ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף דברי הימים ב 30:2

Scripture now discusses festivals. The Sabbaths were called “ My chosen times” [:2]; the festivals are called their chosen time , because God does not determine the day of the week on which they fall. Allow me at this point to present a few general principles concerning the festivals. In the days when the Temple still stood, the Sanhedrin determined when the festivals would be held. Consider the case of King Hezekiah’s Passover, where Scripture clearly says “The king had taken counsel…” [II Chronicles 30:2]. The Exegetes tell us that the Sanhedrin would examine many factors when determining the length of the year. For example, Rabbi ⊂ Aqiba is said to have decreed two [actually three — Translator] leap years in a row [Sanhedrin 12a], because the situation required it. In all of Scripture we find no evidence of the procedure whereby ancient Israel maintained its calendar. Sa‘adya Gaon claims that they made the calendar conform to the same fixed rules that we now employ; but this cannot be true, as the Mishna and the Talmud both record that Passover occasionally used to fall on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Two stories tell of the occurrence of such events. Today we add a leap month whenever the lunar year falls approximately one month behind the solar year, but in ancient times this was not the case. The Jewish calendar began on a Friday morning at 8 o’clock (by adding 4 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes and 40 seconds to Sunday night, 11 minutes and 20 seconds past 11 o’clock in the evening, we get 8 o’clock Friday morning ), and the first intercalation occurred one and a half years later. Nowadays, the calendar is based on the average duration of the moon’s orbit. Although the interval between two appearances of the new moon is “sometimes longer and sometimes shorter” [Rosh HaShana 25a] than a lunar month, the actual sighting of the moon over Jerusalem (or over any other place) does not occasion the declaration of the new month. To prove this, assume that the midpoints of the sun, moon, and earth are all connected by a straight line. Is Jerusalem necessarily the place where this line intersects the earth’s surface? Moreover, whenever we see the new moon of Nisan on a Sunday night — and everyone around the world sees the new moon at the same time — the month of Nisan does not begin until Monday night. The months of Ṭevet, Sh e vaṭ, and Adar can likewise be delayed one day after the sighting of the new moon. This can happen whenever the New Year is delayed two days, because the new moon of Tishrey falls on Tuesday morning, after 03:11:20. There are also occasions when the month of Tishrey begins on Thursday, but the moon remains invisible even as late as Friday night and even if the sky is clear: Whenever the new moon occurs close to midday, the strong light of the sun renders it invisible, because the new moon is always in the same part of the sky as the sun. Even the astronomical moment when the moon is directly between the sun and the earth does not always determine the start of a new month. In particular, the New Year following a leap year is always postponed one day whenever this moment occurs on a Monday morning, after 09:38:16⅔. It is also postponed, as was mentioned earlier, when the moment of collinearity occurs on a Tuesday morning, after 03:11:20. Were it not for my unwillingness to digress, I would explain the mysteries of intercalation, and the little-understood laws regarding a new moon that occurs before midday. The main point is that our Sages, of blessed memory, have transmitted to us the law that in Exile we are to base our calendar completely on a fixed set of rules. This tradition dates back to the time of the prophets, and we cannot improve upon it. The practice of observing two-day festivals in the lands of Exile originally arose because of uncertainty over when the month began. Nowadays some people fast two days on Yom Kippur, in order to conform both to the calculated New Moon and to the astronomical New Moon. Such fasting does them no good, however, because the New Year is often delayed two days after the new moon appears. Suppose a month “ought” to begin with the new moon. Whenever the new moon of Tishrey occurs on Tuesday morning, after 03:11:20, then they “ought” to fast on the eighth day of Tishrey. Thus, why should we subvert the rules which have been handed down to us, for the sake of creating an entirely different calendar? — for that is what will happen if we conform our calendar to the sighting of the new moon.

