It’s not exactly a tribal secret that the reason (((our))) holidays move around every year is because (((we))) use a Lunar calendar.

There are two lies in that simple declaration. First, our holidays don’t move around, they’re fixed, but the stupid ass Goyim use a Solar calendar, and THAT is what moves around. Look, bub, (((we))) were here first and doing calendars when your ancestors were painting themselves blue and boring holes into seashells to try to pass them as money at Ye Olde Celtic Convenience Store.

The second lie: we don’t use a lunar calendar. What we actually use is a lunisolar calendar. A solar year is 365 days, but a lunar year is 355 days (roughly). This can turn confusing because as the years pass and the months process, a given month can be in the winter, spring, summer, and fall, with about a 30 year cycle. That fucks up poetry and songs- I mean, if June can be sunny or snowy, what the fuck does it really signify?

The lunisolar calendar is functionally closer to the solar Leap Year, where every four years, the goyim shove a day in to prevent the same monthly precession (albeit a much slower, multi-century cycle). Given the ten day difference between 12 lunar months and 1 solar year, the rabbis ordered that an extra month is stuck in every few years. Since we like fancy words, the extra month is referred to as “intercalary.”

Just to fuck with us, the leap month didn’t even get a special name- there was a month of Adar in the beginning of spring, so the rabbis just called the intercalary month Adar as well, for the sake of complexity. Always remember that complexity is the rabbi’s meal ticket. So there’s two Adars, imaginatively named Adar 1 and Adar 2 (this reminds me of a Dr. Seuss book or maybe bearded Kirk and Spock). And we’ve just started…

Now, dates are important in Judaism- the dates of Yorzeit (anniversary of a family member’s death), of Bar Mitzvah (birthday for age of religious majority), and all of the holidays, which are declared unambiguously in the Tanakh (Torah plus the other Biblical books). Of course, once the rabbis got hold of them, the dating got pretty complex which is why we have two days of Rosh Hashana, eight days of Passover… But sometimes complexity begets complexity.

The first question is, if you have a Yorzeit or Bar Mitzvah on the 9th of Adar, and you weren’t born in a leap year, is your day 9th of Adar 1 or 9th of Adar 2? See, if they just picked another name for the intercalary month, then the ambiguity is gone and there would be no need for rabbis to debate and rule on the issue. We can’t have THAT now, rabbis being no different than congressmen or lawyers.

And this takes us back to Purim. I wrote a Jewsday a few years back giving an outline of the story of Purim and using it to argue that it’s not only the greatest Jewish holiday, it’s the greatest holiday, period. When it’s the law that you have to get shitfaced on wine (“drunk enough to not know the difference between Mordecai and Haman”) , dress up in costumes, eat a bunch of great pastries, and make loud noises, well, it doesn’t get better than that.

The book of Esther sets the date of Purim thusly:

Therefore do the Jews of the villages, that dwell in the unwalled towns, make the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another. And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far, to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly, as the days wherein the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.

Seems pretty clear? It’s a two day holiday! Not after the rabbis were done with it. See, if you’re in a walled city meeting certain age and size criteria, it’s on the 15th. If you’re in an unwalled city, it’s on the 14th. There is, of course, pages of debate in the Talmud about whether something is a village or a city to determine the proper celebration date. What would we do without rabbis?

But the bigger ambiguity is whether it’s the 14/15th of Adar 1 or Adar 2? You might say to yourself, “Clearly, Adar 1 is the Original Adar, and Adar 2 is the inserted leap month.” This is why you’re not a rabbi. By the time they were done with it, Adar 2 was Original and Adar 1 was the temporary visitor.

How was this arrived at? Via “interpretation” of some passages in Esther near the end:

Therefore because of all the words of this letter [from the Persian king, allowing Jews to defend themselves and condemning Haman and his sons to the gallows], and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and that which had come unto them, the Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so that it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to the writing thereof, and according to the appointed time thereof, every year; and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the remembrance of them perish from their seed.

Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Purim. And he sent letters unto all the Jews, to the hundred twenty and seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth, to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them, and as they had ordained for themselves and for their seed, in the matter of the fastings and their cry. And the commandment of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book.

Note the italicized phrase. That got long rabbinical debate going in the Talmud:

The Mishna says that the two Adars do not differ; that is to say, in the order of the portions that must be read from the Bible on the Sabbaths of the four weeks of Adar, the two Adars are equal. According to whom is the Mishna?
Not according to the first Tana, and not according to R. Eliezer b. R. Jose, and not according to R. Simeon b. Gamaliel of the following Boraitha: If they have read only the Megilla in the first Adar, and the year becomes intercalary, it must be read again in the second Adar, because all the duties that are obligatory in the second Adar are so also on the first Adar, except the reading of the Megilla. R. Eliezer b. R. Jose said: It must not be read in the second Adar, because all the duties customary in the second are so also in the first. R. Simeon b. Gamaliel in the name of R. Jose said: It must be read also in the second Adar, because all the duties obligatory in the second must not be done in the first. And we asked there, is R. Simeon b. Gamaliel not saying the same as the first Tana? And R. Papa answered: The order of the portions is different between them. Hence our Mishna is not in accordance with the first Tana, because of the gifts to the poor, which according to the Tana of the Boraitha must be given in the first Adar also; and not in accordance with R. Eliezer, who says the Megilla must not be repeated at all in the second Adar; and not in accordance with R. Simeon b. Gamaliel, as according to him there is a difference in the order of the portions (as R. Papa explained). The Mishna is in accordance with R. Simeon b. Gamaliel, but is not completed, and must read thus: There is no difference between the fourteenth day of the first Adar and the fourteenth day of the second Adar, except in the reading of the Megilla and gifts to the poor. But the next day, in respect to mourning and fasting, they are equal. Concerning the order of the portions, the Mishna does not speak about it. Said R. Hyya bar Abin in the name of R. Johanan: The halakhah prevails according to what Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel said in the name of R. Jose. Said R. Tabi: The reason why R. Simeon b. Gamaliel declares so is, that one redemption (from Haman) should be near to another redemption (from Egypt, Passover). R. Elazar said: The reason of R. Simeon b. Gamaliel is, because it is written in Esther [ix. 29]: “To confirm this letter of Purim the second time.” “The second” means in the second Adar.

See? Simple. Let me finally get to the point: because there’s two Adars, and rabbis have decreed that the real Purim is in the second Adar based on some fuzzy connection to the text of Esther, move your Yorzeit and Bar Mitzvah to Adar 2 because of Purim. And this is another example of why I ended up thinking of rabbis as no better than hack lawyers and politicians, and rabbinic (Pharisaic) Judaism as inherently corrupt in the same manner as government.

The odd deal is that because of Purim’s move, the 14th or 15th of Adar 1, depending on the city walls, is now called “Purim Katan,” or “Little Purim.” You’re supposed to be all jolly and shit and read a bunch of extra prayers, but the real revelry and drunkenness doesn’t attach.

So Rabbi OMWC hereby declares that Little Purim, which starts tonight, must be celebrated with little bowls of weed instead of big glasses of wine, little hamantashen as munchies, and naked spinners. And my word is no less canonical than a bunch of old dead rabbis.