(Almost) Anniversary (And Some Math)
Today isn’t the anniversary of the October 7 massacre but it also kinda is.
I’ll explain.
What’s called The October 7 Attack in the West is often referred to as the Black Saturday or the Simchat Torah massacre in Israel.
Simchat Torah is one of our endless holidays. It means, “the Celebration the Torah,” and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah reading, and the beginning of a new cycle. For secular people it’s just a day off. What’s not to like?
Oh, right. An invading horde of bronze age barbarians screaming for blood.
If we go by the Hebrew calendar, the massacre took place in Simchat Torah 5784. Tomorrow, it will be Simchat Torah 5785. However, more than a year passed between these two dates. How is this possible?
The reason is that the Jewish calendar is lunisolar, which means it’s regulated by the positions of both the moon and the sun. Basically, you calculate the months using the moon but the year using the sun. Confusing!
This makes each year 353-355 days long with an extra month added every 2-3 years to make it 385 days long. Thus, the long-term average year length closely approximates the actual length of the solar year. That’s right. We have a month with a sequel; Adar A and Adar B!
This may sound crazy to people used to the simpler Gregorian calendar but lunisolar calendars were the norm for ancient Middle Eastern civilizations for thousands of years.
Yeah, we’re old.
And hey, while it may sound quaint and confusing. The Hebrew calendar is actually very precise. The Gregorian calendar loses one day every 3,030 years while the Hebrew calendar loses one day only every 14,000 years.
Okay, I’ve bored you with enough math. Happy Simchat Torah to my Jewish readers and an awesome Wednesday to my overseas readers.