Magid Harakia What is this?
Jim Ingle, Eldon, USA
The Hebrew words "Magid ha'Raki'a" mean, "the sky (ha'Raki'a) tells (Magid)". These two words are part of the verse in Psalms (19:2) which says, "The heavens speak of the glory of G-d, and the sky tells about His handiwork." The meaning of the verse (and the rest of that paragraph of Psalms) is that by looking at the marvelous workings of the natural world, we can come to a recognition of its Creator.
Y. Shaw
D.A.F.
Jerusalem, Israel
Thank you Mr. Shaw for your very quick response and informative answer concerning "Magid haRakia".
There is a reason I wanted to know this info. Trying to settle an argument concerning the New Moon. The Karaite's make an argument that the present day Jewish calendar is wrong by counting the New Moon by conjunction rather than seeing the Crescent Moon.
Could you respond to their comment which follows from their Calendar. If the words are nothing more than meanings as you indicated in your response, what are they saying in regard to page 35. Do you have a copy of that in English?
From the Karaite writings:?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /
The decree of establishing the Rosh Hodesh on the basis of calculations which are unconnected to the appearance of the moon was enacted by the Rabbanite, Hillel the Elder. The method was guarded as a secret to keep the people from knowing about the change and therefore was called by our brothers the Rabbinites "The Secret of Intercalation" (this is testified to in many Rabbinite works, for example "Magid Harakia`" p.35).
Shalom,
Jim Ingle
Mr. Ingle,
I apologize for misunderstanding your inquiry. "Magid ha'Raki'a" in your context is the name of a book (the author took the name as a pun from the verse I quoted in Psalms). I was not aware that you were asking about the name of a book, as it is unusual to receive an inquiry about an esoteric Hebrew work such as that. There is no English translation, and we do not have the book to look in it for you. It is quite suspect, though, when a source brings proof from "many Rabbinite works" and fails to quote more than a single one, and even that it fails to quote verbatim but rather makes merely an ambiguous reference).
To respond to your inquiry, the Karaites are plainly incorrect. The Rambam (Maimonides, the Laws of the Sanctification of the New Moon, chapter 5, law 1) and other sources state clearly that the calculation of the new month, and not necessarily establishing it based on the siting of the new moon, is an accepted tradition given at Sinai. The calculation, however, indeed is connected to the new moon; it averages the appearance of the moon and thus does not exactly coincide with the actual appearance.
Second, it does not need to coincide, because the law gives the sanctification of the new moon into the hands of the courts (see Exodus 12:2, Leviticus 23:4, Tractate Rosh Hashanah 25a). (This concept is reflected in the blessings said on the festivals, the dates of which depend on the start of the new month, in which we conclude "Mekadesh Yisrael v'ha'Zemanmim," putting Yisrael (Israel) first, since the sanctity of the festival is dependant upon Israel (i.e. the Beis Din, the Jewish court) sanctifying the day of the new month. In contrast, the blessing on a festival which falls on the Sabbath is "Mekadesh ha'Shabbos v'Yisrael v'ha'Zemanim," placing the Sabbath first, because Sabbath is not dependant upon Israel's sanctification of any day; Sabbath is inherently the seventh day of every week. See Beitzah 17a.)
The calculation was not kept a secret by any means. The calculation is called "Sod ha'Ibur," "The Secret of Intercalation," merely because of its relative complexity. The Sages were never able, and thus never even tried, to keep secrets from the Jewish people, because the nature of the Jewish faith demands rigorous study at every level of society. The masses of Jews were always highly educated in terms of Judaic law (in contradistinction to the masses of almost all other faiths, for whom it was possible to keep things secret), and thus to keep such a significant fact a secret from the masses would have been simply impossible. The "Secret of Intercalation" was accessible to anyone who wanted to work on understanding it, and it was that way from the time that it was instituted to establish the new month based on the calculation.
All the best,
Y. Shaw
D.A.F.
