<sort of continued from last week> The molad of Tishrei is FRI (Sep.26) 4h 27m 5p. Rosh HaShana is fixed on the day of the molad of Tishrei. UNLESS one of four situations exist. If the day of the molad is Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday, then RH is pushed to the following day. With the molad of Tishrei 5764 being on Fri. morning, RH is fixed on Shabbat (and Sunday). Next. How many months will the coming year have. Divide the year by 19 and look at the remainder (remember those?). 5764¸19 is 303 (forget that number) remainder 7. Years with a remainer of 3,6,8,11,14,17, and 0 are 13-month years. The others are not. 5764 will have 12 months. Next we look at the Molad of Tishrei 5765. Easily calculated by adding 12 Molads to this year’s Tishrei molad. It will be TUE (Sep.14 '04), 13h 15m 17p. Remember mention above of 4 situations that cause the fixing of RH to be the day after the day of the molad of Tishrei? The one that determined the fixing of RH 5764 is called LO AD”U ROSH, meaning that the first day of RH cannot be fixed on AD”U - ALEF (SUN), DALET (WED), or VAV (FRI). 5765 presents the other major situation (the remaining two are relatively minor adjustment factors). It is called MOLAD ZAKEN, an old molad. If the molad of Tishrei is after 12h, which it will be for Tishrei 5765, then Rosh HaShana is pushed to the following day. But in this case, the next day is Wednesday, and LO AD”U ROSH now applies. So RH 5765 gets postponed a second time and will be on Thursday (Sep.16, '04). The last piece is now ready to fall into place. To “reach” from RH 5764 to 5765, a 12-month year with the “normal” 354 days won’t be long enough. The double push of RH 5765 (compared with the single push of RH 5764) requires that an extra day be added to 5764. The added day is 30 Cheshvan, a day that exists (so to speak) exactly for this situation. 5764 will have 355 days (the numeric value of SHANA). Such a year is called SHALEIM. Once we have RH 5764, the number of months in the year, and the status of Cheshvan, the calendar for 5764 can be drawn. Every date, holiday, fast day, etc. now knows its place. A review: Calculate the molad of Tishrei - fix Rosh HaShana based on the rules - determine how many months in the year - find the molad of the next Tishrei - fix the next RH. Everything else follows. All of the above is without a Sanhedrin. With a Sanhedrin? That’s a whole different story. B’HIZDAMNUT. [The
Parshat Nitzavim-Vayeilech Homepage]
|
