What Is the Right Calendar? Part 2: Avoiding Anxiety in Our Obedience
January 3, 2024
This article is the second in a two-part discussion on calendar disputes in Messianic Torah communities. Followers of Yeshua (Jesus) around the world have been drawn to rediscover the beauty of the Biblical Sabbath and festivals. Sadly, however, that beauty is often marred by bitter controversy over when and how the festivals ought to be observed. Debates between the so-called rabbinic calendar and various competing versions of a sighted-moon calendar have rocked many Torah communities and separated sincere followers of Yeshua. It is tragic that God’s moadim (appointed times), which ought to unite us, can be twisted into a source of disunity.
In part 1, we began with four observations that are a prerequisite for any constructive conversation about the calendar. We looked at some of the reasons why the calendar is such a divisive issue and noted that Scripture is unclear about many calendar details. We also looked briefly at the complex issues of tradition and authority. Positing any authority aside from Yeshua and the Scriptures only leads to problems. Yet we cannot escape the fact that any working calendar has to “fill in the gaps” with tradition, so to speak. That is true whether that tradition is ancient and established through centuries of practice, or merely my own innovation.
In this article, I wish to continue the discussion by offering a few additional observations with a special focus on defusing some of the tension that exists around this topic. I will then conclude with a few reasons why I choose to follow the fixed calendar along with the mainstream Jewish community. If nothing else, I hope this article helps to foster greater respect for those with whom we differ.
Individual vs. Corporate Halakha
When we seek to follow Torah, it is inevitable that we will face certain decisions about how to put into practice God’s commandments. The Hebrew word for this is halakha, which is derived from the verb meaning “to walk”—it is the way you walk out the Torah. In Judaism, the term is used to refer to discussions involving legal application. Among Torah believers, it is common to use “halakha” to mean one’s manner of Torah practice in general.
Some Torah believers suggest, whether explicitly or implicitly, that each individual must make every halakhic decision for himself/herself. In other words, you and I must each decide for ourselves how each of God’s commandments should be put into practice. This is what I like to call the democratization of halakhic authority. At face value, and on a small scale, there is nothing wrong with this. Each of us must follow the convictions God has given us. I must obey God even if those around me are not (or not doing it correctly, in my view). However, this is also where things start to get messy. In an ideal world, every believer ought to independently come to the exact same conclusions on what God’s commandments mean and how to practice them. Led by the Spirit, we ought to all arrive at the exact same halakha. But as everyone knows, this is not the case. Blame it on whatever you want—human nature, the corrupting effects of sin on God’s creation—but the fact is inescapable that sincere, Bible-loving followers of Yeshua often disagree on matters of faith and practice. Left to our own devices, we as humans are prone to quarrel. And yes, believers too are still humans.
Is it God’s ideal for each believer to determine their own halakha? That may be viable for certain practices, such as how you pray at home or how you tie your tzitzit. But when it comes to commandments that are meant to be performed as a community, such as the festivals, it becomes problematic. I do not think that God intended for each individual Israelite to determine her/his own calendar. I do not think it is God’s ideal for all of us to make up our own way of following him. While there is room for differences and individual expression to an extent, we have to remember that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. God has called us into fellowship with one another so that we might serve him together as communities and as a global Body of Messiah.
Should each individual decide for herself/himself which calendar is the “right” calendar? Quite honestly, I think this is an unfair burden to place on the shoulders of every individual believer. Not everyone has the time, the resources, the expertise, or even the desire to delve into all the sources and evaluate all the factors involved in making an informed and wise decision on the matter. Moreover, nowhere does the Torah impose this burden on each individual. Of course, it is always good to discuss halakhic issues and strive to become more like Yeshua in our observance. But we must be careful not to allow our attitude to impose an unnecessary burden on others.
Perhaps a bigger question is whether a potential discrepancy of one or two days, or even (in certain years) a whole month, is something worth fighting and dividing over. I am not talking about deliberately changing the dates of the appointed times. Rather, I am talking about celebrating the appointed times along with the global community of God’s people. Is tradition (the precise workings of the calendar that determine the timing of the festivals) more important than unity? I suspect there is no black-and-white answer to this question; it is a grey area. We need to ask ourselves at what point it is truly necessary to walk alone, and at what point we should strive to walk together with others. Is being “right” about the timing of the moadim really the most important consideration in selecting a calendar to follow? Are there perhaps other considerations?
The Validity of Other Calendars
I want to make clear that I think there is validity in both the fixed calendar and a sighted-moon calendar, at least in principle. For the reasons I give below, I think it is wiser and better to follow the fixed calendar, but this does not mean that the idea of a sighted-moon calendar is out to lunch. Sighted-moon calendars belong in a very different category than things like “lunar sabbath” or the “Enoch calendar,” both of which are unhistorical and contradict the Bible. Such things are bunk, falsehood that is easily dismissed by anyone who knows what they are talking about. Determining the calendar based on the sighting of the moon (in principle) is not bunk, but rather a legitimate position with which I happen to disagree. It is important to distinguish between the two.
In a similar vein, I want to make clear that the fixed calendar is still based on the cycles of the sun and moon that God created. Opponents sometimes mischaracterize the fixed calendar as a non-lunar calendar. This is unfair and misleading. The calculations involved in the fixed calendar are entirely based on the timing of the lunar cycles, and it has proven incredibly accurate over nearly two millennia. It is true that the fixed calendar does not rely on visual observation of the moon, but neither does the sighted-moon calendar rely on visual observation of the sun. Although the Torah indicates that both the sun and the moon serve as the basis of the calendar (Genesis 1:14), nothing in the Torah explicitly requires visual observation, and the Torah never prohibits pre-calculation. In fact, we know from both Scripture and history that sometimes the new moons were calculated in advance. In 1 Samuel 20:18, for instance, Jonathan knew in advance that the new moon would happen the next day, and he did not have to wait until it was visually observed. There is nothing in Scripture that explicitly precludes the possibility of determining the calendar through mathematical calculation of the lunar cycle.
