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.
That’s confusing,
Cheers!
All this has done is convince me that we got the calendar more correct than those early prototypes.
Exactly right.
We really should got to a sidereal calendar though.
In the short term, no difference. In the long term, seasons would drift.
Good lord.
I think I’m starting to understand why so many of the Tribe are lawyers.
Or comedians.
Here where there are large Jewish populations this is rather well known.
Adarteenth?
+1
If you were to give me a pop quiz on that article I would fail miserably.
Interesting, though
Same.
Can I bring in my ultra-high-powered calculator?
It better be Reverse Polish Notation if wanna be alpha geek.
/Sadly my HP 48G did not withstand a 2 story fall. RIP
Punishing calculators by throwing them off the balcony has consequences.
I guess the calculator did not realize the gravity of the situation.
Alas that Spanish hadn’t been invented yet, or you could use ¿Por qué no los dos?
If English was good enough for God …
God can speak every language. Angels can speak every language except Aramaic.
Source
Thank you, that was wonderful.
Based on the Angel’s roster, I expect English, Spanish and Japanese.
*narrows gaze*
[R]ADAR LOVE
pointless remake.
Better remake.
Not my genre, but I enjoyed it.
I don’t know if tidal acceleration would ever result in 12 lunar months equaling 1 year.
Within what time frame?
It would have to be within the 50 billion years before the Earth is tidal locked to the Moon.
Can a planet be both tidally locked with its moon and with its star, or would the orbital mechanics not work?
Maybe if the Moon was at the Lagrange 1 or Lagrange 2 points.
Does that time include the change of orbit from the drag of being inside the sun?
Global warming isn’t real.
OMWC, you should assemble your JDTd articles into a definitive text – “The Complete Idiot”s Guide to Judaism”. You’ve greatly contributed to this idiot’s understanding.
Those rabbis are amazing. I’ll bet they know exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin! I’m sure they have already figured out how to stop global warming, why are they keeping this to themselves?
Are they European angels or African angels?
See, I’m pretty sure the Catholic interpretation would involve the laypeople drinking heavily and celebrating both dates, just because.
Better safe than sorry, am I right?
The Presbyterian interpretation will agree to the Catholic one but will pretend it is doing it in protest
The Baptist one would involve public shaming from the pulpit, but running into the pastor at the liquor store.
Alcohol is only prohibited on church property or at church events.
*whistles innocently while flashing back to a few church events*
Oh, the Catholic churches would be having big festivals and carnivals with rides for the kiddies, drinks for the parents, and a casino room for the church to use as a fundraiser.
What no public baptisms of teenage girls wearing white tees? Non-denominational churches in my youth were awesome
Teenagers wouldn’t be getting baptized, that’s done to infants. They would be going through Confirmation in their teen years.
That reminds me… it’s almost fish fry season here.
See, come over to the Baptist side to see teenage girls dunked.
I went to the local KofC hall for one here. I was the youngest person there by more than a couple decades.
The fish was on the high side of “ok.” The fries on the low side.
The fish was on the high side of “ok.” The fries on the low side.
For an interfaith gathering, people are asked to bring something that represents their religion. A Catholic brings a crucifix. A Jew brings a menorah. A Baptist brings food.
Not Adahn:
Here most of the fish fries also offer pierogi to go with it, because what’s better with fried fish then multiple starches? Here you can usually judge based on if they mention the type of fish. The better places here do perch and walleye.
The perch and walleye may be in short supply this year though due to the Canadian truckers. Last year, when on an island in Lake Erie, one of the restaurants was out of walleye. I looked at them, looked out at the lake, looked back at them, at which point they laughed, and explained that most of the commercial walleye fishing in Lake Erie was done on the Canadian side (due to regulations).
Haddock seems to be the fish of pride here.
I should probably return to the KofC hall for Italian night.
I went to the local KofC hall for one here. I was the youngest person there by more than a couple decades.
You could always come to my fish fry.
You beat me to it!
Well, Robby Soave made the Adam Carolla Show. https://youtu.be/VzKgLDvDooo?t=2745 – #2 of the top 5 Sports Ball Tweets
The whole segment is hilarious but knowing froot sooshi, it’s even funnier.
We all just need to move to Scott Flansburg’s calendar.
https://erphia.ch/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/THC_Calendar_2020_Edition.pdf
I like it. An old friend proposed a calendar consisting of 12 30-day months and a 5-6 day period he called “World Week” which would basically be an extended Purim. I think that idea has promise.
That is basically the hobbit calendar. I forget the details, I think 3 days at new years and 2 days in the summer that werent part of months.
