Did anyone ever know when it was 70 days before Pesach? (Was it always the 5th of Shevat?)
1.If the length of any month could be extended, depending on the sighting of the moon; and if even an extra month could be added to extend the year due to the factors enumerated in Sanhedrin11-12; how could anyone know that (the 5th of Shevat?) was 70 days before Pesach (the 15th of Nissan)?!
2. In Sanhedrin 11b.A leap year would be declared on 2 out of 3 grounds. The premature state of corn was 1 of the 3 .
Three different regions were taken as the standard and one of these was the South where the Omer came from.
Here also 2 of the 3 regions were necessary to be late, in order to declare a leap year.
But this means, that if the East and North were late (because the sun is not so strong there) they would then declare a leap year. And Pesach would end up being a month later!
And the barley would be a month old and no longer fresh.
So what date does 70 days before Pesach fall on?
Thanks for considering my questions.
Alex Lebovits
Alex, this is another interesting question. It seems that it must be that in fact one cannot know for certain in advance what date 70 days before Pesach falls on, but the Mishnah is merely giving us a directive according to the best state of our knowledge, when the 5th of Shevat arrives.
1. I thought at first that one could answer your question by saying that it is not really a Halachah that one must sow on the 5th of Shevat, but instead it is merely an "Eitzah Tovah" -- good agricultural advice. However, the Rambam (Hilchos Isurei ha'Mizbe'ach 7:4) does write that one should sow the wheat for the Menachos 70 days before Pesach. Since we know that the Rambam generally writes only laws which are binding Halachah and not merely good advice, it seems that this indeed is a Chiyuv. However, I think one must say that this is not Me'akev and the wheat would be Kosher for the Menachos even if it was sown at a slightly different time, as long as all the other Halachos concerning the wheat for the Menachos are fulfilled.
2. However, I did not find a source for what you implied, that the problem is that if the barley was sown too early it would no longer be fresh at the time of bringing the Omer. What appears from the Gemara is that the crucial stage is the beginning of the sowing, not the time of the reaping. What I mean is that the Gemara (85a) states that the reason why one sows 70 days before is "Kedei she'Tehei Semuchah l'Chamah" -- so that the sun should be strong at the time of sowing, which is beneficial for the growth of the produce. The Mishnah teaches that the advantage of sowing at this date is so that the produce will grow well and, consequently, will provide a lot of fine flour. Hence, if it transpires that an extra month is later added, as you write, the problem in retrospect will be that it must be that the sun was not strong enough at the time of sowing because in reality it was earlier in the solar year than we thought. Possibly the crop will be less plentiful than we were hoping but it will still be Kosher, unless we see other specific drawbacks.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom