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Obligatory Summary
The Jewish day starts at night, but V'sein Tal Umatar is based on solar calendar, so it can sometimes be a day later. Plus the date was established in Julian Calendar, so there's also the Julian->Gregorian shift to keep us busy...
Real Answer
The Gemara (Taanis 10a) says that in Bavel we start saying V'sein Tal Umatar on the 60th day ...
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There is no way to know for certain.
However, there are a few indications that what we have the "correct" day.
Firstly, there is the halacha that if you do not know what day it is, you keep Shabbat on the 7th day from the last time you kept shabbat. So even if the calendar did a shift, presumably the Jewish people would have shifted the name of the ...
26
We do not determine the date of the Sabbath by looking at the calendar and seeing which day is Saturday (or Friday night). Rather (much like my answer to the Samoa" question) the Sabbath is seven days from the previous Sabbath. We have a living mesorah, tradition, on which day is the Sabbath, which happens to coincide with what it commonly known as Friday ...
21
In Sanhedrin 65b (line 24 and further) Tornosrufus asked same question to R. Akiva.
R. Akiva answered that there are three proofs that the day Jew think is Shabbos is a real Shabbos.
River Sebation is very fast on other days and on Shabbos it streams slowly.
Baal Ov couldn't be applied on Shabbos.
Smoke comes out of the grave of Tornosrufus's father each ...
21
The last shemittah year was Jewish year 5768 (13 Sept 2007 - 29 Sept 2008)
The next few are:
5775 (25 Sept 2014 - 13 Sept 2015)
5782 (7 Sept 2021 - 25 Sept 2022)
5789 (21 Sept 2028 - 9 Sept 2029)
Note that some Rishonim (medieval rabbis) held that the shemittah is the year prior to the years mentioned above (See Tur CM 67) but longstanding normative ...
20
The epoch for the Jewish calendar is the creation of the world, not the Revelation at Sinai which traditionally occured about 2500 years later and marks the beginning of distinctly Jewish national religious obligations.
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There is some discussion in the Jerusalem Talmud (M'gilla 7a-b) regarding which of the two Adars is considered the leap month (incidentally, halachic ramifications are discussed ad loc.). Medieval commentators interpret the Talmud as concluding that Adar I is the extra month (see Rashi to Rosh HaShana 19b, s.v. kamma ibbur hashana; see also Tosafos ibid., s....
18
In Tanach there are only four:
Aviv = first month = Nissan (Ex. 13:4, et al)
Ziv = second month = Iyar (I Kings 6:1)
Eisanim = seventh month = Tishrei (ibid. 8:2)
Bul = eighth month = (Mar)cheshvan (ibid. 6:38)
In a letter from the era of the first Beis Hamikdash found in Arad, there is mention (according to some reconstructions) of ירח צח, "the month ...
18
Actually, Miketz does not always fall out on Chanukah. It appears that whoever told me that was mistaken. :)
I ran some code (using my JavaScript Hebcal API) and discovered that in the 100 years from 5700-5800, Miketz is not on Chanukah 10 times. In 5703, 5706, 5710, 5730, 5733, 5737, 5757, 5761, 5781, and 5784, Miketz fell out on the 4th of Tevet, just ...
15
Seder Olam Rabbah, by R. Yosei ben Chalafta (2nd century), gives a unified chronology from Creation until his own times (although the last part of it, covering the Second Temple era and its aftermath, is given pretty short shrift).
The Gemara (Avodah Zarah 9b) quotes a baraisa (also from, at the latest, the 2nd or early 3rd century) that makes a prediction ...
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The discrepancy has been raised repeatedly over the centuries, by scholars Jew and non-Jew, Orthodox or not, alike.
Rabbi Shimon Schwab penned an essay on it whereby he very much raised the possibility that the non-Seder-Olam chronology may be correct, though later referring to it as a "thought experiment."
In his taped lectures on the history of the ...
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You are correct that the .NET implementation is apparently not consistent with Halacha (i.e. Jewish law) (Orach Chaim 55:10 and Mishne Berurah ibid) and your first 2 rules are correct and consistent with Halacha.
Jewish law (ibid, MB 45) calculations are correctly implemented in HebCal contrary to your third rule. Specifically, if a boy is born on 30 ...
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Rashi in the linked Gemara says that the reason we are "marbim b'simcha" is because they are "ymei nisim k'mo Purim v'Pesach" based on which some conclude that Adar Rishon is not included, as no miracles happened in that time period.
The Levush (685:1) says that we do not increase simcha in Adar 1. The Sfas Emes says we do.
Some want to conclude based on ...
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This is discussed in the Talmud (Shabbat 114) and the Rambam rules (Shabbat 5:21) that no Havdallah is recited after Shabbat when Yom Kippur falls on Sunday.
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After some much Hebrew googling, it seems as though the rationale is the other way around.
