  The Bobover Rebbes, Harav Shlomo, zt l (R), and his son Harav Naftoli, zt l (L), saying Birkas Hachamah 28 years ago. |
by Yehudah marks
Iy"H, on Erev Pesach5769/2009, we will have the opportunity and merit to recite Birkas Hachamah. To help us understand this rare mitzvah,we spoke to experts who understand what it's all about and who graciously answered our questions.
The source for Birkas Hachamah is the Gemara in Brachos (59b) and the halachah in Shulchan Aruch (229), which state that one who sees the sun bitekufasah - at its turning point - must make a brachah.
(The Gemara and Shulchan Aruch write that the same brachah should be said on seeing the moon and stars at their turning points, but as the Mishnah Berurah notes, our custom is to make a brachah only at the turning point of the sun.)
What is the sun's "turning point"?
The turning point of the sun means the time when the sun appears to return to the same exact spot it was at Creation, in relation to the earth.
But if we see the sun every morning in the same place, why don't we say a brachah every day?
The earth has several cycles. The first is, of course, the 24-hour cycle of the day, the time that passes from sunrise to sunrise. But as the earth's path changes slightly every day, bringing it closer to or farther from the sun, the seasons change - so the 24-hour cycle is not a complete cycle.
How about a year?
The earth's yearly cycle is what we call a solar year and is made up of four seasons (technically called "equinoxes"): spring, summer, autumn, and winter. A solar year is the completion of the four seasons, from spring equinox to the start of another spring.
The actual length of a solar year is 365 days plus six hours. This means that when the sun is in the same position relative to the earth as it was a year earlier, it is actually an extra day plus six hours later than the previous year. So again, this is not a complete cycle; for the brachah,we want the cycle when the sun appears to return to exactly the same spot at exactly the same time of day.
How did you arrive at one day and six hours?
There are 365 days in a solar year, which is 52 weeks, or 52 x 7 = 364 plus one day. So if the "year" is 365¼ days, the next year's cycle will start a day and a quarter later.
For example, if the sun started its cycle on Sunday at 6:00 a.m., the next year's cycle will start on Monday at 12:00 p.m.
Only after four years does the sun come full cycle - known as a machzor katan, a small cycle, returning to the same position at the exact time of day as it was at the time of Creation.
So why don't we make a brachah every four years?
Because we're not yet there! Although the sun may be at the same spot at the same time of day as in Maaseh Bereishis, it is not the same day of the week as it was at Creation.
Why not?
Remember that each yearly cycle starts a day and six hours later than the previous year. So although the sun may start its yearly cycle at the same hour as it did at Creation every four years, it is not the same day as at Creation, but five days later.
Only after 28 years, the common multiple of 4 and 7, do both the day and time of the solar cycle fall together as they did at Creation. This is called the machzor gadol, the large cycle.
So now you have proved that Birkas Hachamah falls every 28 years. But why in Nisan?
Well, we know that the world was created in Nisan…
Wait a minute - the world was created on Rosh Hashanah!
Okay, I'll explain. There is a machlokes in the Gemara about whether the world was created in Tishrei or in Nisan: according to Rabi Yehoshua, the world was created in Nisan, while Rabi Eliezer holds that it was created in Tishrei.
The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 12a) concludes that when we reckon the moon's and sun's cycles, the halachah is that the world was created in Nisan, even though we count the years from Tishrei. In fact, Shmuel, who is the main halachicauthority on astronomy, is also of the opinion that the world was created in Nisan (Tosafos Rosh Hashanah 8a litekufos).
But we say in the Rosh Hashanah tefillos, "Zeh hayom techilas maasecha," that man was created in Tishrei.
Tosafos (Rosh Hashanah 27a keman matzlinan) confronts this difficulty and explains that according to the view that the world was created in Nisan, "zeh hayom techilas maasecha"means that Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the judgment about whether the world should continue or not, not the start of Creation.
Tosafos offers another answer: they say that the world was actually created both in Nisan and in Tishrei - the machshavah occurred in Tishrei, but the actual Creation was in Nisan.
Other commentaries offer different explanations for the fact that we reckon the astronomy-based halachos from Nisan but count years from Tishrei, with some explaining that although the sun and moon may have been created in Tishrei, the beginning of their cycles was actually the equinox before - but it was a "theoretical" equinox. Similarly, the animals were created fully matured and the trees fully grown, and the sun and moon were also created in the middle of their cycles. So even though they may have been created in Tishrei, their cycle had theoretically started on the previous (theoretical) equinox, in Nisan.
The Rishonim use this reasoning in regard to the first molad (phase) of the moon, taking into account the theoretical molad that "happened" before the actual creation of the moon (see Tosafos Rosh Hashanah 8b litekufos).
Whatever the answer is, now that we have established that the world was created in Nisan, at the spring equinox, we also know that the sun was created on the fourth day of Creation, as is related at the beginning of Bereishis.
Since the Jewish day starts at nightfall, we know that the sun was created on Tuesday evening, and since it was the start of the spring equinox, when the night and day are of equal length, the time was 6:00 p.m.
Therefore, the actual time when the sun "returns" to the same place, on the same day and at the same time as it was in Maaseh Bereishis, it is Tuesday evening at 6:00 p.m. But because we can't make a brachah on the sun at that hour since it is no longer above the horizon, we have to wait until the next morning.
Interestingly, according to the Aderes, in Eretz Yisrael, where the tekufah falls at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday evening and the shekiah is five minutes later, at 6:05, one may recite the brachah then, on Tuesday evening. But this view is not accepted by other poskim.
So in short, we recite the brachah at the start of the spring?
Exactly.
