Dear Members and Friends of Congregation Beth Sholom:

 

If you ever come to one of my Shabbat Time Machine services, you will see a teaching moment I offer every Sunday. I have this calendar out, the one you see next to me, and I ask the children of our Religious school, what Jewish month is it. I do this for a lot of reasons, I want our Jewish youngsters to understand that us Jews demarcate time differently. That the Jewish schedule is not the same as their daily schedules. That when they come to the synagogue, they are now experiencing Jewish time. I also want them to understand, that the months they experience at home and school are not the only way to experience a calendar year. And that the moon plays a huge role in the Jewish calendar much like the sun plays a huge role in their daily calendar. It’s a big deal to me if our Jewish youngsters understand even a little of our Jewish calendar.

         Anyways, I bring this up because nestled in the epic tale of our exodus story is an unassuming verse that goes like this, “This month is unto you the beginning months; it is to you the first months of the year.” This passage goes on to describe how the Israelites need to prepare for the angel of death on particular days of this first month. This verse is the introduction of what will become the complex Jewish calendar system. But, it’s not complex yet, in fact at this very moment it would seem that these ancient Israelite worshipers know nothing of the Jewish calendar. And to be frank the Torah doesn’t give us that much information.

         Here’s what we do know. This first month, is later referred to as Aviv. But of the 12 to 13 assumed months that existed for the ancient Israelites we only have names for four of them, Aviv for the first month, Zev for the second month, Ethanim for the seventh month, and Bul for the eighth month. If you know the names of the Jewish months and you don’t recognize these names, that’s because we don’t use these names for our Jewish calendar.

         I believe it was Picasso who said, “good artists borrow, and great artists steal.” That’s exactly what happened to our calendar. We stole our calendar from the Babylonians. Though I don’t think it’s so strange that our tradition chose to ignore the incomplete Hebrew calendar in exchange for a complete Babylonian calendar. What blows my mind, is that Babylon is ancient civilization with limited modern influence and yet its calendar is perfectly preserved and used to this day, thanks to Judaism. You’re welcome Babylon! We wish you hadn’t destroyed our Temple.

         Anyways another thing that we know is that the oldest document that mentions the Jewish calendar is called the Passover Papyrus discovered in Elephantine, Egypt. It’s dated to 419 BCE which places it roughly a hundred years after the start of the Second Temple Period. Which of course makes sense because this is after the Babylonian Exile. However, Judaism being the contrarian religion that is, has a big argument over whether Ancient Israelites were using a Solar or Lunar Calendar.

         It turns out our Torah is not terribly specific concerning the type of celestial bodies the calendar was based off. We assume that since the Babylonians used a lunar calendar, so did the Ancient Israelites. But that assumption could be wrong. In the book of Jubilees, which is not canonized, but part of a Jewish work called the pseudepigrapha, it’s an aggressively pro solar calendar book. Even criticizing the lunar calendar for being short by 11 days each year. Another example is the community who authored the Dead Sea Scrolls, often referred to as the community of Qumran, (or the Essenes depending on how much you like to argue) also did not follow a lunar calendar. But they didn’t follow a solar calendar as well. Their holidays fell on a 364 day schematic calendar. That community at Qumran sure did things their own way.

         Anyways long story short, Judaism has a sophisticated and modern calendar. One that works surprisingly well for being based from the moon. It’s able to be lunar while continuing to have holidays in their appropriate season, this was done by adding a leap month seven times over the course of a 19 year cycle, called Adar II. Who knows what Adonai was picturing, when God offered the first semblance of a Calendar to the Ancient Israelites. But developing our own calendar has been a journey all in itself.

 

 

Rabbi Abram Goodstein

Congregation Beth Sholom

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