Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ, 1991.

The Jewish calendar utilized the ancient Babylonian system of employing lunar months within a solar year. The eleven-day difference between the lunar and solar years was dealt with by intercalating an extra month (Adar II) at the end of the winter, approximately every three years. In Second Temple and rabbinic times, a complex system of empirical observation was employed to synchronize the calendar with actual lunar changes. While certain sectarian groups in Second Temple times, among them the Boethusians and the Dead Sea sect, used a calendar based on solar months, this innovation never gained substantial ground. Tannaitic Jews regarded the luni-solar calendar as divinely ordained and as the ancient calendar of biblical Israel. Moreover, the sectarian calendars in our sources were not as astronomically accurate.

Besides the need for a system of intercalation, it was also necessary to fix the exact day of the new moon each month. Both of these functions involved a detailed procedure of lunar observation undertaken in tannaitic times by a court of the patriarchal house. Thus, although the Sabbath was considered to occur on the very day on which God had desisted from labor during creation, the seventh day, and hence its sanctity had been fixed by God, the festivals and other Jewish holidays were regarded as controlled by the people of Israel through their system of courts. Rabbinic Judaism therefore recognized two kinds of holy occasions, those determined by God and those determined by His people. In other words, it was possible in the rabbinic view for God to sanctify time, an act built into the very order of creation, but it was the privilege of His people to be able to do the same in regard to the festivals. In this way, as in so many others, man becomes God’s partner in the creation and perfection of the world.

As long as there was a Temple in Jerusalem, with sacrificial worship and the accompanying rituals, the Jewish people had a sanctuary in space that allowed them to commune with God. Tannaitic Judaism, as part of its adjustment to the destruction of the Temple, placed ever greater emphasis on other sanctuaries. While this was certainly a factor in the rise of the synagogue in amoraic times, the Sabbath and festivals had already, in the tannaitic period, begun to replace the Temple and its sacrifices as the sancta of Israel, becoming, as it were, sanctuaries in time.

The Sabbath

In the tannaitic sources, the main issue regarding the Sabbath was the conditions under which one who accidentally violated the Sabbath was obligated to bring a sacrifice of expiation. This question determined the content of the largest part of the tractate Sabbath in the Mishnah. Indirectly, we learn from the tractate that the tannaim understood as prohibited on the Sabbath a wide range of creative labors that were said to have been performed in the building of the Tabernacle, the portable shrine in the desert. Since the Tabernacle was God’s sanctuary, the labors outlined in the biblical accounts of its construction must have been the most important of creative labors. Since they were designated melakhah, “creative labor,” and melakhah is prohibited on the Sabbath by the Torah, they must be the ones that pentateuchal law intended to prohibit. By abstaining from creative labors on the Sabbath, one imitated the Creator, who, according to Genesis (2:1–3), had rested in this way after bringing the world into being.

The positive aspects of Sabbath observance, such as the Sabbath meals, the reading of the Torah, the special prayers of sanctification (Kiddush) and the concluding ceremony (Havdalah), both of which are mentioned prominently in tannaitic sources, and the requirements of rejoicing and dedicating the day to spiritual pursuits, were elaborated in amoraic sources. By the close of the talmudic period, these aspects were thoroughly spelled out in a series of laws designed to ensure that the positive character of the Sabbath would not be lost in light of its restrictions. Observed as the rabbis intended, the Sabbath provided a sanctuary in time from everyday work activities and created an atmosphere of sanctity in home and family.

Festivals and other occasions

Along with the Sabbath, several other days were set apart by biblical legislation as occasions for special sacrificial offerings. As such, they had special significance in First and Second Temple times. In tannaitic times, after the destruction, they were adapted to the new situation that had become the norm and were given a more important place in the home and synagogue.

First and foremost, by tannaitic times, were Rosh Ha-Shanah (the New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). In the absence of Temple and sacrifices, the High Holy Days and the period between them, the Days of Penitence, became a period of repentance, atonement, and forgiveness. The ceremonies and prayers for these days expressed Rabbinic Judaism’s belief in free will and the human being’s ability to change his or her life. The emphasis on God as king and sovereign on Rosh Ha-Shanah accented such concepts as God’s remembrance of Israel and His use of the shofar to herald the Sinaitic revelation and, in the future, the coming of the messiah. Yom Kippur became a remembrance of the atonement service in the Temple, serving to replace the sacrifice described in Leviticus 16.

