Talk:Birkat Hachama

Public Observences/Celebraions
Would it be appropriate to include information about Observances (Celebrations) on this day? Only once was Birkas Hachama observed in a group on top of the World Trade Center. I know one of the participants. Pachai (talk) 21:02, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Lerman's theory
Added a section about Lerman's theory. Goeie 06:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Needs cleanup
At the moment, this article editorializes and goes off on quite a few tangents. Anyone wanna take responsibility for cleaning it up? :) BeIsKr (talk) 04:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. I decided to just revert it and be done with it. There's absolutely no point in reproducing another web page whose tone is inappropriate for Wikipedia here when said page can just be linked to at the bottom. BeIsKr (talk) 05:05, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

This article also lacks inline citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.161.53.41 (talk) 16:47, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It not only possesses those errors and lacks those lackings but professes inaccuracies. I corrected the inaccuracies, but perhaps could not do anything about the other problems.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 18:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Tekufas Shmuel
The following statements "A solar year is 365.25 days long according the Jewish law", "Because both the Julian calendar and Jewish tradition define a solar year as exactly 365.25 days, the halachic vernal equinox historically fell out on March 25th every year" and "The halachic year of 365.25 days" are not accurate. This 365.25 day year is known as Tekufas Shmuel, something that we do NOT follow halachically (the calculation of Birkas Hachama being the exception for various reasons). Halachically we follow what is known as Tkufas Rav Adda that calculates a year as one nineteenth of 6839d 16h 595 chalakim, or 365.2468222 days (compared to 365.2425 for the Gregorian year). This should somehow be clarified and expanded upon. KosherJava (talk) 03:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Granted, there still exists a few oversimplifications, both in regard to topics you mentioned, as well as the absence of any mention of Saturn. Your comments about Shmuel and R' Ada are certainly valid and will be dealt with in due time, as will an adequate discussion of how this relates to tein tal u'matar.  As to why March 25 was chosen as the halachic date, discussion on that will also be necessary.  In trying to redraft this article, I have removed quite a number of untruths and included a lot more detail than was previously here, but it cannot be done in a day.  What is here now is certainly better than what was here, and it will only get better.  Kol tuv.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 13:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The mean year length of the Jewish calendar being what we call R. Adda's tekufa is no indication that we don't hold like Shmuel. It is, rather, a consequence of the 19 year cycle being the best perpetual scheme to synchronize the tropical year with whole lunar months. Shmuel himself would use the same 19 year cycle as the best perpetual calendar, since no better one could align the years with the months, even with Shmuel's year length. A better indication of what we hold is our position on those issues we can decide independently, such as birchas hachama and tal umatar, which, of course reflects Shmuel's view. There is actually no application of tekufas R. Adda in any area which we can choose.Pahmer (talk) 01:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

importance of covering this topic honestly.
There seems to be a general misunderstanding public of the actual event that is occurring in the sky. This article has made a large improvement over the last 2 weeks, but still has a way to go in being intellectually honest and effectively explaining the upcoming event of Birchat Hachammah.

Although Jewish people will be celebrating the exact position of the sun in relation to the earth at the same time and day of the week as during creation, I think it is undisputed among people who understand Birchat Hachammah, that this cycle is inaccurate. And this celebrated event is not actually occurring at this set day and time.

I read the artscroll book about Birchat Hachammah, which also did not address the true reality, and take the Julian calendar as a fact of nature. Wikipedia is not artscroll and the authors should try to explain this entire event and forthcoming and clearly as possible Something should be added to the effect of:

The true position of the sun in relation to the earth at the same time of the week does not actually occur on this 28 year cycle. The 28 year cycle is based on the Julian calendar (365.25 days) which we know is not precise. The Julian calendar loses one day of accuracy about every 133 years. This explains why Birchat Hachammah now occurs in the beginning of April, when it was meant to commemorate the suns position at creation at the vernal equinox which occurs on March 20 or 21. Each proceeding 28 year cycle we are moving further away from the actual date of the vernal equinox. Although the 28 year cycle is known not to be accurate, the accepted Jewish custom is to say the Birchat Hachammah blessing, which praised G-d for his works of creation.

