Shalom All,
 
There comes a point in any discussion where true arguments come to light, and absolute silliness abounds, where rational argument gives way to emotional and manipulative argument.  Such is the case with the latest addition to this issue by Rabbi Rob Miller.  The case for a post-vernal-equinox Chodesh haAbib rests SOLELY on the authority of the Sanhedrin, not Torah.
 
Don't get me wrong here, Rabbi Moshe and UONYC have every right to observe as they see fit, and to make decisions affecting their congregations.  I don't take issue with any of that, and fully respect their rights to have differing opinions.
 
Unfortunately though, such a volume of gobbledygook and junk-science is being used to support the position that many who are just learning can and do get confused.  So let's look at some FACTS:
 
 
1.  The biblical calendar is Luni-Solar.  So is the rabbinical calendar of Hillel II.  Here are the terms:
 
            Solar    everything depends on the sun alone, no involvement of the moon - apx. 365.24 (not 365.5 Rob) days in a year.
 
            Lunar    everything is based on the moon, the year drifts through the solar year (Muslim calendar).
 
            Luni-Solar    The MONTHS are based on the moon, the YEARS are corrected to match the solar year.
 
Now, the ONLY difference between the Torah calendar and the Rabbinic one is HOW the starting of the month and year are determined:
 
            Torah    Month starts by sighting the Chodesh new moon, Year by the Chodesh at which the barley is Abib.
 
            Rabbinic    Month starts based on calculation, Year based on per-determined additions.
 
NO ONE - not the Rabbinics, not Messianics, and not Karaites, is supporting the Muslim form of drifting calendar, so to argue that only the Rabbinic calendar does not drift is either ignorant or intentionally misleading.  BOTH systems intercalate a 13th month on average 7 out of every 19 years to keep in line with the solar year.  The ONLY difference is that the Rabbinic model is set in advance, and the Torah model is a year-by-year call based on the barley.
 
 
2.  The assertion that sighting the Chodesh was a 'passing fad' is so historically absurd, it doesn't even bear mentioning much.  There is an entire TRACTATE in the Mishnah which describes the importance of this process.  There is such a volume of historical sources, all one has to do is open an encyclopaedia.
 
 
3.  GREEN EARS are NOT abib.  It would be nice if people actually looked outside of 1600's western scholarship in translating biblical terms.  Abib is a NOUN - it is a specific state in the crop development cycle, LONG AFTER the ears are green, and is fully understandable from the Torah references discussed previously.  The VERB at the root of it means "to be tender/breakable" and green ears are not breakable.  Further, the assertion that there was no barley growing in the wilderness is moot as they had Yahweh Himself there to tell them when to start the year, and HE DID (Bamnibar/Numbers 9).  Finally, as to the exile, the feasts were SUSPENDED in exile as part of the punishment, again not relevant to normative practice.
 
 
4.  The Karaites are NOT the only ones involved in searching for abib.  MANY Messianic brethren have been involved in this search, the most notable of them is Akhoti Ruthanne Koch who is a certified agronomist - a crop EXPERT with official training and over 20 years field experience - AND a Torah observant Messianic believer!  The testimony is not just coming from non-believers in Y'shua.  It is amazing to me that non-believer's testimony is questioned based on the fact that they are non-believers, yet there is a rush to be under the authority of a non-believing Sanhedrin!
 
 
5.  Rabbi Moshe has declared what is affectionately known as an OXYMORON - a conflict of terms.  It is SCIENTIFICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to have the 1st of Abib/Nissan always fall AFTER the vernal equinox AND keep following the Rabbinic calculated calendar!!  In MANY years, the traditional calendar has started BEFORE the equinox, and it will again MANY times to come, in fact just about every three years.  To assert that the Jewish calendar always starts before the equinox is simply NOT TRUE and can be verified by anyone by going to any calendar conversion web-site such as http://www.calendarhome.com/converter/.
 
 
 
So, in the end, the argument is NOT about the barely, but about authority.  These brethren assert that Messianics are under the authority of the last Sanhedrin.  I respectfully and fully disagree.
 
Shalom w'Baraka,
(Peace & Bless You)
Rav. David Pollina
Rav. David Pollina
 
 
 
 

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The Month of Adar  Sheni

 

By Rabbi Rob Miller

Member www.uonyc.org

 

Since this year is a leap year on the Hebrew calendar, there is an additional month of Adar. This month is called Adar Sheni (the second Adar). That means this year has two months of joy!

The Hebrew calendar has a solar-lunar structure. The year consists of twelve lunar months. The Feast Days, on the other hand, follow the solar year, since the Pilgrimage Feasts (Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot) must take place in certain seasons, and the seasons are determined by the earth annual revolution around the sun.

The seasons are changes in weather that last for a certain period of time the Earth has four seasons moving in a cycle in the order of spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Since the lunar years is roughly 354.3 days in length, while the solar year is roughly 365.5 (roughly eleven days longer), the festival would eventually fall in the wrong seasons if their occurrence followed the cycle of lunar months.

Passover must take place in the month of Aviv, and the month of Aviv must be in the Spring so that Shavuot can occur at the time of the early harvest.  Setting into motion that Sukkot will appropriately follow in the Autumn harvest.

