Three times a day, with the 11th bracha of the Amida (the 8th of the 13 brachot of request), we plead with G-d, the One Who loves Justice, for Him to restore the Sanhedrin “as of old”... Let us take an excursion into one aspect of the temporarily hypothetical situation that will hopefully become a reality speedily in our time. Picture this: Israel Center Shabbaton and tiyul to Tzfat. It is Friday evening, May 2nd, ‘03, Mincha and Kabalat Shabbat are done and after a five-minute Dvar Torah we will be davening Maariv. You must include in this picture that we already have a Sanhedrin, alive and well in Yerushalayim. Further, that Friday is the 29th of Nissan (not the 30th as it actually is). This would be possible in the time of Sanhedrin. You decide to sneak out of the shul for
five minutes of fresh air, rather than listening to the Dvar Torah. It is
beautiful weather, you take a couple of exhilarating deep breaths and you
look toward the western horizon where the sun has recently set. The sky is
just changing from pink to purple. You notice Venus, the bright evening star
(which, of course is a planet, not a star). And you notice something else. A
very thin, slightly curved, dim line And a few minutes later, it’s gone. You go back into shul just in time for BORCHU, and after Maariv - this is what you do. You get into a car and drive to Yerushalayim in order to testify before the committee of judges from Sanhedrin as to what you saw. No car - you’re on a tiyul. No problem - one of the locals will drive you. Are we talking about Friday night? Yes we
are. According to Torah Law, witnesses to the first visibility of the Moon
can “violate” Shabbat for ALL months. By rabbinic decree, the permission was
restricted to months “that Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the committee of members of the Sanhedrin in charge of Kiddush HaChodesh, has in its possession, a computer printout with all pertinent infor- mation concerning the Moon: will it be visible? How high above the horizon? To which side of the recently set Sun? How thick a line of light will be seen? What angle will the first crescent make? All these details are able to be calculated with high precision. And this is not based on new, modern knowledge; the necessary calcula- tions have been available to our Sages for many centuries. Furthermore, Rambam states that the Sanhedrin is required, as part of the mitzva of Kiddush HaChodesh, to make these calculations, so they will be able to intelligently question potential witnesses. Realize how different this is to other
kinds of testimonies. Generally, judges of a Beit Din are unclear as to the
facts of a case, and witnesses supply those facts for the judges. If the
witnesses are deemed acceptable to the Witnesses will tell them if A is a killer or not. Beit Din does not know if A owes B a sum of money. The facts will be fixed based on the testimony of proper witnesses. In the matter of Kiddush HaChodesh, the judges know EXACTLY what the facts are. And the potential witnesses are often not entirely certain that they actually saw the “newness of the Moon”. After they testify and are questioned, the judges will tell them if they actually saw the L’vana B’chidusha. And still, our witness from Tzfat is going to drive to Yerushalayim to appear before judges who KNOW better than him what the facts of the month are. So why is he driving on Friday night? More. Sanhedrin has discretionary powers to proclaim Rosh Chodesh in certain circumstances, without witnesses. Perhaps they should exercise that power on Shabbat to render it unnecessary to “violate” Shabbat? They do not. The p’sukim that culminate the
description of Creation in the beginning of B’reishit are the ones we use in
the Friday night Amida, and after the Amida, and again at Kiddush, to
proclaim G-d as the Creator of the World. In the VAYCHULU passage, we see
that G-d blessed Shabbat and sanctified it. He sanctified Time and taught us
about the sanctification of time. This is Shabbat. In the Aseret HaDibrot,
He commands us to remember the Shabbat and to sanctify it. And He explains
again, that we are to keep the Shabbat, because He blessed Shabbat and
sanctified it. G-d made the people of Israel His parnters in the implementation of a truly amazing concept - the Sanctification of Time. He did it on His own (so to speak) with Shabbat. He created the world. He “rested” on the seventh day. He made that day, Shabbat, holy. He commanded us to treat it in the special way that halacha requires. Kiddush and Havdala. The prohibition of Melacha, etc. But G-d made Shabbat and then brought us into the picture, so to speak, to make and keep Shabbat. With the Jewish Calendar, with Rosh
Chodesh, with Yomim Tovim, G-d did something else. Something more. He
involved us, not after the fact, but as the prime movers of the process. If
we sanctify Rosh Chodesh, then it If we make a mistake in the fixing of Rosh Chodesh, our mistake stands and G-d, so to speak, adjusts His calendar to match ours. Shabbat’s Kedusha is higher than that of Yom Tov. We therefore might have expected not to be able to travel to Jerusalem on Leil Shabbat in order to testify to the sighting of the Moon. If the knowledge of positions of the
heavenly bodies is able to be known without the necessity to “violate” the
Shabbat, we might have expected to be required to bypass the testimony for
months that testimony would “interfere” But that’s not the way it works. G-d has His Shabbat step aside, so that we can perform our act of Sanctification of Time. This, of course, was the way G-d wanted to do this. It could have been different. We would well understand matters if the halacha would forbid “chilul” Shabbat for Kiddush HaChodesh. In fact, many of the details presented here should raise many an eye- brow from those not previously aware of them. There is something not quite logical in much of the above. Even in the “other” example of being allowed (required) to do things on Shabbat that would ordinarily be prohibited - namely, PIKU’ACH NEFESH, life-threatening situations - we have an easier time under- standing why we can “violate” Shabbat to save someone’s life. Testimony for Kiddush HaChodesh does not SEEM to be as “major” as saving a life. We must remember that the command of Kiddush HaChodesh is where “it all began”. Before we came out of Egypt, before Pesach existed, before Pesach became the center of the cycle of the Jewish Year... there was Kiddush HaChodesh. It is the foundation, the pre-requisite, upon which the Calendar is based, and upon which our national identity is founded. And, in many ways, it is the basis of the functioning of the Beit HaMikdash and all of Jewish Life. We must also soberly realize that G-d has distanced Himself from us since the destruction of the Beit haMikdash and the demise of the Sanhedrin by relegating us to the sidelines, as observers to the process of fixing the Calendar. We do not sanctify each Rosh Chodesh - this was done by a previous Sanhedrin. We make the calculations and print up the calendars. We announce the coming Rosh Chodesh and say Yaale V’Yavo and Hallel on it. But we aren’t - at the moment - active partners with G-d in this special Divine endeavor. But we will yet be. Our prayers and our
actions must elevate us and bring us closer to the time when we will
experience the Geula and once again crowd into the courtyard of the
Sanhedrin and repond to the NASI’s declaration May we be privileged to merit this speedily, in our time, AMEN. [The Parshat
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