I Kings 18:34 Jewish Thought: Derush Chiddushei HaLevanah

Moreover, in this instance, the complaint is thoroughly justified, for the days and the years are determined primarily by the movement of the sun. The days are determined by the setting of the sun, i.e., the duration of a day is from one setting of the sun to the next, as Rav Avraham ibn Ezra comments on the verse,³²Shmos 16:25. In that source, Ibn Ezra elaborates in the explanation of the fact that the determination of a day is dependent on the setting of the sun. “And Moshe said, ‘Eat it today.’” Similarly, the years are solar years. The concept of a lunar year is only a borrowed term,³³See Ibn Ezra’s commentary to Shmos 12:2. for the word year, שנה, has the connotation of repetition, as in the verse,³⁴I Melachim 18:34. שנו וישנו, “He instructed them to repeat, and they repeated.” In other words, a solar year is the sun’s completion of its circuit of its orbit from the west to the east, as the sun returns to the place where its orbit began. In contrast, the moon finishes its orbit from west to east every month. The term “lunar year” is adopted because the moon concludes twelve cycles in the time it takes the sun to proceed through the twelve Zodiac constellations. Thus, the reckoning of the days and the years is more closely associated with the sun than with the moon. Conversely, it would have been appropriate to mention that the festivals too are dependent on the moon, because the dates on which the festivals fall are dependent on the days of the lunar months, just as they are dependent on the times of spring, the grain harvest, and the fruit harvest. Although the festivals are dependent on the seasons that are determined by the sun, their celebration is also dependent on the moon. Why then did the passage in Chulin mention only the days and the years and overlook the festivals?