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The Jewish leap year doubles a season of joy

ct cover 12-2-11As opposed to the Gregorian solar year, which is commonly followed in today’s world, the 12 months of the Jewish year reflect the phases of the moon. The difference between the two calendars is most evident in the length of their months: The months of the Gregorian calendar vary in length between 28 and 31 days in order to make a solar year of 365 (or, in leap years, 366) days; and the months of the Jewish year are either 29 or 30 days long, reflecting the fact that a lunar month is 29.5 days in length. As a result, a lunar year of 354 days is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, i.e. one revolution of the earth around the sun, which corresponds to the cycle of the seasons. 

If the Jewish calendar were based exclusively on the lunar year, the Jewish holidays would ultimately fall out of season.  For example, Passover (15 Nisan) would fall in the spring in one year, in the winter a few years later, then in the autumn, then in the summer and – after about 33 years – in the spring again. But the Torah says that Passover must be celebrated in the springtime – be-chodesh ha-aviv Exodus 13:4.

Enter the Jewish “leap year.”

To ensure that the holidays fall in their correct seasons, the average length of the Jewish year must be adjusted to the solar year. This is achieved by adding an entire month about every three years: In each cycle of 19 years, there are seven so-called “leap years.” The extra month in a leap year has 30 days and is called “Adar I,” occurring just prior to the original Adar, which has 29 days and is called in a leap year “Adar II.”

15-week year 13 months 4 quarters

15-week year
13 months
4 quarters

The joyful holiday of Purim, which is on 14 Adar, is celebrated in Adar II in a leap year, so that it always falls one month before Passover. The 14th day of Adar I is celebrated as a minor holiday called Purim Katan – “little” Purim – though there are no specific observances on that day. Someone who was born in Adar of a common year will celebrate the anniversary in Adar II in leap years, but there are two schools of thought when it comes to observing yahrzeit for someone who died in Adar of a common year. Some say it should be observed in Adar I and some say Adar II.

We asked several Connecticut rabbis how can we relate the Jewish leap year to Jewish life today. Here’s what they had to say.

 

Rabbi Wolvovsky

Rabbi Wolvovsky

Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky

The Benet Rothstein

Chabad Jewish Center

Glastonbury

The leap year is about three main ideas: transformation, joy, and kashrut. We have 12 months in the Jewish calendar and each has a certain energy: Rosh Hashanah is a new beginning; Chanukah is about miracles, etc.

There are two months on either end of the spectrum – sad Av and joyous Adar. The Talmud says that we should minimize in joy during Av – we eat less meat and drink less wine; there are no weddings, we don’t litigate or listen to live music. It’s not a positive energy. But we have to tap into that negative and transform it.

Every few years, the last month of the year is doubled to 60 days. That month is Adar, a time of joy, so we extend and double our joy.

How can we incorporate the leap year into our lives? Turbocharge your simcha, double your joy, because joy itself is a mitzvah. There are two layers to this: while you’re doing a mitzvah, be happy. And joy itself is a mitzvah: God wants us to be happy. The greatest blessing a parent could have is happy children; when children are not happy, parents are perturbed and think of how to make them happy again. Likewise, when we’re happy, God’s happy.

Now, to the laws of kashrut: some things are out of bounds, some foods we don’t eat, and two things that are kosher can mix together to make a new entity that is not kosher. If you mix milk and meat, you create an unhealthy recipe, spiritually, according to the Torah.

But how extreme do you get? If you’re cooking a huge pot of chicken soup for 200 people and someone comes by carrying a cup of coffee with milk and a drop falls into the pot, does that one bit of milk invalidate the kashrut of the entire pot?

In terms of percentage, Jewish law says that the forbidden food can permeate no more than one-sixtieth of the whole – a reflection of the 60 days of Adar, when there’s so much joy that sorrow becomes drowned in it.

Why is it that Adar is the month of joy, when so many things have happened to the Jewish people? Why not the month of Chanukah or of Pesach? It’s because of Haman’s decree. In the buildup to the story of Purim, that had the potential to be the worst tragedy in all of human and Jewish history, the only time a person had the entire Jewish nation under his control and was willing and able to, God forbid, carry out a decree of total annihilation. The reason Purim [which falls in Adar] is so happy is that it could have been so bad. In general, joy is more joyous if it starts off as a potential negative: if we are troubled by a major crisis that may have happened, and then are freed from it – the contrast makes the joy even more sweet and beautiful.

The Talmud says, what’s the greatest joy? Resolving doubt. If you are facing something challenging in life, look at it as an opportunity for transformation, not a trap into which we’ve fallen. It’s not easy but the more we do it, the easier it gets. If someone is troubled and paralyzed by doubt, the Talmud says to not be afraid of resolving it – resolve the doubt and be even happier.

 

 

Rabbi Plavin

Rabbi Plavin

Rabbi Richard Plavin

Beth Sholom B’nai Israel

Manchester

The brilliant system of intercalating leap months into the holy calendar so that our festivals remain in season teaches several important lessons. First, it maintains the significance of the holidays falling in season. How strange would it be for Pesach – Chag HaAviv, the Festival of Spring – to occur in other seasons? Additionally, it teaches us to take the best of values from wherever they come. While our calendar is essentially lunar, we borrow the seasonality of the solar calendar. This lesson can transfer to all areas of life: we integrate Torah values and values from the culture around us and don’t reject wisdom wherever it can be found.

