow its trend, it turns out that my father's side of teh family may have had the right habit. The Judiac calendar has always ran late, even before the fixed calendar was established around 4th Century CE. The reason why it was "late" is that Rosh Hodesh, the official start of the month could not occur exactly at the point of the New Moon, because the moon was not visible, then. Two witnesses first had to see the smallest crescent of the moon, whcih occured about 6 hours after conjunction. (More on that in a future article.) Then, they had to travel to Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court to testify. Sometimes, it took up to 2 days for witnesses to arrive.

The current fixed calendar carries over this problem. When you calculate the fact that the fixed calendar is based on a mean of the lunar cycle, and it is not exact, you will discover that each month has shifted significantly over the course of many millenia. The Rosh Hashanna postponement rules add further delay. The placement of leap years, which adds an extra month to the Judaic calendar every 2 or 3 years also cuases some delay.

All of this is discussed in this article. At the end, you will find several links to calendar tools and other web sites that further discuss the math involved in the calculations. Eventually, I will try to move these links to the hoime page of the blog so you can access them more easily.