I hope everyone had wonderful Shabat/Sabbath.
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I am writing this at 2:14 AM - 7/3/2011
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This last Shabat that just ended marks the beginning of the 4th biblical month. The name of this month was lost over time due to captivity and probably other factors.
The names of the months in the modern Jewish calendar or the rabbinical calendar are not to be mistaken for the actual ancient Calendar of Israel before the Babylonian exile. What we see today in the modern calendar is actually the ancient Babylonian Calendar, because we adopted it when we where there and so lost a bit of "our" culture.
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The ancient Hebraic names of the calendar months have been lost except for 4 of them.
These four surviving names are:
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* 1st Month: Aviv / Abib
* 2nd Month: Ziw? / Ziv (the "vav" in
ancient times was a "w," not a "v,"
making the "vav" into "waw")
3rd Month: lost
4th Month: lost
5th Month: lost
6th Month: lost
* 7th Month: Ethanim
* 8th Month: Bul
9th Month: lost
10th Month: lost
11th Month: lost
12th Month: lost
13th Month: lost (This was not a
normal month, but it was used
when the "New Moon" would
fall between 30 days to 15
days before the first day of
Spring, for Pesach/Passover
had to fall on or anytime after
the first day of Spring.
For my readers who may not
know:
Pesach/Passover was/is always
held on the 14th of the first
biblical month.
Therefore, 14 days before the
first day of Spring is the cut
off point.)
As I touched on above, the calendar names that we see today in Israel and in the majority of Jewish calendars were actually adopted when many of us remained behind in Babylon, instead of coming back to Eretz Yisrael / the land of Israel.
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On top of all that I just mentioned, the biblical New Year was abandoned. The biblical New Year is held in the Spring, but due to an accidental, yet very odd and serious mis-read of a certain passage of the Tanach it started to be celebrated in the Fall.
Before the Mishna (the oral law) was penned down in 190 CE by Judah ha-Nasi, at some unknown time, the sages mis-read a passage in Sh'mot/Exodus 23 when reading a statute about Succoth (The Feast of Tabernacles). The sages thought they read, "...at the end of the year" in Sh'mot 23:16 and so because of this they thought the Year naturally started at this point.
However, through other passages of the Holy Torah we know that Succoth, Yom Kippur and the Feast of Trumpets all take place during the 7th biblical month. In reality, the mis-quoted passage should have been read like this... "at the latter end of the year."
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That is a brief history of how things became what they are today. Our organization is pointing out these things in order to restore that ancient faith of Judaism. We are only a grassroots movement, but we are hoping things will catch on.
One must remember that ancient peoples wrapped their culture around agriculture and major turning points or life cycles. The Jewish people or ancient Israelites were no different.
It is very fitting, therefore, for Adonai to tell Moshe/Moses to begin the year with the same month Pesach is held in. In Aviv (when Pesach is held), or in the Spring. For in Spring things rebound with new life and the cycle of the growing season begins all over again - which is a perfect time for the ancients to start their calendar year.
And just so you know, Aviv (or Abib) means "ripening of the green ears."
"Green ears" of what?
Barley is the first grain to ripen in the land of Israel, so it is referring to barley.
On a side note:
It as customary to always give an offering of the firstfruits of anything that grows. So, it was a biblical law that one could not eat of the new grain of Barley until the priest would wave some on the 16th of Aviv as commanded in Lev 23:11-14, "And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it... ...And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings."
Moving on...
This last Shabat marked a special Shabat, the first day of the fourth month.
On a regular Shabat/Sabbath a priest would have offered up the normal daily offerings of two lambs as required, one in the morning and the other within the last hour and half before sunset.
Then on the sabbath the priest was also required to offer up the special offerings tailore-made for the Shabat/Sabbath itself. These Sabbath offerings were two extra lambs with grain offerings and offerings of wine that was poured onto the hot coals of the altar.
Normally these four animals would be the only things offered during the Shabat. This Shabat, however, was a special Shabat when a "New Moon" also fell on this Shabat. This would make the Temple priests very very busy. In addition to the four animals that are normally offered on the Sabbaths, the priests would offer up 11 more animals on this unique circumstantial day, plus 11 more grain offerings and 11 more wine offerings. Two of these animal offerings, mind you, are two young male cows, less than a year old. Cows are not exactly small animals and it takes a lot of work to skin any animal, let alone a cow. I wanted to point this out, because I have skinned several goats in the last few months and it is a lot of work. I can't imagine skinning two cows on the same day, let alone all the required animals for this special circumstance.
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The priests were the only ones allowed to work during the Shabat and this unique day was a very busy and tiring day.
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Now, a lot of people cringe at the thought of animals being sacrificed, yet at the same time most people love the yummy smell of a good barbeque. That is exactly what was going on to a certain extent. All the meat that was actually put on the altar was burned up and turned into the most wonderful smell, especially when the wood that was used was also cedar wood. Not all the meat was burned up, some of it was kept off the altar and given to the priests for food, for that is how they survived out of the clans of Israel. The priests were not allotted any land among all the tribes of Israel. So they survived off of the offerings.
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I know that not everyone prays this way, but our sect prays three times a day that HaShem would allow us to rebuild the Temple and to reestablish the ancient sacrifical practices. Once this should occur again, then the mountains around Jerusalem will be filled with the rich aroma as meat cooking on a barbeque.
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May you all have a wonderful week
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Sincerely,
Maregaal
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