Two-day New Year
Hello Rabbi,
Why is Rosh Hashanah celebrated for two days in the Land of Israel?
The matter puzzles me more in light of the Gemara on Rosh Hashanah Lev.
“And when they sanctified the year in the fourth month of the year, Rabbi Yochanan ben Baruka went before Rashbag and did as Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri did. Rabban Shimon said to him, “They would not have done so in Yavneh for the second day.” Rabbi Hanina, son of Rabbi Yossi of Galilee, went and did as Rabbi A. said, “Rashbag said so in Yavneh… from May 2nd to May 19th, the second day of Mimra, the second day of Elul, and Rabbi Hanina bar Kahana said, “From the days of Ezra and onwards, we do not find an Elul that is passed.” Rav Chisda said, from May 2nd to May 2nd for the second day of the following year.”
This means that if Elul does not pass, two days are not celebrated.
Thank you very much.
I don’t think you need a gemara to be surprised. There is no reason in the world to observe a two-day holiday anywhere in the world and on any holiday, and certainly not on the day of the Lord in Israel. The gemaras are not necessarily evidence for this issue, since it depends on which period they are dealing with (the medorot, the shluchim, the calendar, etc.), but the essential reason simply does not exist. After all, today there is a fixed calendar and there is no daily spicah. All the observance of the two-day holiday is because the Temple will be built soon (they will return to sanctification according to the vision). But even when the Temple is built soon and the ordination is resumed, they will not celebrate two days anywhere (even if they return to sanctification according to the vision. I doubt that this is what will happen with today’s technology). They will notify everyone via WhatsApp or email about the sanctification of the month in one second, and that’s it.
Indeed, the RIF’s method is that people in Israel do not celebrate two days in the year of the Lord, even in the year of the Lord. For some reason, they do not practice like him, and I really wonder how long we will keep this strange custom, which of course involves the actual cancellation of tefillin and more. I do not know how to draw the line at when a custom begins to become unfounded nonsense that must be canceled, and I assume that it will not be long before people will start to challenge this custom and it will start to change from below. I will not align the forces of incompetence.
Rabbi Michi, but according to the Maimonides' method, even a custom that is irrelevant in taste is not invalid until a great judge comes along in wisdom and authority?
You mean a regulation and not a custom. Indeed, that is true, but as I wrote in my book, where it is clear that the reason no longer exists, it can be repealed, and certainly when it is harmful (making the halakha invalid). I gave there many examples of regulations that were repealed. Beyond that, the Rif's method is that there is no such regulation. And if you mean a custom (not to rule as a Rif), then it is a custom of ruling and not a regulation, and there is no necessity to rule in this way if we come to the conclusion that it is wrong.
I did mean to fix it. Sounds like a very interesting innovation.
You wrote that they will announce the Kiddush of the Month via WhatsApp or email.
If the Kiddush of the Month applies to the day of Rosh Hashanah, which is prohibited for doing crafts, how can these tools be used to announce the Kiddush of the Month?
Does the announcement postpone Shabbat and a holiday?
Clearly. Both the ruling on the one hand and the permission of the Shluchim to violate Shabbat, and what's more, here we are talking about a rabbinical prohibition in simple terms.
A few questions: A. And that sending the message by the messengers sanctifies it (and not announcing it in the Bible or the message reaching its destination). B. Is there an explicit example of the permissibility of an act that applies a law that prohibits the act itself? Simply put, it is not like the two coming together that the two results make one hand or the revolving wheel that one is built from the destruction of the other. C. What about the possibility that the Bible will declare that I intend in the next minute to sanctify the month for good, they will send a message on WhatsApp and then immediately the Bible will sanctify it. The chance that the Bible will retract it in such a case is probably zero. Is such a message sufficient as if he had been bitten in the back?
Continuing on, maybe the very fact of not being notified is a message that was sanctified because otherwise it would have been a weekday and they would have been notified on WhatsApp within a second?
I didn't understand the division within regulations that are deemed null and void. You wrote “when it is clear that the reason no longer exists”, but that is true for all regulations that are deemed null and void… So when, according to the Rambam, can a regulation be annulled and when not?
I don't understand how the head of the Sanhedrin will be able to notify the Diaspora about the sanctification of the month via WhatsApp.
Do you think the ”Rabbinic Committee for Communications” will allow him to have a phone that is not kosher?
I hope you will forgive me if I end the discussion here. The matter is beginning to show a worrying proximity to Purim Torah.
As for changing regulations, I referred to the relevant sources, and there you will find additional explanations.
The head distinguishes between a situation in which the reason for the regulation is clear and a situation in which we have a good hypothesis about it. Incidentally, this is in the head's answers. The head's comment on B.M. Tz makes a similar distinction regarding the reason for reading.
Hello Rabbi Michi. What prevents you from stopping observing the second day of Rosh Hashanah if you believe it is nonsense? I ask because you are someone who is not afraid to follow your truth at the cost of conservatism?
It was a great pity because I heard behind the curtain that if the discussion had continued for just one more message, or even one more letter, our righteous Messiah would have arrived soon and the tiger with the goat would have been bedded down. Unfortunately, the hour was missed and it is a pity for David.
Right now, what is holding me back is the prevailing custom. I am really debating this. There are laws that I think should be changed, but because of their public nature, it is appropriate to do so only when there is a reasonable consensus around the change (like my argument against Rabbi Druckman on conversion). It is true that it is debatable whether this question is a public question, but it seems to me that what concerns the calendar and of course also the prayers and blowing of the shofar that are done openly, is a public matter. For now, let's get on with it.
Thank you, Rabbi Michi, it turns out that you too have a conservative soul that just needs to be discovered 🙂
A surprising extension from conversion to public because a decision to convert really does affect many others in one way or another for generations. My Purim heart tells me that public character is the pen name for an unreasoned public emotion (except for the famous subterranean sense of smell), and we don't want to stir up hostility until it jumps the shark.
I'm not very familiar with the laws regarding the sanctification of the month, but how does the court announce the sanctification of the month to the countries that are east of it?
After all, when the court sanctifies the month, some of them are already deep into the night, and it's too late to notify them.
It's not just eastward. The announcement doesn't always arrive at the beginning of the relevant date, and the day would be retroactive. Even when they sanctified the month based on sightings, it turned out retroactively that it was Rosh Chodesh.
Interesting. Is there any research reason beyond what is written in the Gemara for the fact that Rosh Hashanah begins on Shabbat and the shofar is not blown? It sounds like code for something else. It makes almost no sense to cancel a mitzvah from the Torah because of such a fear that someone might blow the shofar, or die. And I thought that there must be some matter of local authority law here, which apparently in Tractate Shabbat and Eruvin were the essence of the rabbinic Shabbat, and it must have been very serious personally – and to illustrate how essential the issue of blowing the shofar is, the Sages demonstratively abolished the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah – which is a sensation and in the eyes of the masses also a real danger because it abolishes the main tool for stirring up Satan – and all this to publicize the importance of observing the prohibition against blowing between local authorities. In this way, this practice is very similar to the commandment to publicly reap the Omer and ask as in defiance: “Reap?” And they tell him, “Reap,” “Reap,” “Reap.” Has anyone written about this? This is a sabbath. In any case, in our day, when it is possible to shake things up by mixing by a majority of the Minyan and the building of Israel (who miraculously canceled the entire Shabbat tractate by an unconvincing permit that nowadays there is no public permission because 600,000 people do not march on the street, etc.), it can be expected that the blowing of the shofar should be returned to Rosh Hashanah, which falls on Shabbat. And given our data, perhaps *this* is the reason why Rosh Hashanah is celebrated for two days, because if it were celebrated for only one day, then when it fell on Shabbat, the blowing of the shofar would not be celebrated at all that year. And because of the kindness of the mitzvah, they left Rosh Hashanah as two days, even in the other years when it fell on a weekday, on the side of non-plug, and all, as stated, for the reason that we avoided celebrating Rosh Hashanah that fell on Shabbat. The conclusion - halakhic and not in fact: to celebrate Rosh Hashanah again even when it fell on Shabbat and - to cancel the second Yom Kippur. (I wrote all this in a joking manner, since I do not agree with the cancellation of Jewish customs according to your method for reasons that I am unable to explain here, and there is also no point. That was not the question. The question I asked is for the sake of convenience, but it will also be useful for those who seek to change the halakhic. And regarding WhatsApp for the days of the Messiah: If there is a digital coronavirus that will damage the Internet, then it is not at all certain that all this technology will remain in the days of the Messiah. And as Einstein predicted about the Third World War. He said that he did not know what it would look like, but the war that would come after it would be fought with stones and sticks.)
See my article about the Sabbath that falls on Shabbat: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%AA%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%AA-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%A8
It seems far-fetched to me that they set two days. It is also not written anywhere. What I really thought about this year is whether it is possible to say that when the first day falls on Shabbat, the takiya on the second day is from the Torah and not from the Rabbis. I have a problem with the fact that it came to my mind during the holiday and I haven't yet put it in writing.
In the margins. This is not about canceling a custom. This is a law, not a custom. Law, unlike custom, is a matter for the ruling of halakhic law, that is, what is right and what is wrong. For a custom to be canceled, it has to be nonsense, but with regard to a law, it is enough for us that it is not right in our opinion.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