Of ancient origins are the three pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles). In biblical times, these agricultural turning points were given new significance as celebrations of the redemptive history of Israel. In rabbinic times, this meaning was deepened and heightened. The week-long Passover, the festival of the barley harvest, became the focal point of the commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. Originally, in the days of the Temple, the Passover Seder had been a sacrificial meal at which certain praises and a midrash were recited. After the destruction, the Seder became a central part of the home ritual. Shavuot, a wheat harvest festival, was defined by talmudic chronology as the day on which the Torah had been given at Mount Sinai, and so it became the celebration of God’s covenant with Israel, an event which had followed closely on the heels of the liberation from Egyptian bondage.

Sukkot, a seven-day celebration likewise connected with the Exodus, took on increased significance as a fall festival at which the Jewish people asked for rain to nourish the crops of the coming year. The lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citron), carried in processions during this festival, were understood to express the fervent hope for a rainy winter and to represent the bountiful crops and fertility of the land. The sukkah (“booth”) in which the Jews were commanded to dwell for the duration of the festival represented the temporary dwellings of the Israelites on their way to the promised land and served as a reminder of the clouds of Divine Glory that had protected them in the desert, and hence of the fragility of human existence. In the Temple, a special water-drawing ceremony and willow procession expressed the agricultural aspect of the holiday. In amoraic times, these ceremonies were increasingly reenacted in the synagogue services. It was in the amoraic period that the last day of the festival, the ninth day in the Diaspora, began to take on significance as a festival celebrating the completion of the annual Torah reading according to the Babylonian custom. Only in the Middle Ages did this day develop its full significance as Simhat Torah (Rejoicing in the Torah).

Two other holidays, Hanukkah and Purim, are of special importance because they were instituted to celebrate Jewish victories over anti-Semitism and religious oppression. Both of these holidays, because of their late origin, elicited some reservations before they were finally accepted as part of the Jewish calendar.

Purim, based on the story told in the Book of Esther, commemorates the Jewish victory over the courtier Haman and his supporters in the Persian Empire. While modern biblical scholars have doubted the story’s historicity, talmudic tradition accepted it as fact. The rabbis recognized the tale’s humor and irony while seeing the hand of God behind the narrative. They elaborated detailed observances, including the reading of the Scroll of Esther morning and night, gifts of food and alms for the poor, additions to the service and the Grace after Meals, and a festive meal. At the same time, tannaitic evidence shows that the book’s canonicity was challenged, and amoraic evidence indicates that the obligatory nature of Purim observance was questioned. Ultimately, authoritative rabbinic opinion affirmed the celebration of Purim, though discomfort remained regarding a story in which prayer and God are not explicitly mentioned.

Hanukkah commemorates the Hasmonean victory over the Seleucids in 168–164 B.C.E. The tannaim had little information about its historical origins, as I and II Maccabees were not known to rabbinic Jews. Nonetheless, they established regulations for candle lighting and for additions to the service and the Grace after Meals. Some hesitancy remained, stemming from the Hasmonean assumption of both kingship and high priesthood, offices that the Torah treats as separate. It has been suggested that Rabbi Judah the Prince did not include a tractate on Hanukkah in the Mishnah because of resentment over this, as he claimed Davidic lineage displaced by the Hasmonean priest-kings.

In addition to joyous holidays, there were fast-days commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples, most notably the Seventeenth of Tamuz and the Ninth of Av. Mentioned already by the prophet Zechariah (8:19), these fasts originally commemorated the first destruction but took on heightened significance after the destruction of the Second Temple. Abstinence from food and drink, special prayers, and Torah readings emphasized the tragedy. Although much of Talmudic Judaism developed after the destruction, the rabbis regarded this rupture in intimate contact between God and the world as the greatest disaster in Jewish history.

The days surveyed here, joyful and mournful alike, enabled the rabbinic Jewish communities of Palestine and Babylonia to preserve and transmit their communal memory and identity. Despite local variations and historical development, the basic list of observances remained uniform from the mid-second century onward. Together, these days formed the Jewish ritual calendar, the rhythm of the Jewish year.