Jonf (talk) 17:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Artscroll book should not be 'read' -- the editors pushed the author around to write in a manner that conforms to the generally present disdain of science promulgated by Orthodox Jews. I'm not saying that it is worthless, but it is, as was pointed out to me by a mentor of mine, mostly worthless -- basically, I've been told that chapter 2 and maybe 3 are important.  After that is superfluous to the issues, and before that is rife with hypercriticism.
 * Rabbi J. David Bleich is a genuine individual, and while I cannot write this article all day and all night, I am continuing to add to this article, all of your concerns will be addressed in due time, and upon conclusion of my research with my mentor, I will be calling R' Bleich myself to attain any answers to questions that both I and my mentor have. Kol tuv.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 05:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Move to Birkat Hachammah
The correct Hebrew form is Birkat Hachammah. Is there any reason to keep it at Birchat? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually i'm not sure about the h in the end, but the k in Birkat is important. It is also used for all the other articles about Jewish blessings in Wikipedia - compare Special:PrefixIndex/Birkat and Special:PrefixIndex/Birchat. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I eventually decided on Birkat Hachama, which is the closest to the spirit of WP:HEB and also appears the most common version in Google search. Again, the spelling of Hachama is not too important for me, but the k of Birkat is very important. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good move. YosefK (talk) 21:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Return to Creation
Please contribute to the article in a positive manner only -- this means refraining from insisting that Birkat Hachama has anything to do with the Sun returning to its physical position as it was during Creation. Such a return to a physical position occurs every year and coincides (or rather, is the definition of) the vernal equinox. The commemoration is of the co-incidence of the position with the timing.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 12:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * What does the definition of the vernal equinox have to do with Jewish creation myths? Cush (talk) 06:14, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Reply by Mottelg: You are right in one sense, but not another. At least be clear what it is you are arguing against. The myth (and I agree with you in this characterization) is NOT (simply) that the Sun returns to a particular position (by which is meant the March equinoctial point on the ecliptic). That does indeed occur every year. Rather, it is that the Sun returns there at the exact time of week at which, in Jewish belief, it was created, namely, Wednesday at zero hours. (Zero hours means, here, as the hours of the day are counted in the Jewish calendar, in which the date changes at mean sunset, not 6 hours later when the civil date changes. So Wed, 00:00 Jewish time = Tues 18:00 civil time.) It IS a myth, not for the reasons you have given, but for the reasons I have given in the article: Myths and Maths of the Blessing of the Sun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mottelg (talk • contribs) 07:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Your response is irrelevant in that it does not response to my post.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 19:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Ocurrences
The eagle eyed among you will have noticed a change in the Occurrences section in the main article, to the following text, which originally read: "Birkat Hachama will always fall on March 25 in the Julian calendar" and now reads "March 26". That was me. Let me explain: although in a Birkat Hachama year, the Shmuelian March equinox occurs on Tuesday, March 25 at 18:00, (which is zero hours on Wednesday in the Jewish calendar), Birkat Hachama itself is observed about 12 hours later, by which time it is Wednesday in the Julian calendar as well, and therefore March 26th. For more information, read Myths and Maths of the Blessing of the Sun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mottelg (talk • contribs) 07:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Gematria of the tetragrammaton
adds to 28. 184.76.53.217 (talk) 08:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC) What adds to 28? The gematria of the tetragrammaton adds up to 26, not 28. But even if it did add up to 28, so what? What point were you trying to make?Kepipesiom (talk) 20:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Talmudic Equinox
The article mentions that the Talmudic scholars established the halachic vernal equinox as March 25. Is there a source for this? I am asking this because if that were true, there wouldn't be a 17 day difference between that day and the true equinox. The distance between March 25 and April 8 is actually 14 days. The Hebrew calendar was established roughly 1650 years ago. This would account for a 12 day discrepancy. If you look at the day of the halachic autumnal equinox (58 days before December 5 when we start saying "V'ten tal umatar") it is exactly a 12 day difference from September 25. While September 25 is not the true equinox, it is the day in which there is "equal night". My guess is that the halachic equinox was originally the day that is exactly 12 hours. This is a common concept in halacha, in which perception is reality. If we use this explanation, the halachic vernal equinox is on April 8 because it is 182 days and fifteen hours after the autumnal equinox which is the opinion of Shmuel. (Both opinions hold of uniformly timed seasons, even if they aren't in actuality.) I haven't seen this in any Sefer but it's the only explanation that I could think of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slightly awkward (talk • contribs) 23:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Still would not explain the drift through the calendar (for your explanation to work, it would have to be on that date in the past and now, ie., without significant drift). The better explanation is that birkat hachama may have been established a few centuries earlier, and wasn't messed with when the calculated calendar came into use. 17 days would place its beginning in the 2nd century BCE instead of the 4th century CE that you referred to. But, their main problem, still, is that they used a less-than-accurate year length of 365.25 days for their week/year ratio (7/365.25 ~= 28/1461 [which gives 1461 weeks = 28 years so as to attempt that the equinox lands on the same day of the week]). A more accurate year measure like 365.242 would be 7/365.242 ~= 17/887 (which gives 887 weeks = 17 years but still an error of 13 days after 2000 years), or 45/2348 (which gives 2348 weeks = 45 years with an error of 4 days after 2000 years), or 62/3235 (3235 weeks = 62 years for an error of 0.5 days after 2000 years). The larger intervals give more accurate timing with less drift, but also means birkat happens less frequently. — al-Shimoni  (talk) 17:20, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

532-year cycle
A 532-year cycle (19 years of the Metonic cycle multiplied by 28 years of the Julian calendar weekdate cycle) has also been used by Christians to determine the date of Easter at various times. It's quite likely that Dionysius Exiguus fixed the beginning of the Anno Domini era to be at the beginning of a 532-year cycle... AnonMoos (talk) 07:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Also, the era of Julian days was fixed as the point when the Metonic cycle, the Julian calendar weekdate cycle, and another 15-year cycle, all started in the smae year... AnonMoos (talk) 07:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)