The Torah Network

2 yrs

Possibly @Nick Liebenberg ...i was having a conversation with someone about aviv barley and virgo rising in the spring and setting in the fall. I was wondering if there is any one with insight as to how we can know when the barley is ripe enough for a wave sheaf offering. If we didnt have technology/Internet, how would we know when to start the omer count? Barley doesnt ripen til june here, far too late to go by. If we are unable to communicate with witnesses in Israel, what would we do? Assuming its ripe the first day of the week after passover doesnt seem right. This is the last piece of my calendar puzzle!

#1abib
#moedim
#determiningthefeastdates

Comment

My view is always that we have to remember that we are not all living in the land of our inheritance. We are supposed to live in Israel, so would be close enough to find out the timings.

As we are living in the diaspora as punishment until Father brings us back, we should look at Israel for our timings.

The earlier period when there was no internet nor timely communication should be compared to when the nation was taken in exile. They forgot the Law and when they finally found a copy of the Law and it was read to them, they broke down crying as they saw their errors.

This becomes even more evident when living in the southern hemisphere where the seasons are 6 months different. Are they now to celebrate Passover 6 months earlier or later if they are looking at their local barley or should they be wanting to follow the instruction and look at Jerusalem?

In the northern hemisphere it is so easy to say that we are just a day or two different with the local New Moon sighting so we will follow our local sighting or the barley is just a few weeks different, etc. instead of following the given instructions.

We can count ourselves fortunate that closer to the end, we do have the internet so can better follow the instructions in readiness for Yeshua's return....

· Reply · 1693813461

It’s a great question GidgetsMom. So the witnesses would go before the Sanhedrin with their report, that took place in Jerusalem and was quickly relayed throughout the country via smoke signal and a human messenger. So if you lived in Israel, great! But let’s say you were a member of the Jewish population in Babylon or Rome…how did you find out when the new month started? Still by human messenger. But because this took some time (both Sukkot and Passover are on the 15th day of the month; Shavuot is on the sixth), people would estimate when the previous month ended knowing that it would be either 29 or 30 days and, if they still hadn’t heard from the messenger, would observe the holiday as if the month was both a 29-day month and a 30-day month. As a result, everyone who lived outside of Israel started doubling up on their holidays, observing two days instead of one, just in case. This way, at least one of the days was correct.

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