 

 

Rabbi Ratner

Rabbi Ratner

Rabbi Joshua Ratner

Congregation Kol Ami

Cheshire

The intercalation of an additional “leap month” of Adar – as occurs this year – has the important function of ensuring that the Jewish lunar calendar continues to correlate to the sequence of the solar year (since key Jewish holidays such as Passover must take place in specific seasons). But the manner in which it does so is telling: the addition of a second month of Adar slows down the calendar, giving us an additional 29 days before the advent of the month of Nisan.

In so doing, Adar II blesses us with a bounty of the scarcest of resources: time. I believe there is an important symbolic challenge posed by the leap month – what will we choose to do with this gift? My hope and prayer is that we will not squander this extra time but will consecrate it by putting it to special use. Perhaps families can set aside time during Adar II to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have time to do, such as eating more meals together at home, reading books together out loud, or going on a weekend vacation somewhere. Perhaps adults will set aside a few minutes each day to study something about the Torah portion or Jewish ethics. Perhaps teenagers can embark on a special social justice/tikkun olam project for the month.

Just as Shabbat provides a weekly oasis of time for us to break from the rigors of the work-week and focus on what is truly important in our lives, Adar II also symbolizes the power and opportunity of sanctifying time.

 

Rabbi Wall

Rabbi Wall

Rabbi Greg Wall

Beit Chaverim Synagogue

Westport

The Torah says that we’re leaving Egypt in Chodesh Aviv, “the month of springtime;” there are no names of months until Nisan, the first month mentioned, when we are to observe Pesach. We don’t know it’s Nisan from the written Torah but from the oral Torah, and since we have a lunar calendar, it won’t be too long before we’re eating matza in a blizzard. In the same parsha, we got the instruction to establish the month by the moon, so we have a lunar calendar, shorter than the solar calendar, and we have to intercalate.

One way to make the leap year relevant in our lives is to be aware of it. On a mystical level, it’s a very significant month for us because the Gemara says, “Mi-shenichnas Adar, marbim b’simcha” – “When Adar enters, we increase our joy” – and now we have two months to increase our joy. A lot of people go out of their way to make sure they act differently in Adar: they celebrate more, let their hair down a little.

Purim Katan, the 14th or 15th of Adar I, is a minor holiday when we are prohibited from outward signs of mourning. For example, if someone has a funeral on Purim Katan, we don’t give an official eulogy, but we get around that by talking about the person’s life. Davening is different on that day: there is no Tachanun [supplication in Shacharit and Mincha] and we leave out other sections of the prayers. If you are getting married on Purim Katan, you don’t fast on the wedding day.

Mystically, the name “Adar” can be broken into its first letter, aleph, which symbolizes the Shechinah – the presence of God that accompanied us out of Israel – and the word dar: the Hebrew word for dwelling. So, Adar is the month where Shechina lives.

 

 

Rabbi Margalit

Rabbi Margalit

Rabbi Natan Margalit

Greater Washington (CT) Coalition for Jewish Life

This year we really get a good feel for the significance of the Jewish leap year. We all remember that we had the incredibly rare occurrence of Chanukah and Thanksgiving falling on the same day this year. This is because, following the lunar calendar, the Jewish holidays fluctuate to different places on the Gregorian calendar, which is a solar calendar. But the leap year puts us back into synch with the solar calendar. This is important because Passover is really a spring festival, and this year we’ll have it in the perfect spot: the middle of April.

Judaism, therefore, keeps us in tune to both the lunar and solar cycles. Notice that our major festivals – Passover, Sukkot – are always on the full moons; this invites us to experience a sense of full, overflowing abundance and light on those festivals. Rosh Hashana always falls on the new moon, giving us a sense of hidden potential and mystery. Those lunar experiences must be balanced with the solar experiences of having Passover really be in the spring, Chanukah in the winter, and Sukkot in the fall; so, we periodically adjust the lunar calendar to bring it back into the seasons of the solar calendar, reminding us that our connection to the seasons is also important. Both the solar and lunar calendars are important because Judaism is both a particular and a universal religion. We celebrate the particular miracles of the Jewish experience such as Passover on the full moon, but we also celebrate the seasons, the harvest, and the earth’s changing seasons as a universal aspect of our experience.

 

 

Rabbi TelRav

Rabbi TelRav

Rabbi Jay TelRav

Temple Sinai

Stamford

The relationship between the calendar and the Jew in the modern world is very hard to quantify. Even those in Israel and, I would think, those in the halachicly-defined lifestyle, are straddling two calendars at the same time. When, at our Tu B‘Shevat seder, I pointed out the relationship between the date of the festival and the full moon, there were “ooh”s and “ahhh”s as one more piece of the puzzle fell into place for those who knew it but had never connected the pieces before. I think that the complex steps necessary to align the calendar with the natural cycle of the year – including the leap-month – provide a powerful reminder that we modern people have grown very detached from the natural, physical world. Every opportunity to be reconnected to the planet – Tashlich, Rosh Chodesh, Sukkot, etc. – provides the chance to “re-ground” ourselves in this world.

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