Sanhedrin 12a — the Talmud in English

The Sages taught

:

They do not intercalate the year ![](pamud.bmp "

exact page position")

in years of famine,

in years of famine, because the grain has been exhausted, and the people await the offering of the omer on the sixteenth of Nisan, so that they will be able to eat from the new grain. And if they intercalate the year, they will have to wait an additional month.

It was taught: Rabbi [

the Maharshal’s version is:

it was Rabbi Meir]

would say:

It is stated in the Book of Kings [II, 4]:

“And a man came from Baal-shalishah, and he brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley,

and fresh grain in his sack.”

And we expound it as follows: “Bread of the first fruits”—grain that had just ripened. And the man brought it to the prophet Elisha and to the sons of the prophets.

And you have no

land

in all the Land of Israel lighter for ripening its fruits than

the place called “

Baal-shalishah.”

And nevertheless,

although it was light soil, nevertheless

it ripened only one species,

for they did not bring him different species.

And what species was it? —

Perhaps you will say, wheat

was it, which ripens late, after barley, and therefore was delayed until after Passover [and below the Gemara proves that the incident took place after Passover]?

The verse says: “barley.”

And perhaps you will say

that this year was in its proper order, but the incident took place at the time when the barley ripens, at the end of the winter days,

before the omer.

The verse says,

from what the prophet Elisha said to him,

“Give to the people and let them eat,”

since they ate it, it necessarily follows that it was

after the omer!

For it is forbidden to eat from the new grain before the omer. And it is thereby proven that this was a year of famine, in which the rains were delayed, and only after the omer did the barley ripen, although it ordinarily ripens at the end of the winter days.

From now on say: That year was fit to be intercalated

because of the spring, for the wheat had not filled out in its spring, and the month of spring had not arrived.

And for what reason did Elisha not intercalate it?

Because

it was a year of drought,

and everyone was running to the threshing floors

to gather the grain.

Behold, it was customary from time immemorial not to intercalate in a year of drought.

The Sages taught: They do not intercalate the year,

the court does not sit to examine and decide on intercalating the month of Adar

before Rosh HaShana,

because, on account of the great distance of time, there is concern lest the matter of the intercalation be forgotten, and they come to eat leaven on Passover . And after the fact,

if they intercalated it—

it is not intercalated. But because of pressing circumstances,

when they are concerned lest a court not become available to them, or lest an Edomite [Roman] king come and prevent them, or lest the Nasi go to the king’s court, while they require the Nasi’s permission—

they intercalate it immediately after Rosh HaShana.

And they inform the Diaspora that they intercalated the year.

And nevertheless, they do not intercalate

other months, such as making two months of Heshvan [although this is more orderly, and they will not forget until Passover]—

but Adar

alone.

And if they intercalate it after Rosh HaShana, they now inform them that there will be two months of Adar in this year.

And the Gemara raises a difficulty against what the beraita said, that they intercalate only after Rosh HaShana:

Is that so!?

For this is not so, since we find that they intercalated before Rosh HaShana.

But they sent him

a letter

to Rava,

in which it was written:

A pair,

two Torah scholars,

came from Raqat,

Tiberias,

and an eagle seized them,

the Persian forces seized the pair,

and in their hands

the pair had

things made in Luz.

And the Gemara explains:

And what are they,

what are the things made in Luz?—

blue wool.

They made blue wool for tzitzit in the city of Luz.

By virtue of mercy,

because the Holy One, blessed is He, had mercy on them,

and by their merit,

because they were Torah scholars,

they emerged in peace

from captivity.

And

this pair announces:

Those burdened with the loins of Nahshon,

the Nasi in the Land of Israel, who was descended from the loins of Nahshon son of Amminadav, the father of the Nesi’im from the tribe of Judah,

sought to establish one boundary-marker,

they wished to add one month to the year, that is, to intercalate it,

but that Edomite did not permit them.

The kingdom of Edom [Rome], the wicked kingdom, issued a decree against them not to intercalate years.

But the masters of assemblies,

the other Sages of the Land of Israel,

assembled and established one boundary-marker for him,

and added one month to it, and they did so

in the month,

in the month

in which Aaron died,

which is the month of Av.

Behold, they intercalated the year—because of pressing circumstances—before Rosh HaShana.

And the Gemara answers:

Calculating,

to calculate that the year was fit to be intercalated,

they calculated,

this could already be done from the beginning of the year. But

revealing,

to reveal this,

they did not reveal,

they still did not inform the people of the Diaspora of this until after Rosh HaShana, lest because of the length of time the matter be forgotten and they come to the prohibition of leaven.

