One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
קִדּוּשׁ הַחֹדֶשׁ
Sanctification of the New Month 5
Sefer Zemanim · The calendar entrusted to a court in the Land, the fixed reckoning that replaced it, and a second festival day kept long after the doubt that produced it ended
10
Days' travel, the outer reach of the messengers of Tishrei
8
Days from Jerusalem to Egypt by way of Ashkelon
5
Days' travel that still proves nothing about the messengers
2
Days of Rosh HaShanah kept everywhere, the Land included
Part 1Whose calendar it is
- Entrusted to a court in the Land. Sanctifying the month by sighting and intercalating the year belong to the Sanhedrin in Eretz Yisrael, or to ordained judges sitting there with its authorization, from the verse spoken to Moshe and Aharon, this month shall be for you. (5:1)
- No court, no sighting. It is a law given to Moshe at Sinai that where there is a Sanhedrin the calendar follows the sighting, and where there is none it follows the fixed reckoning and the sighting is of no consequence. (5:2)
- When the change came. All Israel took up the fixed calendar at the close of the Talmudic era, when the Land lay in ruin and no established court remained; until Abbaye and Rava the people relied on the establishment made in Eretz Yisrael. (5:3)
- Our arithmetic establishes nothing. We do not intercalate or fix months in the diaspora; we rely on the reckoning of the inhabitants of the Land, and we calculate only in order to know which day they have established. (5:13)
RememberTwo people can run the same calculation and reach the same day, and only one of them is establishing a festival.
Part 2The second day, and why it stayed
- Once it answered a real doubt. When the calendar ran on sightings, the Land and every place the messengers of Tishrei reached kept one day, while distant places kept two because they did not know which day the court had established. (5:4)
- By law it would now be one day. Since the diaspora and the Land rely on the identical fixed calendar, a single day would be appropriate everywhere; nevertheless the Sages ordained that the inhabitants of the diaspora retain the custom of their ancestors. (5:5)
- The old map is frozen in place. Every place the messengers would not have reached keeps two days now exactly as it did then, and Eretz Yisrael keeps one because it never kept two; the second festival day today is a rabbinic institution. (5:6)
- Rosh HaShanah is two days for everyone. Even under the sighting most of the Land kept two, and Jerusalem itself often did when no witnesses came on the thirtieth day; so the Sages ordained two days everywhere, and that second day too is rabbinic. (5:7, 5:8)
RememberThe Rambam tells you the reason has expired, tells you the practice is only rabbinic, and rules that you keep it.
Part 3Drawing the line on the map
- Distance alone decides nothing. A place five days from Jerusalem is not assumed to have been reached, since perhaps no Jews lived there, or Jews arrived only in the era of the fixed calendar, or the road was blocked as between Jerusalem and the Galilee. (5:9)
- Egypt is the proof. Jerusalem to Egypt by way of Ashkelon is eight days' travel or less, and most of Syria is nearer still, yet nobody supposes those places keep one day. (5:10)
- The working rule. Beyond ten days' travel, two days; within it, one day for places in Eretz Yisrael that Jews inhabited at the second conquest, such as Usha, Shefaram, Yavneh, and Tiberias, and for Syrian towns like Tyre, Damascus, and Ashkelon, the custom of their ancestors. (5:11)
- No inherited custom means two days. A place in Syria or the diaspora with no custom conveyed from earlier generations keeps two, and so does a town built in the wilderness of Eretz Yisrael or a city first settled by Jews in the present era. (5:12)
RememberA brand new town inside Eretz Yisrael keeps two days, not from doubt, but because it has no ancestors there to inherit from.