To prevent the Commonwealth of Israel from violating Torah, the Hebrew lunar calendar is regularly adjusted to keep it in conformity with the solar year. This is done through the periodic additional, thirteenth month, known as Adar Sheni.

Since the discrepancy between the solar and lunar years amounts to 207 days every 19 years, the "leap month" of Adar Sheni is added to the third, sixth, eight, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth year of every nineteen year period, that is, seven times in a 19-year lunar cycle.

This year, however, with certain teachers in the movement getting involved with the anti-Rabbi, ant-YahShua Karaites, there is controversy.  "...Rejecting the fixed calendar as a heretic innovation, the Karaites held that by law of Scripture the beginning of the months must be determined by the appearance of the new crescent and no other means, and that this had been the practice of ancient Israel at all times. Rabbanite refutation of this extreme assertion found its most outspoken exponent in Saadia Gaon, who went to the opposite extreme in 'demonstrating' that the fixed calendar, computation of molad and tekufah (seasons), has the force of a Mosaic-Sinaitic law that had been followed at all ages of the past, while observation of the new crescent was merely a passing episode in the history of the Jews, introduced at the time of the Sadducees…(The Code of Maimonides, book II, treatise 8)”

The Karaites reckon their Aviv by looking for the green ears of the barley.  When they spy any amount of barley they then declare that nearest Crescent Moon the month of Aviv.  This is an erroneous calculation.  If we follow that kind of reasoning, the calendar would be 18 days off after just 1 year, or after 7 years 126 days off, that’s  4.2 months; meaning Passover would fall in about November by the year 2012.

We know that prophecy tells us that in the last days, just before the return of King Messiah YahShua, the Moshiach Neged (Antichrist) will come. He will pose as anointed and deceive millions into accepting his claims.  One thing he does is “…he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws (Daniel 7:25)”  And we also know that “every spirit that does not acknowledge YahShua is not from Elohim. This is the spirit of the Moshiach Neged, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (1 John 4:3)”

The month of Aviv is called that because it is the month when the barley harvest is shooting out little green years.  Not just some unusually early group of barley ears but the nation’s majority.

The elders of the Great Sanhedrin Bet Din calculated our Hebrew calendar that we use in exile. No other body of self appointed people whether Jewish, or Ephraimite, and especially not the rebellious Karaites have a right to change the times and seasons.

“In the fourth century, however, when oppression and persecution threatened the continued existence of the Sanhedrin, the patriarch Hillel II took an extraordinary step to preserve the unity of Israel. In order to prevent the Jews scattered all over the surface of the earth from celebrating their New Moons, festivals and holidays at different times, he made public the system of calendar calculation which up to then had been a closely guarded secret. It had been used in the past only to check the observations and testimonies of witnesses, and to determine the beginnings of the spring season." (Arthur Spier, The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, p.2)”

"Nowadays the day, hour and parts of each Molad are announced before the Proclamation of the New Moon in the Sabbath morning service preceding the week of the New Moon. This custom keeps alive the memory of the time when the Sanhedrin sanctified the months on the basis of observation. It calls our attention to the fact that today we determine our new moons and holidays according to the decision of Hillel's Beth Din." (Arthur Spier, The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, p.13)

"The day begins and ends at sunset, or more precisely, after dusk when the first three stars of medium size appear. This rule applies to the theoretical beginning and ending of Sabbaths, festivals, fast days and the hours for the daily prayers. However for calendar calculations, especially for the computation of the Moladot (the times of the new moon) and the Tekufot  (beginnings of the seasons), the day begins and ends at 6 o-clock in the evening, Jerusalem time. -- The beginning and duration of the months depend on the Moladot  and the time, which elapses from one Molad to the next one (lunation). The average figure given by tradition for this interval is 29 days and 12 hrs and 793 parts" (Arthur Spier, The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, p.13)

"The moment that the moon passes between the Earth and the sun is called the Molad - the birth of the moon. It is the theoretical beginning of the new month" (Understanding the Jewish Calendar, Rabbi Nathan Bushwick, pp.39-40)

“And Elohim said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years (Genesis 1:14).”

Rabbi Moshe Yoseph Koniuchowsky, the High Rabbi of the “Union Of Nazarene Yisraelite Congregations” has made a rendering, “Passover and [Rosh Hashanah of] Aviv 1 cannot, repeat cannot, occur before the vernal equinox, as that would also throw off the seasons at their times. The Jewish calendar ALONE makes sure that both Aviv 1 and Pesach take place after the spring equinox every year.”

"Praise be to the name of Elohim for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He causes the times and seasons; He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him. (Daniel 2:20-22)”

As I have often said, just because their Jewish doesn’t make them right and the Karaites are wrong on this matter. 

“Yahweh said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the Kohen a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before Yahweh so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath. (Leviticus 23:9-11).” 

                In fact, until the Temple is rebuilt, the Tabernacle is found or the Karaites accept Messiah YahShua as their Kohen HaGadol acknowledging the ministry of the Heavenly Tabernacle the barley harvest is irrelevant to the Karaites and those non-Neztarim who factor the Aviv barley while in their exile.

                Referring again to Rabbi Moshe Yoseph Koniuchowsky, he says, “During the 40 years in the wilderness Pesach was still celebrated without barley (as it was for the 70 years in Babylon) as they, like us, remain in the wilderness” of our preparation.