Aha. Maybe I should read Tolkien next time I have a few years with nothing to do. /ducks
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.
This non-Jew thinks that is a good idea.
I just finished a meeting with my English colleagues. They kindly request that we stop flying B52s over their homes.
What do they have against BUFF airplanes?
Amusing: I’m ambivalent about nicknames for politicians, but I was amused by “Vladimir Poutine” for Trudeau.
That is all. Carry on.
Naw. Poutine would outsmert Trudy.
He’s not even close the Vlad’s level.
Local restaurant that specialized in poutine has on the menu:
They closed one location during the ‘vid, and have just recently announced they’re getting a location back near the old one.
Well, this is a terrible precedent:
Sandy Hook families agree to $73 million settlement with gun maker Remington
Well, I’ve bought my last Remington.
I wasn’t planning on buying another one, but its definitely not going to happen now.
You don’t think the others will bend over, too?
Until they do, they haven’t.
That’s the spirit!
Why hasn’t Mossberg made a semi-auto Shockwave?
They would need to start by building a semi-auto shotgun that runs. The half-dozen JM 930 Pros that went to the Miculek family don’t count…
I could still be persuaded by a Trap-grade Model 10, but that’s not putting any money in the current Remington pockets.
The Remington brand name and trademarks were sold, along with the ammunition business, to Vista.
The arms side was sold to Roundhill.
Based on this blurb from the story, it’s the insurers that agreed to the settlement:
Four insurers for Remington, which has filed for bankruptcy twice in two years, have agreed to pay the $73 million.
Oops… Marlin firearms went to Ruger. Other firearms went to Roundhill.
Speaking as a guy who owns several Rugers and a few Marlins from back when they were still actually Marlins, I’m curious to see what the new Rugerlins will look like.
The first has been released to generally positive reviews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvcI2r6Zw_I
Wut?
Free advertising?
Thus paving the way for the family of anyone killed by someone with a Remington to also cash a lottery check.
Just shut the fucking company down now. Its doomed. Maybe spin off the ammo division first.
That’s already been done.
Maybe spin off the ammo division first.
I think they already did a couple years ago.
It’s [current year]. You’re not supposed to advertise a product doing what it actually does any more.
I eagerly await the families of the Waukesha victims getting their $75 million settlement from Ford.
Wrong type of crowd.
As I recall the Mayan calendar had no such absurdities as plague either the Jewish or the Julian/Gregorian versions.
The Mayan calendar is way more complex than modern calendars and doesn’t track either the Moon or the Sun.
The Maya name for a day was kʼin. Twenty of these kʼins are known as a winal or uinal. Eighteen winals make one tun. Twenty tuns are known as a kʼatun. Twenty kʼatuns make a bʼakʼtun.
Did somebody say naked spinners?
So let it be written. So let it be done.
Initially I was filled with righteous rage:
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/14/1080754372/san-francisco-police-dna-rape-victims
But at the end of the article:
Which immediately snaps me back to my skepticism about anything I read.
Victims of crimes are sometimes fingerprinted (so the cops can sort their prints from those of the perp). Should we also say those fingerprints can’t be used in another investigation?
Although, now that I think about it, my prints have been taken for various licenses. I would have no problem whatsoever with saying prints taken for those purposes can’t be included in any database used for criminal investigations.
My fingerprints have been on file at least since I applied for citizenship and I think (?) since I applied for a green card.
The US government now collects fingerprints from people applying even for non-immigrant visas. That wasn’t the case before.
The US government has taken my fingerprints multiple times for work. I don’t know how long they retain. The Army also took DNA. I don’t know if they destroyed after I was discharged.
My wife was fingerprinted for citizenship. Knowing the government, they are more likely to destroy her records than mine.
Yeah from what the US government has taken from me, they could create a complete clone down to my financial status and preferred sex positions.
https://news.yahoo.com/family-halyna-hutchins-files-wrongful-180532425.html
Speaking of lawsuits…
I’m amazed Baldwin found a lawyer after running his mouth in public in the weeks following the shooting.
He’s going to end up paying a substantial amount.
Far right extremist, possibly inspired by Sarah Palin’s rhetoric, shoots Democrat candidate for mayor
NYT editorial in 3,2,1…
‘Brown was a known activist who often wrote opinion pieces for The Courier Journal. He was actively involved with the Youth Violence Prevention League, Black Lives Matter and an outspoken critic of police. He was also a registered candidate for Metro Council District 5.’
