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Re: The lunar or the solar?
On Wed, 18 Sep 1996 PWEGNER@BROWNVM.brown.edu wrote:
> >Dear David et al,
> I personally like the idea of sins fouling up nature.<
>
> Yes indeed! and of course this theme (that sin offends against the inherent
> order of the cosmos) is present in virtually all religions -- so it's an
> obviously short step to the notion that sin will result in specific,
> observable disruptions of nature and ultimately the disruptions of the Endtime.
>
> >On Sabbath the conclusion varies "who sanctifies the Sabbath,
> Israel, and the appointed times". The implication of these two blessings
> is that God does not determine when a holiday will actually occur because
> the new moon and new month were declared by the court. The Sabbath on
> the other hand was determined by the natural order from the time of
> creation. <
>
>
> Isn't it rather, that the order (l) Sabbath (2) Israel (3) Zemannim
> reflects what was understood as the chronological order of these three
> phenomena. (3) follows (2) not because the Israelites determined when the
> holiday would occur but because the miqra'ei qodesh were instituted by God
> after he had created the nation of Israel. After all, the basic text is
> Lev. 23:2, which states:
>
> *mo'adei Y-H--, asher tiqre'u otam miqra'ei qodesh; elleh hem mo'adai*
>
> Thus the text specifically identifies the miqra'ei qodesh as being ordained
> by God, the task of Isra'el (the 2nd plural pronoun in tiqre'u) is merely to
> *proclaim* them (not to determine them). Like the Sabbath, God instituted
> these too - but in terms of actual chronology, he does so only AFTER Israel
> has come into being, whereas he instituted the Sabbath at the outset, BEFORE
> Israel came into being. So this is the reason (or at least the primary
> reason) for the order in which they are mentioned in that blessing.
>
> Judith Romney Wegner, Connecticut College
>
True, God ordained the festivals, but it is Israel who ultimately
determines their calendrical date, and this is done by determining when
rosh hodesh occurs. Sabbath, on the other hand, is set forever from the
time of creation.
By the way, the explanation I offered is not original. Unfortunately I
can't remember from whom I heard it or where I read it.
One more point. Although in the canonical form of Leviticus 23, Shabbat
is called a miqra qodesh and a mo'ed as are the other appointed times
mentioned in that chapter, the reference to the Sabbath may be
secondary. Israel Knohl, i his book "Sanctuary of Silence" and in his
revious articles found two sources in this chapter- P and H (in that
chronological order, and not H and P as previously held). TO the best of
my recollection, the sabbath passage here 23:1-3 is from H, as are the
ending verses 23:39-44. The P passage which is the earlier part of this
collection ends in 23:37-38 with a summarizing colophonic statement
"These are YHWH's appointed times which you shall proclaim as miqr'ey
qodesh... APART from (millebad) YHWH's Sabbaths etc." This
colophonclearly distinguishes between miqra'ey qodesh and Sabbaths. The
misch-verse which you point to and which is the introduction to Qiddush on
Holiday mornings (23:37a + 2b and cf. 4a) contains part of P's colophon and
part of a secondary, editorial introductory statement. In fact, 23:2
which precedes the H sabbath command uses miqra'ey qodesh inexactly, and
its purpose is to turn the Sabbath into a miqra qodesh. In other words,
the P colophon distinguishes Sabbath from the other Moadim which are
miqra'ey qodesh, and in fact has no sabbath command. H added the sabbath
command by prefacing it with a Wideraunahmen (cf 23:2//4) which had not
only the literary purpose of incorporating the addition, but also served
to give a new characteristic to the Sabbath, i.e. naming it too as a
miqra qodesh.
Avigdor