Timeline for New date at sunset: question on Sifse Chachamim
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
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| Nov 22, 2011 at 22:53 | history | edited | Menachem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
pointed out that this doesn't answer according to lunar calendar
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| Nov 22, 2011 at 22:51 | comment | added | Menachem | @jake: I meant to post a link: hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=24645&pgnum=45 - but to answer your question I didn't see him mention anywhere about the mazalot stopping, but it is always possible I missed something | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 22:30 | comment | added | jake | @Menachem, Interesting. Does the Seder HaDoros agree with the Sifsei Chachamim about the Sun staying in its place? Does he say? | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 22:28 | comment | added | Menachem | @jake: That's what I was proposing in my answer, although you said it more clearly. However, the Seder HaDorot lists the flood starting in the year 1656 from creation and ending in the year 1657, which indicates that the Seder HaDorot held that the calendar date did change as well (although the mazalot themselves could continue from where they left off, without problem - I think I remember learning in a shiur about Birchat HaChamah when it happened last that the year of the flood is not counted in the calculation for the blessing, I have to see if I can find a source) | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 22:23 | comment | added | Menachem | @msh210: I was only thinking about the solar dates, I forgot about the lunar discrepancy of 11 days. This makes it difficult to understand what happened in the solar system when the heavenly bodies started moving again, since in order for the moon to change from 18 to 27, the sun would have to suddenly move as well. | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 22:13 | comment | added | msh210♦ | @jake, that sounds reasonable (I'll mull it over), except that what about the fact that the flood was over on the 27th of Cheshvan? How did the date suddenly jump to 27? (Again, perhaps that's only l'minyan sheanu monin, in which case no problem.) | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 22:07 | comment | added | jake | @msh210, I hate to extend the comment section here, but I don't see your parallel to Yehoshua. All we see from Yehoshua, like you said in the question, is that the calendar date did not change. Yet time continued. Same with the mabul: The calendar date did not change yet "24-hour periods" continued. The "150 days" of Parshas Noach can be interpreted as time-days, which were all part of the same "calendar-day". | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 21:14 | comment | added | msh210♦ | @jake, no, sorry. My earlier comment was in error: it implied that if we were counting from birthdays, dates would count during the flood. But we see from Y'hoshua that the day simply did not end until the sun actually set. So no matter how you count dates — or days — the day should not change during the flood. Even the "150 days" of 8:3 and similar are problematic. (It is interesting that (according to Rashi) no actual calendar dates during the flood are in the chumash: all dates given are relative to the start of the flood or another reference point. But I don't see how that helps.) | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 21:04 | comment | added | jake | @msh210, I have to look at Rashi there, but IIRC, he reads some of the month/day counting as actual dates, but some as counting from when the rain started, or counting from other events. If we can isolate the actual dates to the beginning of the deluge, before this whole sun-stopping situation, my suggestion might be plausible. That actual dates stopped, but counting from other stuff, like the years from Noach's birth, or the months from events of the deluge, continued with the passage of time. Agreed? | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 20:58 | comment | added | msh210♦ | @jake, re your own suggestion: But note that the dates (nth month, xth day) are calendar dates, counted not from his birthday but from the new year. Per the evidence from Y'hoshua, that count should have stopped. (Unless you propose that they're birthday-based dates? That seems to go against Rashi (who mentions Cheshvan) and all I know about how dates are counted.) And re "wrong dates": Menachem had proposed that the count of dates actually stopped (as in Y'hoshua) but that Noach continued counting dates anyway as if it hadn't. So he was miscounting. | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 20:43 | comment | added | jake | @msh210, I was just suggesting that IIRC the Torah's dates are counted by years of Noach's life, e.g. "In the six-hundredth year, seventh month" of the life of Noach. The life of Noach is perhaps measured by the passage of time, while the actual date "from creation" never changed. Same as Yehoshua. The date in those extra 12-36 hours never changed, but a person who lived through it would still consider himself 12-36 hours older than he was before. Regarding your preceding comment, how is Noach counting wrong dates? | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 20:35 | comment | added | msh210♦ | @jake, I'm not sure what you're proposing, but it seems to be the same as what Menachem is in his comment, in which case please see my preceding comment. Otherwise, could you clarify, please? | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 20:34 | comment | added | msh210♦ | Menachem, so you're proposing that the dates Noach counted were wrong. Did he then continue counting them wrong after the flood? (Remember, it was 11 days later.) Is that the earliest example of "l'minyan sheanu monin kan": all of humanity has been counting wrong since then? | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 20:28 | comment | added | jake | @msh210, Aren't the dates of the Mabul measured by years/months of Noach's life? Why can't you just say that although the date as far as the rest of the world was concerned remained constant, but Noach, being that he still continued to age, continued measuring his age by the passage of time? | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 20:09 | comment | added | Menachem | I was trying to say that we are marking the passage of time, and using the dates as a reference. Or in other words, the Torah is saying this happened on what would have been INSERT DATE HERE, if the sun was rising and setting. Also, if Noach was marking the hours, why wouldn't he just continue counting the dates, as a way to keep track of how long he was in the Ark (even if the dates didn't actually change). | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 19:47 | comment | added | msh210♦ | Nice source, thanks, but this doesn't help. Re your first answer, "dates were marked by the passage of time... rather than by the sun", I (in the question) cited Y'hoshua as evidence against that possibility: your answer doesn't address that evidence. And re your second, "everything would have picked up right where it left off", note that (as I mentioned in the question) dates during the flood are also mentioned in the chumash, which this answer doesn't address. | |
| Nov 22, 2011 at 19:28 | history | answered | Menachem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |