Support Team Study – Reaping the Benefits of the Medieval Aviv Calendar: Part 2

Dr. Nehemia Gordon - Bible Scholar at NehemiasWall.com

Released From the Support Team Study Vault! In this episode of Reaping the Benefits of the Medieval Aviv Calendar: Part 2, Nehemia speaks with a scholar at University College London about how Karaites implemented the Aviv calendar in the tenth and eleventh centuries, how their medieval Aviv controversies mirror those still raging today, and how they managed to maintain community cohesion despite profound difference of calendar observance.

I look forward to reading your comments!

PODCAST VERSION:https://audio.nehemiaswall.com/Hebrew-Voices/Reaping-the-Benefits-of-the-Medieval-Aviv-Calendar-Part-2-NehemiasWall.mp3Download Audio

Transcript

Support Team Study – Reaping the Benefits of the Medieval Aviv Calendar: Part 2

Nadia: This is what I’m seeing in the sources.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: That they are very open to this diversity, and also, even, I told you when we last talked...

Nehemia: So, I’m waiting for you to tell the story! I’m trying to get you to tell the story about the woman and her ketubah.

Nadia: Yes, exactly!

Nehemia: This is the pinnacle of the entire conversation because it’s such a profound expression of diversity. I was shocked.

Nehemia: Shalom and welcome to Hebrew Voices. I’m here today with Dr. Nadia Vidro of University College, London.

So, here you have a letter from the year 416, or sorry, 417, and that is not the Islamic…

Nadia: Of the Hijra.

Nehemia: Okay, so what is that in the Gregorian calendar, off the top of your head?

Nadia: It’s not that easy to calculate.

Nehemia: Okay. Sometime in the 11th century.

Nadia: Yeah, so it will be 1020 or something.

Nehemia: Somewhere around there, okay. And it says, “This year was intercalated according to the…” and I can’t really see that there, “the mu’ayyidun and plain,” meaning non-intercalated “according to the kabbasun.” So, what are the mu’ayyidun and the kabbasun?

Nadia: So, these are two interesting terms as well. Kabbisa means “intercalated”, so kabbisun are “those who intercalate.” And ayyid in Arabic means “festival”, so mu’ayyidun are “those who celebrate”. But those two terms, you don’t see it in the literal translation of the terms, but they actually refer to how much barley you need to find.

Nehemia: Okay. So, there are these two factions, and they have names.

Nadia: Yes.

Nehemia: Wow!

Nadia: For this particular issue.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: And this probably is because they go to the fields and they see the same barley, and, for example, they agree on the stage, but they don’t agree on how much you need to find. So, those who found a little bit of this particular stage of barley, they’ll celebrate.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: But those who say, “No, this is not enough, maybe it’s enough for a sheaf offering, but it’s not enough for…"

Nehemia: So, there’s a question here of what quantity it is. Is it a plot? Is it a patch? Is it throughout the entire country?

Nadia: Is it just one omer? Yeah, all those opinions that you're mentioning are recorded in the books.

Nehemia: Okay, wow.

Nadia: Usually, they’ll say that the whole country is unfeasible to check. So as long as they find a couple of fields that are in the same stage, we can assume that probably the whole country will be in the same stage.

Nehemia: They’re extrapolating from what they found and what they haven’t found.

Nadia: They’re extrapolating, but not from a small plot. From a number of fields they can extrapolate to the whole country, for example.

Nehemia: But then, there were other opinions, you’re saying, where it was just a sheaf and that was enough. Is that right?

Nadia: Yeah, sometimes.

Nehemia: Wow, okay.

Nadia: Sometimes it’s that because you need to offer one omer.

Nehemia: So, that’s the minimum based on their understanding of the Biblical timeline.

And this is a bit off topic… not really off topic. So, you said it’s not practical to go and look around the whole country, and I can tell you, having done it in the Modern Era with multiple vehicles, and we’re talking over the cellphone, and one vehicle is going down this road, and the other is going down that road, and we cover massive… maybe not in American terms but in Israeli terms, we’re covering a large portion of the country, large sections.

And I should say, when we first started out, we didn’t even know where to look. We looked in Samaria, we looked in the Galilee, we looked all over the place, and we realized the earliest ripening places are the Jordan Valley and the Northern Negev. And those are the exact spots that you mention here in your article! That’s amazing!

Nadia: Yes. This is discussed in the sources, where you should go, and what are the limits of the Land of Israel. But they’re only discussing the southern parts because they always say in the north it ripens later. We don’t need to be bothered with that.

