One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
קִדּוּשׁ הַחֹדֶשׁ
Sanctification of the New Month 3
Sefer Zemanim · The roads the witnesses travel, the hours the court will still listen, and the sharp line between making the month and announcing it
2
Months for which Shabbat is now desecrated, Nisan and Tishrei
10
Men, the fewest at the feast of the full month
6
Months for which messengers were sent out
1
Ordinary voice is enough to report that the court sanctified it
Part 1The road to the court
- A night and a day, and no further. Witnesses within a journey of a night and a day of the court travel and testify; beyond that they do not set out at all, since testimony arriving after the thirtieth day is of no consequence, the month having already been made full. (3:1)
- Shabbat gives way, now for two months only. Witnesses journey even on Shabbat, learned from the word season in Leviticus 23:2; in our era only for Rosh Chodesh Nisan and Rosh Chodesh Tishrei, and in Temple times for every month, because of the musaf offering of Rosh Chodesh. (3:2)
- Even a lone character witness travels. Where the court does not know the men who saw the moon, those who can vouch for them desecrate Shabbat as well, and a single such man goes on the chance that he will meet another and the two will amount to testimony. (3:3)
- Never say that others surely saw it. A sick witness is mounted on a donkey or carried in his bed, weapons are taken against an ambush and provisions for a long road, and no one may excuse himself on the grounds that the crescent was wide and plainly seen by everyone. (3:4)
RememberThe sighting is not scarce, and the man who saw it is still personally commanded to go.
Part 2The thirtieth day and the morning after
- The minchah cutoff. After witnesses once arrived only toward evening and threw the Temple into confusion, the court ruled that testimony be received only until the time of minchah, leaving daylight enough for the musaf offerings, the daily afternoon offering, and their libations. (3:5)
- A day kept holy without being sanctified. If witnesses come after minchah, that day and the next are both observed as holy and the musaf is offered on the following day, because the month is not sanctified after minchah. (3:6)
- Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai gave the day back. After the destruction of the Temple his court ruled that testimony be accepted throughout the entire day, even from witnesses arriving near sunset on the thirtieth, and the thirtieth day alone is then kept. (3:6)
- The feast of the full month. When no witnesses came all day and the month was made full, the court ascended to a prepared place at daybreak rather than at night, no fewer than ten men, and ate bread of grain and legumes together on the thirty first day. (3:7)
RememberThere is a prescribed meal, with a quorum and a menu, for the morning after the evidence failed to arrive.
Part 3Spreading the word, and reopening the ruling
- Messengers replaced the bonfires. Fires lit on the mountaintops to inform distant places gave way to messengers on foot once the Samaritans began lighting fires at the wrong times in order to mislead the people. (3:8)
- To sanctify, never merely to uphold. Messengers do not violate a festival or Yom Kippur, and certainly not Shabbat, for Shabbat is set aside to sanctify the month and not to publicize it; the Tishrei messengers therefore travel two days fewer than those of Nisan. (3:8, 3:13)
- One ordinary voice is enough. Messengers need not be two, and even a passing merchant of no distinction who says he heard the court sanctify the month on a given day is believed and the festivals are set by him, since this is a matter that will eventually be revealed. (3:14)
- Intimidation runs in both directions. Witnesses arriving days after the month was made full are unnerved and cross examined exhaustively, yet in Nisan and Tishrei before the middle of the month they are not intimidated at all, and witnesses whose testimony is faltering are pressed so the month will be sanctified at its proper time. (3:15, 3:18, 3:19)
RememberTwo men on the same road with the same news, and only the one who makes the month may break Shabbat.