As we saw yesterday, calendars are never neutral — they are expressions of our values and commitments. That becomes particularly complicated when people in community with each other have different values and commitments. If you’ve ever had to use all your vacation days to celebrate the Jewish holidays while having two weeks off at Christmas, you know that the struggle is real.
Living as a religious minority is complicated at the best of times. And living under the Roman empire was hardly the best of times. Today’s daf explains what that meant for the intercalation of the Jewish calendar.
In the mishnah that opened this tractate, we learned that it takes a panel of seven judges to intercalate the year by adding a second month of Adar. And though the rabbis had an advanced knowledge of astronomy and might have been able to determine whether a year would be intercalated well in advance, it was still the case that this panel is supposed to sit for deliberations during the year they want to intercalate:
The sages taught in a beraita (Tosefta Sanhedrin 2:3): The court may not intercalate the year before Rosh Hashanah. And if the court intercalated it, it is not intercalated. But due to exigent circumstances, they may intercalate it immediately after Rosh Hashanah. Even so, they may intercalate only Adar.
The beraita states that years are not intercalated in advance except in exigent circumstances. And even then, only as early as right after Rosh Hashanah. But now the Gemara brings a story that challenges this rule.
Is that so? But they sent a message to Rava: A pair came from Rakkat but was apprehended by the eagle; and in their possession were items made in Luz. And what are those? Sky-blue dye. In the merit of mercy and in their merit, they emerged in peace. And the offspring of Nahshon sought to establish a pillar. But that Edomite did not allow them. Nevertheless, the members of the assembly gathered, and they established a pillar, in the month in which Aaron the priest died.
Confused? You’re meant to be. The Jewish community in the land of Israel sent an intentionally cryptic message to Rava in Babylonia. Let’s decode it.
Rakkat is the biblical name of the town on which the city of Tiberias was later built. Roman legions carried an eagle as their standard. So the message is that a pair of men carrying high value items left Tiberias intending to reach Babylonia, but instead were captured by the Roman army. Thank God, they were released safely. This story sets the scene — a fraught political climate with Roman surveillance of Jewish movement and restrictions on Jewish freedoms — for what happens next.
Let’s keep decoding. Numbers 7 describes the gifts each head of a tribe, or nasi, brought to the tabernacle. The first nasi to bring his gift was Nahshon ben Aminadav, head of the tribe of Judah. In our story, Nahshon functions as a code word for the Jewish patriarch called the nasi, the political head of the late antique Jewish community in the land of Israel. The Talmud next explains that pillar means month and why:
From where may it be inferred that this word pillar (netziv) is a term for the month? As it is written: “And Solomon had twelve officers (netzivim) over all Israel, and they provided for the king and his household for a month in the year.” (I Kings 4:7).
Let’s put this all together. The nasi attempted to intercalate the year by establishing a thirteenth month but the Edomite (Roman) government did not allow him to do so. Due to Roman religious repression, the year could not be appropriately intercalated. But, as we read yesterday, some years need to be intercalated in order to celebrate the holidays at the biblically-appointed seasons. So, despite Roman opposition, “they established a pillar (meaning a month) in the month in which Aaron died.”
Aaron died in the fifth month of the year, per Numbers 33:38. Counting from Nisan, which the Torah accounts as the first month, this would be the month of Av. The message is that because they were prevented from gathering in the fall after Rosh Hashanah as they were supposed to, the rabbis of the land of Israel gathered in late summer (which is not when the Roman government would have expected them to meet) to intercalate the next year in compensation.
Functionally, though our beraita tells us that the panel of judges must sit in the year they are intercalating, this story serves to challenge that idea, by describing a time when the year was intercalated in advance. The Talmud resolves this issue by concluding:
They may intercalate but not reveal.
In other words, if exigent circumstances require the panel of judges to sit at a different time, they may do so, but the intercalation must be declared only in the year it occurs.
The form of the story — an extremely elliptical coded narrative — tells us of the dangers feared by the rabbis sending this message to Rava. They could not be caught criticizing Rome or celebrating how the Jewish community worked around Roman oppression to maintain their calendar. This story testifies to how fraught it can be to both gather as a community and to have a separate calendar — so fraught that Roman leaders refused to allow it. And yet the rabbis living in this political climate insist that it is possible to work around hostile authorities, to maintain traditions and even to adapt when necessary.
Read all of Sanhedrin 13 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on December 30, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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