Nehemia: And this is from your article, in the years 415 and 418, just like today where I would use the Gregorian Calendar and say it’s 2022, even though in the Rabbinical Calendar it’s Tav-Shin-Peh-Bet...

Nadia: Yeah, they’re using a lot of Hijra.

Nehemia: So, they’re using the Hijra, because they’re living in an Islamic dominated culture. So, they say, in the years 415 and 418 they did barley inspections in the district of Gaza, near Rafiach, near Rafah, in 410 and 413, and in the district of Tzohar in 416, which is the Jordan Valley, the southern end of the Jordan Valley.

Nadia: Yeah, many texts talk about the Jordan Valley.

Nehemia: And the district of Ramla… that’s interesting, because I would have thought that Ramle is kind of a late ripening area. And the district of Ashkelon. Well, there was one year where the main field we found was just south of Ashkelon. It’s amazing! So, we stumbled upon…

Nadia: Well, it’s the same Land of Israel, right?

Nehemia: That’s true! And look, I was aware of some of these reports. Meaning, there was one that was published by, I think, Judith Schlanger, or somebody like that, decades ago, so I knew they were looking in the district of Gaza. So, maybe I’m cheating a little bit! It’s not that I'm cheating. I found on my own, not just me but other people I was involved with, that the Northern Negev was one of the places that would ripen early. And then that was confirmed by one of these reports, which I think is included in your article as well.

So, this is fascinating. It’s the same sort of area.

Tzohar is interesting. Do you know what they meant by "Tzohar"? Because Tzohar is at the southern end of the Dead Sea, there’s no barley there today. But if you go half an hour north by car, there’s a whole lot of barley there. So, did they literally mean Tzohar?

Nadia: Well, that’s what they write.

Nehemia: That’s what they write, okay. That’s interesting.

Nadia: That's what they write. They discussed if Tzohar is actually a good place to check, not necessarily only in agricultural terms, but also in Biblical terms, whether this belonged to the Land of Israel.

Nehemia: Okay. And what they meant by Tzohar was somewhere on the southern end of the Dead Sea. We’ve got the tombstones from Tzohar that mention the Shemitah, incredible tombstones and documents there. And I guess they must have been involved in some sort of agriculture. And look, at Qumran they found sickles, which are on display at the Israel Museum, and that blew my mind. I was like, “Who’s growing crops here in the Dead Sea Valley?” But I know the Dead Sea used to be higher, and the water table was higher, so that may have affected it as well.

I want to talk about these statements in one of these letters here. Let’s talk about this here. You quote how… there are people by name. Here it says, “On Tuesday a field was inspected on which there was abundant grain. The majority of it was green and doughy,” that’s that technical term there, “and the pistachio-colored was beginning to spread. The community did not agree on the opinion that the festival was in Safar,” and Safar here means?

Nadia: It’s a Muslim month.

Nehemia: Okay. They’re using the Muslim names for the months. And why are they doing that? It’s obvious to me why they’re doing that. If I say Nisan, well when I think Nisan is might be different to when you think Nisan is.

Nadia: Absolutely.

Nehemia: So, we need some kind of way, just like today we’ll say March 22nd, right?

Nadia: Yeah, to have a common grid.

Nehemia: Exactly, right. And it says, “The teacher, Abu Said, and many in the community intercalated.” So, there was a dispute that year, and it sounds like almost every year. You bring one year where there wasn’t a dispute! There are all these different years where they're…

Nadia: There was often a split in the community where some part of the community decided to intercalate, and other parts of the community decided that the barley was ripe enough to actually celebrate Passover. And that means this for the course of this year they were a month apart. They celebrated all the festivals a month apart.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Nadia: And you didn’t always have to stick with the same group.

Nehemia: Oh, really?

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: So, tell me about that.

Nadia: When I analyzed this chronicle, this logbook of intercalation, you can see that sometimes a part of a group that in the previous year were together, and then there was a second group that did something different, one part of this first group was split, and joined the second group. And then in the next year, they made the decision to join with the second group because they thought that this year’s Aviv was ready to celebrate.

Nehemia: And could that be because there were three factors? It could be that maybe some of the factors lined up with that group this year… So, we have quantity, location, and what was the third one?

Nadia: Well, the location was more or less agreed. So, quality, amount and time.

Nehemia: Okay. So, it’s the stage of the ripening, whether it has to be by the beginning of the month or… what was the other opinion?