Jerusalem, Isarel
Dear Mr. Shaw,
Again thank you for your last response. Believe I understand what you are saying in response to Jewish law. I am not arguing with you or anyone, but only seeking to find out some answers. I underlined your response. In other words, it does not matter that the moon, is in conjunction or crescent as long as it is sanctified by the court (Sanhedrin.) It appears that during the second temple period, the method used was seeing the crescent moon. But, it also appears that during the time of Hillel the Elder, it was changed to the calculation of the Conjunction.
(Jewish Encyclopedia)?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /
Under the patriarchate of Rabbi Judah I. surnamed "the Holy" (163-193), the Samaritians, in order to confuse the Jews, set up fire-signals at improper times, and thus caused the Jews to fall into error with regard to the day of the new moon. Rabbi Judah accordingly abolished the fire-signals and employed messengers. The inhabitants of countries who could not be reached by messengers before the feast were accordingly in doubt, and used to celebrate two days of the holidays. By this time the fixing of the new moon according to the testimony of witness seems to have lost its importance, and astronomical calculations were in the main relied upon.-
Seems that others during the time of the second temple also did calculate to the crescent.
I know of no basis or source for the last sentence in the paragraph above quoted from the Jewish Encyclopedia. By the time of Rabbi Judah, the new month was still based upon the testimony of witnesses. The fact that far-away communities observed two days of the holidays indicates that they did not base the new month on calculations, for otherwise what doubt would they have had that they needed to observe two days? It is clear that the far-away communities did receive messengers, but late, after the holidays had passed. Therefore, they determined when to observe the festivals based on the messengers that arrived from the previous month. They therefore always knew when the previous month began, but were in doubt whether that month lasted for 29 days or 30 days, and they accordingly observed two days of the holiday out of doubt.
But, it is Hillel the Elder that the Karaite's object to. They have in their calendar the phrase "possibility of sighting". By these words, it seems their objection to Hillel the Elder is he calculated the conjunction rather than the crescent.
From Yoma 9
During this period, Hillel was succeeded by his son Shimon, elevated to title of Nasi of the Sanhedrin. He was succeeded by Raban Gamliel I, a descendant of King David.
Hillel's disciple Yonatan ben Uziel, makes an Aramaic translation of the biblical books of the prophets.
There were two Hillels. The one who established the calendar based on calculation was the great-great-great-grandson of Rabbi Judah, and not the earlier Hillel that you mention, who lived six generations before Rabbi Judah! The Hillel who established the calendar lived much later (circa 350 C.E.), in Talmudic times, not in times of the Mishnah.
The Sanhedrin issues religious policies for all imperial Jews. Comprising Jews from the whole region, this 71-person body included an influential Pharisee contingent. Regulated Temple matters and fixed the calendar.
It appears it would be hard to fix the calendar without calculating the New Moons.
Your quote is not coming from any classical, original Hebrew legal source, and thus we cannot make any inference from the wording. Whoever wrote that paragraph might not have been well-informed (as is likely the case, as the Jewish Encyclopedia was not written by experienced Talmudists and experts in Jewish law). Moreover, included in the responsibility of the Sanhedrin were other calendar-related matters, such as making the year a leap-year when seasonal indications necessitated it.
Finally my question:
Do you believe or have documents that prove Hillel the Elder, Shimon and Gamliel I calculated by using the Conjunction, or Crescent? History seems to indicate it was the conjunction rather than the crescent.
Jim Ingle, Eldon, USA
Again, these sages that you mention -- Hillel, Rabbis Shimon and Gamliel I -- lived long before the calendar was established by the second Hillel based on calculation.
We do have indications that it was actually the crescent that was calculated, and not conjunction. Conjuction is impossible to observe (although possible to calculate). The new month, simply-speaking, depends upon the first observable moment after conjunction. The point of both the calculation and the testimony of witnesses was to determine when that moment occurred. (Either way, the calculation is an average, and thus it may come out earlier or later than actual crescent, and perhaps this is what bothered the Karaites.)
Y. Shaw