It was written in the letter: “one boundary-marker,” and the Gemara asks: What is the allusion to “month”?

What indicates it?

What is the meaning

that this “boundary-marker” is an expression for month,

that it is an allusion to “month”?

And the Gemara explains:

As it is written

in the Book of Kings I [chapter 4]:

“And Solomon had twelve boundary-markers over

all Israel, and they sustained the king and his household one month in the year.”

For each boundary-marker, who was an appointed official standing over his post, was appointed over one month.

But it is written,

and, by contrast, it is stated there afterward,

“

and one boundary-marker who was in the land”.

And they disagreed about the interpretation of the verse,

Rav Yehuda and Rav Nahman.

One

of the two

said:

There was one boundary-marker

appointed over them all,

over all the boundary-markers.

And one said:

The one boundary-marker was

corresponding to the intercalated month,

for in a leap year there was an additional boundary-marker, in the second Adar.

The Sages taught: They do not intercalate the year—

one year

this

for another.

If this year does not need to be intercalated, but the following year does, they do not intercalate this year in order to rectify the following year; rather, it is intercalated in the year that requires it.

And

so

they do not

intercalate

three years consecutively.

For if they did so, the progression of the years would be disrupted from its proper order, since in the third year Nisan would occur in the middle of summer.

These are the words of the Sages, and Rabbi Shimon disagrees.

Rabbi Shimon said: An incident occurred involving Rabbi Akiva, who was imprisoned in a prison, and he intercalated

there

three years consecutively.

They said to him

the Sages to Rabbi Shimon: Is

there proof from there!? Did not the court sit and establish them one by one, each in its proper time?

And Rabbi Akiva did not intercalate three consecutive years one after another; rather, because Rabbi Akiva, who was a great Sage and expert in intercalating the year, was destined to be killed, therefore, because of pressing circumstances, the court came and examined the coming years according to the calculation of the seasons. And they did not intercalate three consecutive years, but intercalated them according to Rabbi Akiva’s instruction, each one in its proper time. And they did not reveal the matter, as the Gemara said above, that this is not revealed beforehand.

The Sages taught: They do not intercalate the year, neither in the Sabbatical year

in the Sabbatical year, because they extend upon the people the prohibition against working the land,

nor in the year following the Sabbatical year,

in the year after it, because the grain from the sixth year has been exhausted, and the people await eating from the new grain of the eighth year, while the intercalation extends for them the prohibition against eating new grain before the omer.

When would they ordinarily add a month to the year? -

In the year before the Sabbatical Year,

in order to give the land an additional month to become ready for the Sabbatical Year.

His court

of the court of Rabban Gamliel [

the Maharshal reads:

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel]

would add a month to the year after the Sabbatical Year.

The Gemara, the Talmudic discussion of the Mishna, explains the reason for the dispute between the Sages and Rabban Gamliel.

And

they disagree

because of the dispute between these tannaim,

a dispute between tannaim, sages of the Mishnaic era, in another beraita, a tannaitic source not included in the Mishna.

As it is taught: One may not bring [

even during all other years]

vegetables

and grain

from outside the Land of Israel [

for the reason that will be explained below],

but our Sages permitted it.

Rabban Gamliel follows the opinion of “our Sages”: in the Sabbatical Year, one may bring to the Land of Israel vegetables and grain from the produce of that Sabbatical Year that grew outside the Land of Israel, because the produce does not have the sanctity of the Sabbatical Year, and the omer offering of the Sabbatical Year has already permitted the grain. According to him, there is therefore not such a great shortage of grain and vegetables in the Land of Israel during the Sabbatical Year, and consequently the year after the Sabbatical Year may be intercalated. The Sages, however, maintain that grain may not be brought from outside the Land of Israel. Because of the shortage in the Land of Israel during the eighth year, before the omer offering is brought, the eighth year may not be intercalated.

The Gemara asks:

What is the difference between them?

What is the basis of their disagreement regarding whether vegetables and grain may be brought from outside the Land of Israel into the Land of Israel during all years?

Rabbi Yirmeya said:

the dispute concerns whether

one is concerned about the clods of earth accompanying them; that is the difference between them.

Perhaps clods of earth from foreign lands will be brought along with the vegetables and grain, since the Sages decreed that soil outside the Land of Israel conveys ritual impurity under the same roof as it, and the clod of earth will render the teruma produce in the Land of Israel ritually impure. It is forbidden to cause it to become impure.

