By Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb, CY Director
On Wednesday, April 8, 2009, the Jewish world celebrated not only Leil HaSeder, but also Birkhat HaChama (the Blessing of the Sun). This ritual is done every 28 years, to mark the return of the sun and the earth to their original alignment (time and day) as it was at Creation. The spring of Year 5769 marks the 206th completion of this solar cycle and the start of the 207th.
In the beginning, the spirit of Elokim hovered in the darkness over the deep. There was no light and no life. God was alone.
Then He made light; and then a great tent, separating the waters and exposing dry land. He brought forth grasses and trees, hung luminaries in the sky, called out fish and birds and animals and human beings. By the end of day seven, Elokim, who a week before hovered in that lifeless darkness, now beheld a tremendous world-tent; a palace of light and color and movement and life. What was He seeking?
By Rabbi Hillel Hayyim Lavery-Yisraeli
CY Shavuot E-shiur Sourcesheet 2011 (pdf)
Shavuot 2011 E-shiur (pdf)
Originally, our Jewish calendar did not have a fixed number of days in each month. Each month had 29 or 30 days, depending on when witnesses spotted the new moon and reported this to the Sanhedrin (High Court). Around three hundred years after the destruction of the second Templeand the accompanying exile, Hillel II (4th century CE, Eretz Yisra’el) instituted a fixed calendar which we use until this day. The year has an average of 354 days, with the months alternating in length: Nisan has 30 days, Iyyar 29, Sivan 30, and so on. (Heshvan and Kislev sometimes have 30 and sometimes 29. These are set in such a way to prevent certain festival difficulties. For instance, according to our calendar system, Yom Kippur will never fall on Friday. We ensure these by altering the length of Heshvan and/or Kislev).
By Rabbi Mordechai Silverstein, Talmud Instructor
Shavuot Psahim 68B Sourcesheet (pdf)
The Talmud (Pesahim 68b) records, in a baraita, a debate between two prominent Tannaim, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, about how a person should conduct him or herself on hag (festival): “Rabbi Eliezer said: ‘On a festival, a person has nothing to do but either to eat and drink or to sit and study.’ Rabbi Yehoshua said: ‘Divide it: half for eating and drinking and half for the beit hamidrash [to spend in study].’” Rabbi Yehoshua’s statement reflects his position that simhat hag is a mitsva which requires eating and drinking as well as the study of Torah.
By Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb, Director of the Conservative Yeshiva
Text Sources for Tisha B’Av E-Shiur – Causes of Destruction, Seeds of Hope (pdf)
Tisha BAv E-Shiur – Causes of Destruction, Seeds of Hope (pdf)
Tisha B’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, is not mentioned in the Torah. It is hinted at in Zechariah 8:19 (Source 1 and Qs). The Mishna tells that five disasters occurred on this date, including the destructions (churban) of the First and Second Temples (Source 2 and Qs).
The Rabbis, living in the centuries after churban Bayit Sheni (the destruction of the Second Temple), were preoccupied with the causes of these calamities. In one well-known source they tell us that the First Temple fell, in 586 BCE at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, because of the high rate of idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed. The Jews of the Second Temple time behaved much better, they say, but nonetheless the Romans were still able to capture Jerusalem and destroy the Temple, in 70 CE, because of sinat chinam (causeless hatred) (Source 3 and Qs).
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