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The Jewish Calendar Explained

[from private email]

Subject: The Jewish  Calendar Explained
------------------------

The Jewish calendar is essentially composed of three units that depend 
on a heavenly body for proper calculation. The month is dependent upon 
cycles of the moon, and the day and the year are dependent upon cycles 
of the sun.  For the purposes of  our discussion, we will focus on the 
"month" and the "year." ( The following discussion is oversimplified 
for clarity's sake.)

The Jewish nation was instructed to bless and sanctify each new month. 
The month is the period of time it takes for the moon to complete a 
revolution around the earth. On the average, this takes 29.5 days. As 
we only have complete days in a month,  some months contain 29 days, 
and other contain 30.

As mentioned above, a year is a solar dependent unit of time. It is the
period of time it takes the sun to go through a complete cycle of the 
Zodiac or the time it takes for the sun to repeat the  same point in 
its orbit. A solar month is really just 1/12th of this period of time. 
A solar month has in it of itself has no specific tie to any cycle of 
any celestial body.

Why do we maintain two different systems of time calculation?

If we were to calculate a year by equating it to 12 lunar months, 
we would be faced with a problem.  The period of 12 lunar months is 
shorter than the period of 12 solar months. We know that the seasons 

of the year are dependent on the position of the sun in relation to 
the earth.  Hence, seasons are also dependent on the sun. As 
mentioned in post # 52, each holiday has to be in a specific season.
Holidays occur on a specific date of a lunar month each year.  If we
were to ignore the solar calendar and base our years solely on the
lunar calendar, after a number of years, the holidays would start
moving out of their proper seasons.  There is therefore a need to
keep our months (the lunar unit) and years ( the solar unit) in sync, 
so that the holidays (which are lunar dependent) will fall out in 
the proper season of the year (which is solar dependent).

How do we accomplish this? The Jewish calendar has an established 
system of "leap years." In a leap year, the Jewish year is composed 
of 13 (lunar) months instead of 12. This way, the difference between 
a year (12 solar "months') and 12 lunar months is equalized, and the 
holidays will fall out in their proper seasons. This factor is what 
differs the Jewish calendar from other calendar systems in use. The 
secular (Roman) calendar that we use is totally solar-based. A month 
in the secular calendar, as we said above, is 1/12 of the solar 
cycle, and has no connection to the lunar cycle. The Moslem calendar 
takes the opposite approach. A month is connected with a cycle of
the moon. However, no attempt is made to reconcile the lunar cycles 
with the solar year. Therefore, the year is shorter than a solar 
year, and the months have no connection to seasons.

In summary: By definition,  there are two distinct units of time 
which are not dependent on each other: a year, and a month. A year 
is a unit of time measured by a cycle of the sun, and a month is a 
unit of time measured by a cycle of the moon. In the Jewish calendar, 
we have to reconcile both methods of calculation because we were 
commanded to sanctify the lunar months, and we were also commanded to 
celebrate each of the holidays is its appropriate season. In order to 
accomplish that, we have leap years which contain 13 lunar months 
instead of 12, to make up the difference of days between a solar 
year and 12 lunar months.

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