Rambam (Moreh 3:29) maintained that knowledge of the beliefs and practices of the ancient idolatrous nations is vital for understanding the reasons for the Torah's commandments. Here is an example.
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Bo: The Jewish Lunar Calendar as Anti-Egyptian Polemic
My learning of Sefer Shemos this year has been enhanced by two relatively new publications. The first is Founding God’s Nation: Reading Exodus (2021), by Leon R. Kass. Following in the footsteps of The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (2003), Kass weaves a masterful analysis of the text using the “wisdom-seeking approach” of the Great Books tradition. (For a summary of his methodology, see my 2017 article, Musings on the “The Academic Approach”). The second publication is The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel (2020), translated by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and edited by David Arnovitz under the auspices of Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb. The running commentary consists of short articles on Egyptology, archaeology, philology, geography, and more, accompanied by vibrant photos, illustrations, and diagrams. This is a perfect resource for those who are interested in supplementing their Torah study with modern scholarship within the framework of Orthodoxy.
In Shemos 12:1 the Children of Israel are commanded to observe a lunar calendar. Kass explains the significance as follows:
Time in Israel will have a new basis and a new meaning. With sun worship defeated and left behind in Egypt, Israel gets a calendar that will no longer be based on the sun’s revolutions in the heavens or the correlated seasons of the year and the earthly sproutings and harvests they provide. This seemingly unprecedented innovation completes the Bible’s quiet but insistent polemic against living in thrall to the sun, the moon, and the stars – and the earth. The very beginning of Genesis had demoted the sun to a mere marker for the preexisting day and for seasons. It instituted instead a regular weekly seventh day, the Sabbath, independent of lunar change and commemorating instead the Creation and its Creator. Similarly here, the annual calendar is redefined in commemoration of a historical rather than a natural event. The target is no longer Babylonian “moon time,” but Egyptian “sun-and-earth” time. (p.168)
In contrast, Dr. Neria Klein’s article in the Koren Tanakh underscores our calendar’s non-revolutionary character:
The order of the months begins with Nisan, which is referred to throughout the Tanakh as “the first month” (Lev. 23:5). The biblical calendar is similar to the standard Akkadian calendar, in use in Assyria and Babylon – where the first month was called Nisannu (parallel to the Hebrew month Nisan) and the second month was called Aiaru (parallel to the Hebrew month Iyar). Likewise, the Hebrew month of Marḥeshvan is parallel to the Akkadian month Arah Samna, which means the eighth month – and again implies that Nisan is the first of the months. (p.62)
On the surface, Klein’s evidence would appear to undermine Kass’s theory. Kass characterizes the Jewish calendar as a “seemingly unprecedented innovation” – a radical departure from the other calendrical systems which prevailed at the time. He understands the Torah’s rejection of the solar year to be part of its silent campaign against Egyptian culture and avodah zarah (idolatry). Klein, on the other hand, endeavors to show the contrary – that the Jewish calendar is not radical, but typical. It would seem that Klein has the upper hand here, considering Kass’s methodological aversion to relying on “outside sources,” such as anthropological data. Kass explains the reasoning behind this “controversial view” of his in his preface: “like any great book, Exodus carries its persuasive power in itself. Access to the truths it might contain does not require prior faith, prior traditional or religious commitments, or reliance on outside authorities.” (p.9) What are we to make of this discrepancy? Does Kass’s theory still hold up in light of Klein’s evidence?
In my opinion, the answer is: yes, Kass’s theory can still be valid, and can coexist with Klein’s Assyriological evidence. Even though the lunar calendar existed in other ancient cultures, it was new to the Jews in Egypt. If one is willing to accept the notion that Hashem took institutions which existed in contemporaneous cultures and incorporated them into Torah, imbuing them with new meanings in line with its own agendas – such as korbanos (sacrifices), as explained by the Rambam (Guide 3:32), or milah (circumcision), which the Koren Tanakh contributors demonstrate was practiced in ancient Egypt – then Hashem certainly could have repurposed the Akkadian calendar as a weapon in the arsenal of Judaism’s war against Egyptian idolatry and culture.
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