For unto us, etc. All this has come to pass through the merit of the child that is born unto us. We know that at the time of the invasion of Sennacherib, Hezekiah was thirty-nine years old;⁹Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he commenced to reign; he was king for twenty-nine years (2 Kings 18:2); fifteen years before his death he fell ill (20:6), and this seems to have happened immediately after the destruction of the Assyrian army. According to I. E. on 8:5, Hezekiah was at the time of this prophecy twenty-nine years old. As to the application of the word ילד to adults comp. Gen. 33:5, 37:30, 44:20. at the time of this prophecy he is, therefore, called child (ילד). פלא יועץ אל גבור אבי עד. According to some, these expressions are names of God, and the following שר שלום, the name of the child. I think that all these words are names of the child; he is called פלא wonder, ¹⁰A. V., Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father.¹⁰A. V., Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father.¹⁰A. V., Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father.¹⁰A. V., Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father. because God did wonders in his days; יועץ counselling; this is distinctly said of Hezekiah (comp. 2 Chr. 30:2); אל גבור Mighty chief; for Hezekiah was powerful; אבי עד The father of perpetuity, because the reign of the house of David was prolonged through his merits: עַד has here the same meaning as in 58:15. שר שלום Prince of peace because peace was established in his days; comp. 2 Chron. 32:22

Six things King Hezekiah did, concerning three they [the sages] agreed with him, and concerning three they did not agree with him: He dragged his father's bones [corpse] on a rope bier, and they agreed with him; He crushed the bronze serpent, and they agreed with him; He hid the book of remedies, and they agreed with him.
And concerning three they did not agree with him: He cut down the doors of the Temple and sent them to the king of Assyria, and they did not agree with him; He closed up the waters of the Upper Gihon, and they did not agree with him; He intercalated [the month of] Nisan in Nisan, and they did not agree with him.
This mishnah was not originally part of the Mishnah but rather a tannaitic source from the Talmud that was added later into the Mishnah. It is missing from many mishnaic manuscripts. Nevertheless, since it appears in printed editions of the Mishnah, we will treat it as a mishnah.
The “mishnah” is in the same format as yesterday’s mishnah (six things, three of which the sages liked and three that they did not). It relates to King Hezekiah who ruled in Judea in the late 8th century. He is often idealized in the aggadah as a righteous king.
Section one:
1) Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, was an evil king. Hezekiah did not provide a proper burial for his father (see II Chronicles 29:27) but rather dragged his corpse around on a bier made of ropes. The belief in this mishnah is that this ill treatment would cause posthumous suffering to Ahaz and that this suffering would bring him atonement.
2) Hezekiah crushed the bronze serpent which Moses had made (see Numbers 21:6-9) because Israel was worshipping this serpent (II Kings 18:4).
3) Rashi explains that the reason that Hezekiah hid the “book of remedies” and that the sages agreed with him is that people believed that the remedies were healing and not God. The Rambam vehemently disagrees with this understanding, which he finds to be completely irrational. Would one tell a hungry man not to eat but to rely on God? The Rambam (who was himself a doctor) therefore explains that this book of remedies was really a book of astrology, one which led people away from both rational medicine and from God.
Section two:
1) In order to appease the king of Syria, Hezekiah cut the gold off of the doors of the Temple (II Kings 18:16). The sages did not agree with this action he should have had faith and relied on God to protect.
2) Hezekiah closed up the waters of the Upper Gihon spring so that the Assyrians would not have water (II Chronicles 32:30). The sages did not agree for two reasons: 1) he should have had faith in God; 2) he caused suffering to his own people.
3) About once every three years the Hebrew lunar calendar needs to have an extra month added in order so that it keeps pace with the solar calendar. The way that this is done is by adding an extra month of Adar, the twelfth month of the year (according to the way months are counted in the Bible). Once Nissan has begun (the first month of the year) it is supposed to be impossible to add an extra month. Hezekiah tried to intercalate the year in Nisan, and thereby push off the observance of Pesah for another month (II Chronicles 30:2-3).