Nadia: Before Passover.

Nehemia: Before Passover, okay.

Nadia: You always need to know before Passover.

Nehemia: So, let’s dwell on that for a second. So, one of the factions… and this is literally today one of the disputes that’s going on, so this is incredible, there was one group that said, according to what you’re saying in the 10th, 11th century, you have to have the Aviv before the beginning of the month. And the other said, "No, it’s fine. We can go 14 days into the month as long as it’s by what would be the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Chag Ha’matzot, and if it’s not then we wait until the next month."

Nadia: That’s precisely the opinion.

Nehemia: Wow! And this is the 10th, 11th century.

Nadia: That’s precisely the opinion. I think the beginning of the month was winning, because it was much more practical, but you still see people arguing up to the 14th day.

Nehemia: And they weren’t just arguing, they were observing based on that, right?

Nadia: To me it seems so, yeah.

Nehemia: So, here you have, “The majority celebrated the festival in the middle of Muharram of this year. For the teacher Abu Said and for those who intercalated the previous year with him, this year was plain.” Meaning not intercalated; they didn’t add a thirteenth month.

Nadia: They didn’t need to.

Nehemia: “But Abu al-Tayyib Shalom intercalated this year after intercalating the one before.”

Nadia: Yeah, sometimes you had those sequences of two intercalated years, which is unheard of, and…

Nehemia: Oh! So, they did have two years in a row that had 13 months. That happened.

Nadia: That would happen. There is a discussion about this… well, there’s a discussion about everything, basically!

Nehemia: So, was there a discussion… or do we have a practical example where they said this happened?

Nadia: Here you see a practical example of this one teacher, Abu al-Tayyib. Is this Abu al-Tayyib? Yes.

Nehemia: He is. “Abu al-Tayyib intercalated this year after intercalating the one…” Okay! So, it’s two in a row!

Nadia: Yeah, you had those.

Nehemia: According to Abu al-Tayyib Shalom. I love that name! It’s got the Arabic first name but his last name is Shalom.

Nadia: Yeah, you have those sequences of two intercalated years. I don’t know how often that happened, but it definitely happened.

Nehemia: So, you’ve got whether it has to be by the first or the 15th.

Nadia: Fourteenth, not fifteenth.

Nehemia: Fourteenth, okay.

Nadia: Because of the Passover sacrifice.

Nehemia: Well, you have to have it by the 14th so the 15th can be the Feast of Unleavened Bread, sorry, that’s what I meant. So, you would have to have it by the 14th or the 1st. You have to decide whether it’s one of these three stages. And then you have to decide how much is it, whether it’s a patch that produces two omers or an omer, or whether it’s all over the land, and maybe something in between. So those are the three main factors.

So, how did they function? Because some people would look at this and say this is, as we say in Hebrew, a balagan. This is impractical to have a community when you have all these differences and disagreements, and even one part of a faction may side with the other faction.

Nadia: So, as I said, they were very open to diversity. How exactly that ran in practice, it’s a little bit difficult to imagine. One thing that helped me to understand what happened there was when I read that, for example, they didn’t necessarily have one synagogue for everyone, they just had small private places of study and worship. So, if you wanted to celebrate those festivals with the group, maybe you just did it in your little private place of study and worship. And the other groups who made different decisions went to other studies, went to other places of worship.

Nehemia: Yeah, but think about the ramifications.

Nadia: You didn’t have to share one single synagogue.

Nehemia: Okay. So, some of the ramifications could be like, Abu al-Tayyib, he has his shop open on Sunday, and Abu Said says, “No, Sunday is a feast. What are you doing? You’re violating the holiday.” But they were able to function.

Nadia: That was a right for them.

Nehemia: So, they tolerated that.

Nadia: They tolerated that.

Nehemia: So, this is a profound level of tolerance you wouldn’t expect. In particular, you wouldn’t expect it in Judaism, which historically wasn’t all that particularly tolerant of diversity. I think Judaism was tolerant of diversity of thought, not diversity of action.

Nadia: So, it seems to me Karaites are different in this sense.

Nehemia: I could say today we strive to be but aren’t always successful. But is that what you’re seeing in the sources?

Nadia: This is what I’m seeing in the sources.

Nehemia: Okay.

Nadia: That they are very open to this diversity, and also even, I told you when we last talked…

Nehemia: I’m waiting for you to tell the story! I’m trying to get you to tell the story about the woman and her ketubah.

Nadia: Yes, exactly!