Adar was doubled because it was the last month of the calendar (which started at Nisan with Passover) back then. The decision was to celebrate Purim (and all the other events) in the second Adar as to keep both redemption celebrations close (Purim and Passover). ...
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Your question and DoubleAA's comment on my original answer have inspired me to do some research and learn some really fascinating information about the Hebrew calendar.
First, some background information:
Our current 19-year intercalary cycle was instituted by Hillel II in the fourth century CE. The calendar is a lunisolar calendar which typically has 12 ...
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While the Jewish holidays are controlled by the Sanhedrin (though, notably, they are not controlled by non-Jewish governments, and even the Sanhedrin's control is bound by divinely received rules), Sabbath is different in that it always repeats every seventh day, regardless of any calendar. This is one reason given why, in the central prayer of Sabbath/...
12
Considering Monica's point about year distributions, here's a refinement of Gershon's data (using the frequency table on Remy Landau's Hebrew Calendar page, here):
Tzom Gedaliah falls on Monday or Thursday in the year types גכה, זחא, זשג, גכז, זחג, זשה. This is 40.08% of all years.
Asarah B'Teves can't occur on Monday, but it can be on Thursday, only in the ...
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I wondered about this fact myself for a while, and so I looked up the sources.
It turns out that this idea is based on only two sources.
The Talmud has an aggadatot which says:
Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin [97a]: “Rav Kattina said: ‘The world will
exist for 6000 years and one (thousand) of destruction’ ... We have a
teaching which is in agreement ...
12
HebCal is a full Hebrew calendar that provides lists of all the Jewish holidays, for any year.
In the interest of full disclosure, i have done volunteer programming for them, but am not officially affiliated.
Here is a list of all the Jewish holidays for the year 5775 (this year). Note that not every item on that list is a full holiday where work is ...
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Dinonline answers,
Although a Ger is considered to be “born anew” when becoming Jewish,
this is a halachic concept that relates to family relationship and the
like, and it is not a “biological fact.”
The Ger’s birthday thus remains the date that he was physically born
on.
Note that there is no actual halachic significance to a person’s
...
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According to Rabbi Israel Joseph haCohen Rappaport, the earliest time that you can start saying Shnayim Mikra B'Dieved is from Shabbos Mincha for the next week and L'Chatchila from Sunday.
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The Ritva writes (Rosh Hashana 11a):
ויומי ניסן לאו דוקא אלא כל מקום ומקום לפי מה שהוא דמלבלבי.
"The days of Nissan" is not precise, but rather every place according to when the trees bud.
Based on this, Rabbis Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss (Minchat Yitzchak 10:16) and Tzvi Pesach Frank (Har Tzvi OC 118) ruled that in the Southern Hemisphere the blessing ...
11
They are a Gershayim, a Hebrew diacritic used in a number of ways, but generally to indicate that a certain set of letters does not spell a word in the ordinary sense. In this case, it is used to indicate that the letters are to be taken as numerals.
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The Babylonian calendar wasn't adopted exactly as it was, but the names of the months were. This was recognized by the Sages in the Gemara, Yerushalmi Rosh Hashana 1:2.
Why the Jews adopted these Babylonian names is a good question. In fact, it seems like the Jews did have their own ancient names for the months, such as 'Ziv' and 'Bul', which are ...
10
Now that we've moved the clocks, I realized that it's possible to do the inverse of @jake's answer from the eastern time zone: shabbat ended this week before 6PM, so if I'd thought of it I could have gotten credit for the day by visiting in that last hour (7PM EST = midnight UTC). Shabbat won't end after 7PM again until March 10, and there are no chagim in ...
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It has been used 11 times so far since the enactment of the fixed calendar in 4119. It was used in 4179, 4257, 4504, 4602, 4849, 5096, 5194, 5441, 5519, 5688, and 5766. The next time it will be used is 6013 if we still have a fixed calendar then. You can read about this exceedingly rare Dechiya and its history here.
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In Israel, only the first night is a full holiday, and as such, the Seder is only ever on the first night.
In the Diaspora, both the first and second nights are full holidays. The Seder should be done on both nights.
If, for some reason, someone is really only able to do one of them, it should be the first. This is because the first night is a Biblical ...
10
The current fixed calendar is arranged (by adding or taking out an extra day in Marcheshvan or Kislev) such that Yom Kippur can't fall on Friday or Sunday (so there won't be two days in a row where no work at all can be done) and such that Hoshana Rabba can't fall on Shabbat. Most months are of fixed length, so this effectively limits all holidays in some ...
10
R. Yehuda Ayash points out that there are contradictory passages in the Zohar. In Parshat Vayikra it says that the Binding of Isaac took place on Rosh Hashanah, while in Parshat Vayeitzei it implies that it took place on Yom Kippur. He says that further analysis is required to reconcile the two passages:
Mateh Yehuda O.C. 584:2
קורין וה' פקד וכו' כתב הר"...
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