The Talmud explains that they intercalated the year when the barley in the fields was not yet ripened, when the fruit on the trees was not yet properly grown, when the winter rains had not yet stopped, when the roads for the Passover pilgrims had not dried up and when the young pigeons had not yet become fledged. Rosh HaShana 7a ‘For leap years’. Do we reckon [a New Year] for leap years from Nisan?[59] Has it not been taught: ‘A leap year is not decreed[60] before New Year,[61] and if such a decree is issued it is not effective. In cases of emergency,[62] however, the decree may be issued immediately after New Year, and even so the intercalary month must be [the second] Adar’![63] — R. Nahman b. Isaac replied: What is meant here by ‘leap years’? The closing of a leap year, as we have learnt: ‘They testified that the year may be declared a leap year throughout the whole of Adar, since others asserted that this could be done only until Purim.’[64] What was the reason of those who held that this could be done only until Purim? — Since a Master has stated that ‘inquiries are made regarding the laws of Passover for thirty days before Passover,[65] People might be led into neglecting the rules of leaven.[66] What says the other to this? — He says that people know that a leap year depends on calculation, and they say to themselves that the Rabbis have only now got the calculation right.[67] Under the patriarch Hillel II (330 - 365) the rules to intercalate the year were published. The most important of which states; "Whenever it becomes apparent that winter will last until 16th Nisan, make this a leap year without hesitation." As had happened in the past the Romans decreed that the Jews were not to celebrate the New Moon or announce it. So Hillel the Younger established a fixed calendar so the people would know when to celebrate the festivals. In our times we go according to Hillel the Younger, the last representative of the national court (the Sanhedrin), who fixed the calendar for the times of the Galut, around A.M. 4119 (359 C.E), and in each cycle of nineteen years there are seven such leap years of thirteen months, always the third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth. The Babylonian exile, in the first half of the sixth century B.C.E., greatly influenced the Hebrew calendar. This is visible today in the names of the months.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 02:30:52 +0000
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