Question: Why does the Jewish leap year always consist of two Adars? And why specifically Adar?
Menachem
Via email
Synopsis: We cited several sources for the Jewish calendar intercalating only the month of Adar to create a leap year. Both the Babylonian Talmud (Rosh Hashana 7a and Sanhedrin 12a) and the Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 1:2) state this, and Rambam codifies it as the halacha (Hilchot Kiddush HaChodesh 4:1). However, your question is a good one: Why?
Tosafot (Sanhedrin 12a) offers a scriptural reason for intercalating Adar specifically: to ensure that Adar will remain the twelfth month, as it is referred to in Megillat Esther (3:7).
We noted the reason for any intercalation, and that is the discrepancy of the lunar year in contrast to the solar year. The lunar year is 354 days, which is the approximate time it takes for 12 new moons to occur. The solar year is 365 days, which is the approximate time it takes for the Earth to complete one solar revolution. There remains a discrepancy of approximately 11 days between the two. Thus, every several years, the Jewish lunar year is adjusted with an extra month, allowing the lunar and solar years to be in sync again and ensuring that the holidays are celebrated in their correct seasons.
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Answer: Tosafot’s answer about intercalating only Adar to ensure that it remains the twelfth month is difficult to understand for the following reason: In truth, the only logical month to intercalate is Adar, but not for Tosafot’s reason. If we were to intercalate Nissan or Iyar, we would have a problem when counting the omer. There are 49 days from the second day of Passover, the 16th day of Nissan, when we start to count the omer, until its conclusion at Shavuot, the 6th day of Sivan. Now, if we were to add a month anywhere between the two, Shavuot would no longer occur in Sivan.
Does Shavuot need to be in Sivan? We find that Shavuot does not necessarily have to fall on a fixed day, as we see from the following Gemara (Rosh Hashana 6b): R’ Shmaya taught Atzeret [Shavuot] at times falls on the fifth [of the month], at times on the sixth [of the month], and at times on the seventh [of the month]. How so? If both [Nissan and Iyar] are full [30-day] months, then it falls on the fifth. If both are deficient [29-day] months, then it falls on the seventh. If one is full and the other deficient, then it falls on the sixth. [Of course, with our set calendar, Nissan is always full and Iyar is always deficient. This means that Shavuot always falls on the 6th – and in the Diaspora, the second day always falls on the 7th].
Yet this argument is very weak for even though the day of the month is not fixed, the month is fixed. Sivan is when the Torah was given to the Jewish people.
Further proof that the specific day of the month need not be fixed is found in the text of our kiddush and the Shemoneh Esrei for the three Festivals. For the three Festivals, we find mention of its name and the following terms: zman cheiruteinu – the time of our freedom [Passover]; zman matan Torateinu – the time of our being given the Torah [Shavuot]; zman simchateinu – the time of our joy [Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret]. Passover and Sukkot are weeklong festivals, so the reference to zman, time, is correct, but Shavuot is a one-day Festival [two days in the Diaspora]. If so, it should state yom matan Torateinu – the day of our being given the Torah. Since it does not and instead the less-specific word zman is used, it is clear that our Sages, who fixed the texts of our prayers, were aware that the specific day in the month of Sivan need not be fixed. However, the month itself is fixed, as the Torah specifically states in parshat Yitro (Exodus 19:1), “In the third month [Sivan] from the exodus of the Children of Israel from the land of Egypt, they arrived in the wilderness of Sinai.” Thus, the Torah is emphatic that the giving of the Torah is in the third month, and as such the festival Shavuot must fall in the third month.
(To be continued)
