Daily Talk
The new moon comes up wide and unmistakable and half the town is pointing at it, and the law forbids you to tell yourself that others surely saw it too and that you need not desecrate the Sabbath to go and testify. Why would a calendar that already has everyone else's eyes still need yours?
Do Not Assume Someone Else Saw It
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About This Talk
Chapter 3 of Kiddush HaChodesh moves from the courtroom to the roads that lead to it: witnesses within a night and a day travel even on the Sabbath, the sick are carried in their beds, weapons and provisions may be taken, and no one may excuse himself on the grounds that others surely saw the moon as well. It then tracks the day itself, the edict limiting testimony to the time of minchah and Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai's restoration of the whole day, and the daybreak feast of ten men on the morning after no witnesses came. It closes with messengers who may not travel on a festival or Yom Kippur, since the Sabbath is set aside to sanctify the month and never to publicize it, and with a court that intimidates late witnesses except in Nisan and Tishrei before the middle of the month.