Lead Tidbit If we had a Sanhedrin (and the Beit HaMikdash) today... Picture this: TZFAT, Leil Shabbat Parshat Korach, Friday was the 29th of Sivan 5764. Your minyan just finished Mincha and Kabbalat Shabbat. It's 8:15pm and one of the guys is giving a five minute D'var Torah; Maariv at 8:20pm. You decide to duck outside for some fresh air instead of listening to the DT (the guy giving it is your friend and he tested it out on you earlier.) The air is crisp, the sky is clear, and you are looking towards the west where the recently set sun is changing the sky's color from pink to purple. Higher in the sky you notice the planet Jupiter, an evening star at the moment. Closer to the horizon, you spot a faint, small line of white, in the darkening sky. You realize that you might be observing the first visibility of the lunar crescent. You suspect this because today was the 29th of the month and you read in the Word of the Month box on page 2 of Torah Tidbits that the moon MIGHT be visible this evening. And then it's gone. You don't see it anymore, but when you were looking at it a moment ago, you were conscious of the possibility that it was the moon. You daven Maariv, go home, and tell your story to your family. Your daughter tells you (in a polite, respectful way) that you must go to Yerushalayim to testify before the committee of Sanhedrin for Kiddush HaChodesh. But it's Shabbat, you object, how can you get to Yerushalayim from Tzfat on a Friday night. Drive the car, she says. On Shabbat? Yes, on Shabbat. But I hurt my arm playing softball this afternoon and I don't think I can drive. I have a license, says your pride and joy. I'll drive you to the Sanhedrin. And so it happens. Father and daughter drive to Yerushalayim on a Friday night - with complete permission of halacha, so to speak. He testifies in Sanhedrin. Whether his testimony is accepted or not is irrelevant to his halachic permission - actually duty - to travel to Jerusalem to testify. Both father and daughter have left the Shabbat boundary of Tzfat. Since that was done with halachic permission, their movements in Jerusalem are not restricted and they can walk (not drive - it's Shabbat!) to family or friends in the city to spend the rest of Shabbat. What makes all of this even more amazing than it is already from the details of this tale, is the following fact: Our friend from Tzfat only thinks he saw the L'VANA B'CHIDUSHA, the Moon in its newness. The first visibility of the Lunar crescent. He's not sure. Maybe it was a comet. Maybe a wispy cloud. Maybe it was the Moon. Maybe not. Meanwhile, in Yerushalayim, the members of the Sanhedrin Kiddush HaChodesh Committee have prepared for their Friday night duty of interviewing possible witnesses. They are armed with computer printouts and diagrams that accurately show them (not predict - show) exactly whether the Moon will be visible, exactly how high above the horizon, in what position relative to the recently set sun, what size and thickness it will be, for how long will it be visible. In other words, unlike all other kind of testimony, where the witnesses supply facts that the judges do not possess, with Kiddush HaChodesh, the judges have the knowledge (they are required to know the details in advance) and the witnesses are not sure if they do. Yet G-d, so to speak, graciously allows His Shabbat to be "violated", so that the People can fix their calendar in the preferred way. This is the relationship that G-d "wants" to have with His people. But not during the period in Jewish History when our sins have resulted in exile and an erosion of the "infrastructure" of Torah life. Then, He has us use a cold calculation to fix our calendar, without our active participation in the process of setting up the calendar and establishing the cycle of Chagim. When you next look at the Moon, ponder its beauty and its symbolic link to Bnei Yisrael. And say a little prayer for the Beit HaMikdash, Bimheira V'yameinu, Amen [The Parshat
Korach
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