semiopen

It turns out that in 2013, the first day of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving will fall on the same date.

This doesn't happen much and points out a defect in the Jewish Calendar.

Chanukah and Thanksgiving

There is no mechanism in Judaism to correct this (other than the coming of moshiach by the year 2240 - 6000 in the Jewish calendar). My guess is that that won 't happen.

Anyway this recalls IAmJoseph who would always go on about the unparalleled accuracy of the Jewish calendar before being banned for some reason.

Jonathon Mizrahi notes that the calendar will have to be fixed to prevent Passover from not being in the spring.

Iskander

Have you tried to post this in a religious Jewish forum?

sotto voce

Perhaps it is posted here as an object lesson in the perils of following weak and miserable principles?

Or of following too many of them, maybe. I mean, how many Israelites bothered with Thanksgiving? Isn't it a bit syncretist to follow both? Or is it unconscious testimony that Jesus really was the Messiah?

semiopen

I'm not sure Yoshke was known for his calendaring abilities.

In fact, the Jewish calendar is pretty good, figuring that the Gregorian calendar wasn't properly worked out until 1578 CE.

As a Jew doomed to constantly mourn my religion's foibles; it is a small consolation to remember that at least it compares quite favorably with Christianity.

Toto

For the Brits who may not know what this is about:

Thanksgiving is an American holiday celebrated near the end of November. It involves a vague reference to a ceremonial deity, but otherwise has no religious content - unless your religion requires watching football and eating starchy food to excess.

Iskander

Does anyone consider the lack of mechanism to correct the calendar as a problem needing attention?

sotto voce

Thanksgiving is an American holy day? So to whom are thanks given, if not deity of some sort? Especially on a holy day?

Well, it started as an English holy day— not by Christians, of course, because Christians hold that every day is holy, or none is. But 17th century Puritans, mostly Calvinists, held Fast days, for when they perceived that deity had it in for them; and Thanksgiving days, for when deity, they supposed, was more benign. It was of course Puritans who boarded ships for America, escaping persecution in England; and this is why Americans spend a day of the year "acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God". Or maybe not, even though they still call a day of getting stuffed full of food, starchy or otherwise, their 'Thanksgiving'. Incidentally, this word is identical to the word that Catholics the world over curiously apply to their ritual sacrifices (it sounds more religious and sophisticated in Greek).

So one wonders why Jews, who have their own annual thanksgiving anyway, bother to acknowledge with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of a false messiah. Maybe they do that because their detested Pharisee Paul wrote that special days were 'weak and miserable'. Which is a touching, back-handed sort of faith in their true messiah, surely.

semiopen

I tried to allude to that in the OP.

There is no world wide body that has the authority to make changes to the calendar. This is important because, for example, the weekly Torah Parsha is the same in every Synagogue in the world. This week is Bo_(parsha).

Not that I have any technical understanding of this subject but it is not easy to account for the extra days because each month has to begin on a New Moon.

The exact dates and associated Torah readings have been determined many years in advance

Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar revised, expanded edition 5660-5860 1900-2100

Perhaps, you could tell a gentile that the calendar book he bought for $39.99 is going to be completely wrong but certainly a Jew wouldn't be able to handle that.

as Mr Teague says in the reviews

The usual technique is to put a leap month in somewhere, maybe 2100 is a good place to do it since that is as far as the book goes.

Iskander

Thank you

semiopen

Basically Hanukkah is the Jewish XMas. Possibly the major accomplishment of Chabad is to make Jews proud to have a holiday as idiotic as XMas. Every year my Rabbi organizes a parade through Princeton with every car having a menorah on top.

The fact that Hanukkah can start on Thanksgiving (which is even before the start of the XMas shopping season) is therefore something that we must make note of.