Eclesiastés 8:5 Halajá: Kitzur Shulchan Arukh & The Sabbath Epistle

If you recited a berachah over water and heard there was a corpse in the vicinity, and the custom in your community is to pour out the water in the vicinity of the dead person, (as mentioned later in Chapter 194) because such water is considered dangerous, nevertheless, since you recited the berachah you should drink a bit of it so that the berachah not be in vain, and do not worry about the health hazard, because "One who performs a mitzvah will not suffer adverse consequence."¹²Koheles 8:5 (See later Chapter 109 par. 9). [However,] after drinking a bit of the water you should pour out the rest.

Therefore, natural philosophers said that by right the year should begin with the point of intersection (equinoctial point) from which the sun begins to approach the inhabited portion of the earth (the northern hemisphere).⁷³ This is a “tropical year,” the period from one vernal equinox until the following vernal equinox. This is the cycle of Rav Adda.⁷⁴ Rav Adda’s year is a tropical year. Although his cycle is based on the average orbit, its correction is simple.⁷⁵ Rav Adda’s figure is for a mean solar year. Corrections need to be made to accommodate apparent variations in the solar orbit. This was also the beginning of the year for those who developed the Hebrew calendar. This was also the beginning of the year for the early Greeks.⁷⁶ See Evans, pp. 182–184 for a discussion of early Greek calendars. This is the vernal equinox. The Persians begin their year with the summer solstice, the Chaldeans with the autumnal equinox, and the Christians with the winter solstice. However the Christians are in error since their calculation of the solar year is not correct.⁷⁷ During the lifetime of Ibn Ezra, Christians followed the Julian calendar, with a year consisting of exactly 365¼ days. In the year 1582 the Church reformed its calendar and adopted the Gregorian version, improving upon the approximation of the Julian calendar.

The water held overnight should not be poured out on account of a death that has occurred, or on account of the vernal equinox, because it is said, "He who keeps the commandment shall know no evil thing" (Ecclesiastes 8:5). Nevertheless, if you know that the vernal equinox will occur, you should put into the water a small, clean piece of metal, something like a needle attached to a thread, so that afterwards you will not have to put your hands into the water to get it out, but you will be able to pull it out by the thread.⁶According to Ramah, (Yoreh Deiah 116) water should not be drawn at the time of the vernal equinox. Many of the later Poskim maintain that in our times, we are lenient in these matters.