Nehemia: This is the pinnacle of the entire conversation because it’s such a profound expression of diversity. I was shocked.

Nadia: So, I found this one passage in the Book of Commandments by Levi ben Yefet, who was an early 11th century scholar, where he talks about vows made by women in relation to Numbers 30, I think. Numbers 30, the chapter in the Bible where the Bible says that a father or husband is allowed to override a woman's vow.

Nehemia: Essentially, if he hears about it, on the day he hears about it, he can say, “I cancel that vow,” or something like this, and then the vow is null and void.

Nadia: Yeah, but what Levi ben Yefet says is that in important things that are actual commandments, that are actual religious obligations, if a woman decides to… In a year when there is disagreement about the festivals within the Karaite community, if a woman decides that she wants to celebrate with one group and her husband is of a different opinion and sides with another group, he is not allowed to stop her from following the calendar that she chose, that she sided with.

Nehemia: Wow! So, she’s allowed to follow her conscience and her husband can’t invalidate her decision.

Nadia: That’s it.

Nehemia: Wow.

Nadia: Because he says obligations are different from other vows.

Nehemia: So, in other words, what the Torah’s talking about in Numbers, I think generally the thought is, the woman says, “I’m not going to eat green vegetables on Tuesday.” And the husband hears this, and he says, “No, I invalidate that,” or he’s silent and that stands.

Nadia: Yeah.

Nehemia: And what Levi ben Yefet is saying is, “Well, that’s voluntary things. If it’s something that’s actually a commandment, she can follow her conscience and her husband has no say in it.” Is that what it says?

Nadia: This is what it says.

Nehemia: Okay. So, I’m just thinking out loud here. Is this like some level of feminism that we wouldn’t have expected from Judaism in the 11th century? Or what is this?

Nadia: I think it’s definitely a level of tolerance that we probably don’t think existed.

Nehemia: Or we didn’t realize existed.

Nadia: Or we didn’t realize existed. I don’t know if it spreads to enough areas to call this feminism.

Nehemia: Okay, fair enough. And that’s beyond my expertise as well! Alright, so you have this tolerance where even a husband and wife can decide, “We’re going to observe the feast on a different day, or a different month,” we’ll get to “day” in a minute, hopefully, certainly in a different month, and that’s accepted. They don’t get divorced. They don’t split up. He has to accept what she’s doing and respect it, it sounds like. That’s incredible.

Nadia: Yeah, that’s within the Karaite community. But we also see the same thing between Karaites and Rabbanites, because in the period we’re talking about, Karaites and Rabbanites were allowed to marry each other. They weren’t forbidden from doing this, and we definitely see marriages like this. And in those marriages, there are special clauses about festivals and how they should treat those festivals that sometimes don’t fall on the same months because one will follow the Rabbanite calendar and the other the Karaite calendar.

Nehemia: Or one of the Karaite calendars!

Nadia: Or one of the Karaite calendars! And so, they always insert a clause that stipulates that they'll mutually tolerate each other's festivals…

Nehemia: Wow.

Nadia: …and they will not desecrate each other's festivals.

Nehemia: Thank you so much for joining me; this has been an amazing conversation. We’re going to come back and we’re going to talk more about the calendar, about the new moon, and how that was observed. Thank you.

Nadia: Thank you.

We hope the above transcript has been a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the transcript has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If this teaching has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting Nehemia's research and teachings, so he can continue to empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!

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VIDEO CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:30 Amount of aviv needed to declare
07:20 Timing of aviv in relation to the month
11:19 How did they function as a diverse community?
13:28 The story of the woman and her ketubah
17:30 Outro

VERSES MENTIONED
Numbers 30

BOOKS MENTIONED
Book of Commandments
by Levi ben Yefet (11th c.)

RELATED EPISODES
Hebrew Voices #154 - Reaping the Benefits of the Medieval Aviv Calendar: Part 1
Hebrew Voices #153 – Sighting the New Moon in the Middle Ages
Support Team Study – Calculating Passover in the Middle Ages
Hebrew Voices #28 – The Renewed Sanhedrin
Biblical Calendar Video - NehemiasWall.com

OTHER LINKS
Nadia’s articles in the Journal of Jewish Studies (Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies)
Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism journal (Indiana University Press)
Jewish Studies Quarterly (The Ronald O. Perelman Institute for Judaic Studies, Princeton

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The post Support Team Study – Reaping the Benefits of the Medieval Aviv Calendar: Part 2 appeared first on Nehemia's Wall.