Ask the Rabbi September 2024
Rabbi Carla Freedman
September 2024 Question Why are the High Holy Days so late this year?
September 2024 Answer It is actually quite complicated, but the issue at the heart of this matter is the fact that the Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, going back to antiquity. The essential element in the Jewish calendar is the cycles of the moon (the English word “month” is derived from this concept: it takes a “month” for the moon to go through all four phases, and then start again).
In antiquity, the priests in the Temple in Jerusalem were responsible for notifying the Jewish world when a new month began; they had spotters watching for that moment when the moon began a new cycle, and they would communicate this from the Temple to the next community by lighting a fire that would be visible in the next town over. These folks in turn would send the information by fire to the next town, and so the word was spread.
By the year 1178, visual sightings were replaced by mathematical calculations.
The problem is that a year based entirely on the cycles of the moon will have 354 days, and the solar year, which is based upon the Earth’s rotation of the sun, has 365 days.
An additional element to be factored into the calculations of the Jewish year is the fact that the Torah designates Passover as occurring in the month when spring arrives. So, the sages worked out a system whereby the Jewish calendar is brought into alignment with the solar year, by the addition of a whole month seven times in a cycle of 19 years.
There are other factors which must be taken into consideration, like the fact that some months are longer than 28 days, so that there is some deliberate flexibility built into the calendar. And then there is the matter that our sages decided that Yom Kippur cannot fall on either Friday or Sunday (because of the need to prepare food for Shabbat and not to cook on Shabbat). So, using that flexibility, the rabbis created a calendar that is actually very complicated, and at the same time manageable.
Fortunately for us, the Jewish calendar can be printed and made useable just as the secular calendar is.But that’s the answer to your question. (And it follows that if the High Holy Days are late this year, so will all the subsequent occasions on our calendar, until we get to Pesach, and then things revert to a more “normal” schedule).
Please send your questions directly to me at:
cfsuncitycenter@gmail.com