Fake but accurate. /Snopes
Loads of ammunition? I’ve found more ammo than that in my dryer lint catcher…
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/another-illegal-philadelphia-gun-control-law-struck-down-under-pennsylvania-preemption-statute/
🙂
And yet the city will continue to try.
braised Ohio lamb stroganov
Would eat.
Ohio stroganov is when they add cinnamon to it, right?
Don’t lump us all in with those can chugging people from Cincinnati.
?
Woman Dumped at NYC Hospital With Multiple Buttocks Injections, Dies
The most ridiculous thing is that this isn’t the first, second or even third time I’ve read about somebody dying from cosmetic injections of unknown substances here in metro NYC.
STEVE SMITH GIVE MULTIPLE BUTTOCKS INJECTIONS!
I blame the patriarchy’s demand for thicc.
The real reason Purim is the best holiday is because Joan Collins played Esther in Esther and the King.
Do all Jews use the term Yahrzeit or only the Ashkenazi? It is, after all, a Yiddish (well, German into Yiddish) word, and I’d think the Sephardim would have a different word.
“Nakhala.” At least that’s the term Mizrahi Jews (I am half Mizrahi) use.
Sen. Mike Lee drawing backlash for blocking Japanese American internment site designation in Colorado
Seven paragraphs of progressive invective journalism and discussion of racism.
Oh – got it.
By all accounts, it looks like Trudy is trying to stage a coup from within the government. He’s effectively criminalized all dissent through the indiscriminate and warrantless seizure of bank accounts. Now he’s federalizing the police in Ottawa.
Hold on to your shorts up in Canuckistan, Castreau ain’t going down without a fight.
https://www.rebelnews.com/rcmp_and_ontario_provincial_police_set_to_take_over_law_enforcement_in_ottawa
Daddy had his October Crisis; the guy with daddy issues has his February Crisis.
Each one of his daddies had his own October Crisis.
The October Crisis was in response to actual terrorist attacks.
The bar for invoking martial law has been lowered a fair amount.
My take is that Justin intends to permanently hold on now. His approval rating is in the shitter and he’s only propped up by the parties. He has to make a move to consolidate his power right now or he’s gone forever.
And Daddy let the terrorists go free, didn’t he?
The Supreme Court Needs Its Own Filibuster
The Supreme Court’s decision last week to reverse the finding of a three-judge panel that Alabama must redraw its 2022 Congressional map after violating the Voting Rights Act — a ruling the Supreme Court reached without the benefit of full briefing and argument—has raised again the question of what could be done about the court’s use of the “shadow docket.” Here’s one answer: Congress should give the justices a filibuster.
The Constitution establishes a Supreme Court. It gives Congress the power to make exceptions to the court’s appellate review. Congress could use that power to give dissenting justices a way to block extraordinary action by the court without a super-majority concurring.
Doesn’t sound very democratic to me.
SCOTUS can fuck off. We need nullification.
Has the “Voting Rights Act” always been about racial gerrymandering? It seems like that was added later, given the precociously innocent name of the thing.
It was always about race. It was one of the “Civil Rights Era” laws used as a bludgeon for the left nowadays.
I’d swear it was just a month ago that I was reading about how evil, anti-democratic and white supremacist the very idea of a filibuster was.
I’ve also been repeatedly assured that SCOTUS judges aren’t political actors since they don’t have to go through the icky process of running for office. I’m pretty sure the filibuster is a political tactic.
‘BioShock’ Movie in the Works at Netflix
It will be interesting to see how Hollywood portrays the failed libertarian utopia.
Will it be just as badly done as the game?
It gave it a certain campy fun.
The game was fun, the over the top display of Ayn’s philosophical works was a bit…much.
I did enjoy watching them give Communism the same treatment in the sequel, and people complaining that it wasn’t real Communism.
I honestly don’t remember what the story was in 2, but I’ll take your word for it. It was done by a different developer and Levine didn’t write it. Infinite doubles down on treating anyone to the right of Mao as a bunch of backwards, old-fashioned rubes. I’m glad it came out before everything went woke or we’d be hearing the same people that think Handmaiden’s Tale is a documentary telling us that game is the world we live in right now with a straight face.
I did enjoy the games, but it definitely makes straw man caricatures of libertarian and free market ideas. I remember reading a long form interview with Ken Levine years ago where he was mostly spouting the usual leftist/marxist claptrap about what slippery slopes those are. As with most leftists lacking self-awareness, it doesn’t dawn on him that he has to write fiction to show what bad ideas we have, all we have to do is open up any recent history book to see what becomes of their ideas. Yet somehow, they’re still convinced they won the arguement.
Thanks for these. I always enjoy them. Learn something and have a laugh, the best form of instruction.