The first, unnamed tanna is concerned about this with regard to grain, and all the more so with regard to vegetables. Our Sages are not concerned about it.

The Sages taught: One may not intercalate the year because of ritual impurity,

meaning that if the court already knows at the end of the month of Adar that they will be unable to bring the Paschal offering because most of the people will become ritually impure through contact with a corpse shortly before the Festival of Passover, and will not have enough time to become pure through sprinkling from living water mixed with the ashes of the red heifer on the third and seventh days of their impurity, before Passover—for example, if the king or leader is ill, and it is estimated that he will die shortly before Passover, and the people are then commanded, out of respect for him, to become impure through contact with him or by entering the tent in which he is located—or if the people are already impure, and the ashes of the red heifer have been exhausted, with no red heifer currently available, and they therefore wish to intercalate the year—the year is not intercalated. Rather, they shall observe Passover in a state of ritual impurity, in accordance with the law that when most of the community is impure, they observe Passover in a state of ritual impurity. This is the opinion of the Sages.

Whereas

Rabbi Yehuda says: The year is intercalated.

Introduction to the discussion concerning King Hezekiah

The Second Book of Chronicles [chapters 28–30] tells at length about King Ahaz, who acted treacherously against the Lord, sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, closed the doors of the Temple, and angered the Lord, the God of his fathers.

When he joined his ancestors in death, his son King Hezekiah reigned in his place. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. “In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them.” He also purified the kohanim, members of the priestly family who served in the Temple, and the Levites; they removed the idols from the House of the Lord [and the ritual impurity—see Tosafot, the collection of commentaries by the Tosafists], and they entered into a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel. "

“They began to sanctify it on the first day of the first month, and on the sixteenth day of the month they finished,” and they inaugurated the altar with offerings.

After all this was completed, the king sent letters throughout the House of Israel, calling them to come to Jerusalem to observe Passover. “The king, his officers, and the entire congregation in Jerusalem took counsel to observe Passover in the second month”; “and they slaughtered the Paschal offering on the fourteenth day of the second month,” and the people rejoiced with great joy.

King Hezekiah, about whom it is stated in the Second Book of Kings [chapter 18]: “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, in accordance with all that David his father had done. He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after him. He cleaved to the Lord and did not turn away from following Him, and he observed His commandments that the Lord had commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him; wherever he went, he succeeded”—certainly did not postpone Passover to the month of Iyar and invent a festival of his own.

Therefore, the Sages disagreed about the interpretation of these verses:

Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon maintain that Hezekiah intercalated the year. According to them, the verse “In the first year of his reign, in the first month” must be explained as referring to the first month in which he reigned, namely, the month of Adar; and in the second Adar he purified the Temple and the kohanim.

The reason the verse calls it “the first month” is not that it means the month of Nisan. Rather, because the Sages of his generation did not accept his intercalation [as we learned in Pesaḥim, folio 56—Rabbi Yehuda according to his own position, and Rabbi Shimon according to his own position], the verse called it “first.” And when it says that they observed Passover in the second month, this is according to the Sages of his generation; but according to Hezekiah, who had intercalated the year, it was actually the month of Nisan.

Rabbi Shimon ben Yehuda, however, maintains that Hezekiah led Israel to observe the second Passover in the month of Iyar, and that the verses are to be understood according to their plain meaning. In King Hezekiah’s view, there was a basis in Jewish law for observing the second Passover.

The beraita continues:

Rabbi Yehuda said,

that is, according to this version of the beraita, Rabbi Yehuda cites proof for his position that the year is intercalated because of ritual impurity:

There was an incident involving Hezekiah, king of Judah, who intercalated the year because of ritual impurity,

because the people were impure through idolatry, which conveys impurity like impurity from contact with a corpse, and he knew in the month of Adar that all the people would not have enough time to come and become pure before Passover,

and he pleaded for mercy for himself,

asking that the Lord forgive him for that sin. [The Gemara will explain that these statements contradict one another: if he intercalated the year, for what did he plead for mercy?]

The proof that the people were impure is from what is stated there: Hezekiah sent letters by runners, instructing the people to go up to Jerusalem, become pure, and offer the Paschal offering: “The runners passed from city to city through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun, but the people mocked them and derided them,” and later there:

As it is written: “For the majority of the people, most of them [

most of them]

from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not purified themselves.”

Thus, most of the people were ritually impure.