But we all know that spring starts on March 21, and Birkas Hachamah is not until Erev Pesach - April 8 this year!
The answer lies in two calculations mentioned by the poskim. One is that of the Amora Shmuel, which is the calculation of the Gemara mentioned above; the other is that of Rav Adda bar Ahava, which is brought by the Rishonim.
The calculation of Shmuel, based on a solar year of 365 days plus six hours, is a calculation that is easy to work, although not as exact as that of Rav Adda.
It is certain that Shmuel, the expert on astronomy who was "as familiar with the paths of the planets as he was with the paths of his hometown" (Brachos 58b), knew of the more accurate calculations but wanted to make it as easy as possible for the layman to compute since many halachos are based on this calculation.
Indeed, calculations that are made by beis din,like the organization of the calendar, work according to the more complex cheshbon of Rav Adda.
The tekufah of Rav Adda, which is mentioned by the Rambam, is first mentioned by the Rishon Reb Avraham bar Chiya Hanasi, who writes in his Sefer Ha'ibur that he "saw a tosefta named after Rav Adda bar Ahava" where the calculation is explained.
The cheshbon of Rav Adda is much more complicated than that of Shmuel but more accurate. According to Rav Adda's reckoning, a solar year is 365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes, 25 seconds and 25/27ths of a second, as compared to Shmuel's 365 days and 6 hours.
The Ibn Ezra notes that even the reckoning of Rav Adda is not exact, and he explains the reason: the discrepancy between the tekufos of Shmuel and Rav Adda is nearly 4½ minutes, which amounts to a day's difference every 314 years.
Now that we know that there are two ways of calculating the solar year, let us discuss the civil calendar, which is fixed according to the solar year and has gotten very muddled in the course of time. In 46 B.C.E., when Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar based on a year of 365¼ days, the first thing he had to do was make up for all the days lost in the years when the Roman calendar had been in use. He added 80 (!) days to the year 46 B.C.E. so that 45 B.C.E. would start out correctly aligned with the seasons.
He named the year of the change Ultimus Annus Confusionis, Latin for the "Final Year of Confusion," but the Romans, who were far from pleased at the addition of another 80 days in the year, called it Annus Confusionis, the "Year of Confusion," the name that has stuck for that year. He also introduced the leap year, to occur every fourth year, thinking that he had fixed everything for all time.
This calendar was kept for over 1,600 years, but by the year 1582, Pope Gregory XIII realized that the calendar was nearly ten days ahead of the seasonal date. He therefore made two more corrections.
First he removed ten days from the calendar, jumping from Thursday, October 4, to Friday, October 15. In addition, he established the principle that a centenary year not divisible by 400 is not a leap year. Thus, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, whereas the years 1600 and 2000 were.
So our Birkas Hachamah is according to the reckoning of Shmuel. Do you happen to know when Birkas Hachamah falls according to Rav Adda?
It doesn't really make a difference since the halachah is according to Shmuel, and the only time we use the calculation of Rav Adda is in determining the Jewish calendar.
Still, when we asked the expert Harav Yisrael Eichenstein about Birkas Hachamah according to Rav Adda, he said that he had made all the necessary calculations and found that only after about a million years will the tekufah of Nisan fall on the same day and time as that of Maaseh Bereishis! So Rav Adda never recited Birkas Hachamah.
The possibility of Rav Adda's tekufah falling in the same hour but not the exact second as Maaseh Bereishis, adds Harav Eichenstein, is about once in 200 years.
This year, 5769, is the year of Birkas Hachamah. But this number can't be divided by 28!
Good point. The answer is that we count our years from the shenas tohu.
What's that?
As mentioned, years are counted from Tishrei. On the first of Tishrei, Adam was created, but the creation of the universe started five days earlier, with the creation of the heavens and the earth on 25 Elul.
The five days of Creation between its beginning and the first of Tishrei, the new year, are called shenas tohu, the year 1 before the creation of man.
Therefore, Adam was created in the second year, year 2, even though only six days had passed since the creation of the heavens and earth.
So although we call the present year 5769, it is really only 5,768 years after Creation, which is divisible by 28, giving us 206 times.
I understand that it is very rare for Birkas Hachamah to fall on Erev Pesach.
Indeed, thathas only happened 12 times since the world's creation. So this year Erev Pesachwill be even busier than usual because we'll have to fit into the already tight schedule the Birkas Hachamah ceremony.
Is it true that Birkas Hachamah falling on Erev Pesach has a connection to the geulah?
On Shabbos Hagadol 5685/1925, several days before the last time Birkas Hachamah fell on Erev Pesach, the Ostrovtza Rebbe, Harav Meir Yechiel Halstock, delivered a drashah about Birkas Hachamah. It is important to note that the Rebbe did not write down the drashah; instead, one of the listeners wrote it down and printed it.
According to the listener's transcript, the Ostrovtza Rebbe said that Birkas Hachamah would occur on Erev Pesachonly three times since the world's creation - the first time in the year of yetzias Mitzrayim, the second time in the year of nes Purim,and the last time, hopefully, will be with the coming of Moshiach.
It seems, though, that the listener either didn't understand what the Rebbe said or heard wrong. First of all, Birkas Hachamah fell 11 times on Erev Pesach before 5685 and not three, as written in the drashah.
Secondly, the year of yetzias Mitzrayim wasn't a Birkas Hachamah year - yetzias Mitzrayim took place in 2449, 12 years after Birkas Hachamah.
So whether or not this rare birkas hachamah has a connection with geulah, we are certain that Moshiach is on his way, v'af al pi sheyismameha im kol zeh achakeh lo.M
Hamodia would like to thank Harav Yisrael Eichenstein and Harav Mordechai Genut for their help in preparing this article. |
