WHEN DO I PESACH (Passover)?

WHEN DO I PESACH?

Rabbi Moshe Yoseph Koniuchowsky

Written 3-8-05

Shalom,



There has been much concern and sad to say manmade confusion regarding the timing of Pesach/Passover and Chag Matzoth/Unleavened Bread this year. Now the stirring has increased just today, as Aviv barely has been found in Yisrael. BUT does that mean that this New Moon/Rosh Chodesh (probably March 11, or 12th) is going to be Aviv 1, or New Year, the month of Passover, with Passover falling March 25th? The answer is a definite NO!



We can see that plainly by the word of YHWH a bit later on.



First, a lunation, or the time the moon revolves around the earth is 29.5 days, not 28. If those 1.5 days are not somehow intercalated (to insert a day, or month in a calendar), the timing for the feasts invariably will be off, even after just 1 year! The calendar will be 18 days off after just 1 year, or after 7 years it will be 126 days off, or 4.2 months off; meaning Passover and the month of Aviv would fall in about November in the year 2012. Do you plan on celebrating YHWH‚s Spring feasts in the winter? Well, you will if you don´t somehow account for those extra days. Invariably even the Karaites must add 13 months, or some other added days to various months, or years to maintain the spring feasts in the spring! Got it! So when one follows „the Karaites,‰ one by definition is still "following man." But is that the correct path for Nazarene Yisraelites to walk? I think not. More importantly I know it is not. More importantly Yahweh knows better!



The Hebrew Calendar of Exile, known more commonly as the Jewish calendar, was written by the last Sanhedrin to sit in legal and open session. As such, they made the modern calendar in current use for 1,600 or so years. No other body of self appointed people whether Jewish, or Ephraimite, has the right to alter the calendar. Even looking to the heavens on your own, does not tell you when and how you are to intercalate which you must do, lest you celebrate Pesach in winter. Thats why if you have 10 „individuals‰ looking up to heaven by themselves and those 10 all intercalate differently, some adding days to months, others months to years like the Jewish calendar, none can purely go by the „signs of the heavens!" Because no 2 individuals would intercalate alike, left to their own understanding!



Back to the Hebrew Calendar of Exile! In their understanding of the 2 main principles that have assured that 1.) All Aviv 1 dates are correct and 2) all Passover dates are correct, they have intercalated 7 leap years, or years with 13 months, in every 19 year cycle, assuring that Passover and Aviv 1 will ALWAYS FALL IN THE SPRING. In other words, every 19 years, 7 years will have 13 months. Secondly, and just as importantly, they have done this calculation so that all the Spring feasts fall after the spring, or vernal equinox on March 21. Passover and Aviv 1 cannot, repeat cannot, occur before the vernal equinox, as that would also throw off the seasons at their times. The Jewish calendar ALONE makes sure that both Aviv 1 and Pesach take place after the spring equinox every year. Equinox literally means the 1 day twice a year when the sun crosses the celestial equator and when the length of day and night is approximately equal. If this next New Moon/Rosh Chodesh were Aviv 1 (March 11th or, 12th), then that means that Rosh Chodesh would fall before the equinox, which it cannot if proper seasonal timing is to be maintained. The moon was made for feasts/moadim, but the sun for times of the year itself!



14 And Elohim said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the shamayim to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for moadim, and for days, and years.


The sun is for days and years, to make sure the moadim days and years of the moon are in proper season!



Thus the new moon after the Equinox around April 9, or 10 is actually Aviv 1, or New Year, with Pesach following 14 days later on the night of April 23/Aviv 14. While some may scream that the „Jewish calendar‰ has no right to add months, the truth is any manmade system of time has to add either a 13 month, or somehow fit 18 days a year into some intercalated system of making some months longer than the 29.5 day lunation, or add to some years by making them leap years!



But what about AVIV BARLEY YOU SAY! We must go by Aviv barley. MUST we? Lets see what Torah says..................................Wayiqra/Leviticus 23: 9 says, AND YAHWEH SAID to [through] Moshe..........



10 Speak to the children of Yisrael [all 12 tribes], and say to them, When you have come into the land [all 12 tribes] which I give to you, and shall reap the harvest of it, then you shall bring a sheaf of the bikkurim of your harvest to the kohen:
11 And he shall wave the sheaf before YHWH- vuvh, to be accepted for you: on the next day after the first day [after Aviv 15 on Aviv 16] the kohen shall wave it.



So we see that the Aviv barley is a non-factor, as long as you are not in the land! The command is to bring the sheaf to the priest in the land! If you are not in the land, you don´t have to worry about whether the barley is green, purple, yellow, or poke dotted! Now what about those living in the land?



Moreover, those who do bring the barley incorrectly even while living in the land, bring it on the first "SUNday" of Passover week, when as seen in the RSTNE, DSS, and LXX the correct day is Aviv 16 for the barley to be presented. So the Karaites who seem to emphasize the Aviv barley, don´t even have the correct day for their firstfruit barley presentation, even if barley was needed!!



Until the temple is rebuilt, the barley is also irrelevant to the Karaites and those who factor the Aviv barley while in their exile. Why? Because where is the Aaronic kohen/priest to receive it? Rather who is the kohen? Rather who is the Kohen Ha Gadol? Rather where can the Karaites find the Kohen? Especially those who reject Yahshua, and who have no kohen in heaven, or on earth! Get the point? The barley is and remains an irrelevant factor UNTIL THE TEMPLE AND THE AARONIC PRIESTHOOD IS RESTORED, in Yah´s time, not ours! Please see: [link to yourarmstoisrael.org]



For these reasons, that All Yisrael is not in the land and the Aaronic order has not been restored, one cannot, should not, and must not make barley an issue in Pesach determination, when according to Torah it is not! During the 40 years in the wilderness Pesach was still celebrated without barley was it was for the 70 years in Babylon) as they, like us, remain in the wilderness................