My point in this section is not to argue that one calendar is better than the other, but to demonstrate that both could exist in a theoretical biblical framework. Neither a fixed calendar nor a sighted-moon calendar is inherently bunk or unbiblical. To me, this suggests two things: (1) we need to be gracious toward those who follow a different calendar, even if we disagree; and (2) we need to consider additional factors in deciding which calendar to follow.
Reducing Anxiety
As I mentioned in part 1 of this discussion, I believe the true culprit in calendar disunity is the anxiety to “get it right.” I think that a precursor to any attempt to resolve calendar disputes is to lower our anxiety. Being okay with other people being different than me is the first step. From there, it is possible to apply wisdom to the situation. The fact that the Bible is not explicit about how the calendar functions means that determining the calendar is a wisdom issue, not merely a biblical issue.
In Colossians 2:16, Paul says, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you . . . with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.” I believe that Paul is talking about the way you keep these things. He is not suggesting that you should stop keeping them, but rather that we should not be judgmental about the manner in which they are kept. In my view this extends to not being judgmental about finding the right calendar. This suggests that we ought to do everything within our power not to allow calendar to be a source of contention between ourselves and other members of Messiah’s body.
My wife and I once attended a Sukkot campout in which there were many different believers from different communities. There were different calendars represented in this group, and I think they did a good job of remaining respectful of those differences. Our experience there was encouraging because it demonstrated that, at least in certain respects, it is possible for believers to be unified amid diversity. Calendar differences need not be a contentious issue. Of course, such a policy may not work in a congregational setting. Nonetheless, I think that if we can respect others who differ from us, that can go a long way in resolving conflict.
My Reasons for Following the Fixed Calendar
With the above discussion in mind, here are a few reasons why I choose to follow the fixed calendar instead of a sighted-moon calendar.
a) It facilitates unity. Opponents of the fixed calendar like to portray the situation like this: you can either follow man’s calendar (the fixed calendar) or you can follow God’s. Framing it this way makes it sound like there are only two clearly differentiated alternatives. Unfortunately, it is not so simple. As soon as you step outside the boundaries of the fixed calendar, you open up a world of possibilities for determining the calendar. There are dozens of alternatives to the fixed calendar, not just one, and each of them has proponents who claim their calendar is the only true calendar. Several years ago, I tallied up all the different calendars I knew of and concluded that there were at least seven different claimants to the “true” date for the Passover seder that year. That number probably increases each year, as new YouTube personalities proclaim the latest and greatest “true” calendar. Thus, a more honest portrayal of the situation would be that you can either follow one man’s calendar or another man’s calendar (and so on). In short, setting aside the fixed calendar opens up a pandora’s box that can only lead to greater and greater disunity. I see no way around that. Scripture repeatedly exhorts us to strive for unity. Of course, this does not mean we should compromise on what is clear in Scripture for the sake of unity. But since the precise workings of the calendar are unclear in Scripture, my conscience dictates that I follow what will be most conducive to unifying the Body of Messiah, and I believe that is the fixed calendar.
Historically, the fixed calendar achieved a remarkable degree of unity among the Jewish people which contrasts starkly with the calendar debates that raged in the first century. Once again, Steven Fraade notes, “Calendrical controversies played an important role in defining the social, religious, and political dividing lines between various Jewish groups [in the Second Temple era].… In retrospect, the relative stability of what became the universally practiced Jewish calendar (especially in light of other, continuing intra-Jewish divisions) is all the more remarkable” (Fraade, “Theory, Practice, and Polemic in Ancient Jewish Calendars,” Dine Israel 26 [2009]: 147).
b) I prefer to ally myself with greater Israel. Jews around the world have been following the fixed calendar for nearly two thousand years. If I reject that calendar in favour of a sighted-moon calendar, I am unwittingly placing myself in opposition to the practice of the vast majority of God’s people who observe the moadim. This is not a blanket criterion; obviously my faith in Yeshua also places me in opposition to most Jews. Nonetheless, it seems to me unnecessarily isolating to insist on celebrating the moadim on different dates than the Jewish people. There is something special about having a Passover Seder and knowing that Jewish people and Messianic believers around the world are celebrating with you that same night.
Incidentally, the church father Epiphanius quotes from a now-lost document called Regulation of the Apostles regarding the timing for celebrating Passover (yes, Christians in those days celebrated Passover!). This document makes the following statement: “You shall not calculate [the calendar yourself], but celebrate the feast whenever your brethren from the Circumcision [Jews] do. Keep it together with them… Even if they err, do not be concerned” (Epiphanius, Panerion 70.10.2, 6). This document is certainly not Scripture, but in my opinion, it offers a precedent worth following.
c) It facilitates respect for the Jewish people. In a similar vein, I think that we ought to show respect to the Jewish people in ways that are appropriate. Jews have been keeping the moadim for much longer than we Messianic believers have. I fear we are in danger of “boasting against the natural branches” when we insist that they are doing it all wrong.
I must add the caveat that our goal should not be to earn the approval of the Jewish community. This is because we will never gain full approval as long as we believe in Yeshua. I have seen Messianic believers go down this route and end up denying their faith. Nonetheless, I think it is appropriate to show some respect (and even some humility) to the Jewish people when it comes to the calendar.
d) Yeshua and the apostles never made calendar a big issue. If recovering the “right” calendar was an important issue for Yeshua and his earliest followers, surely it would have left its trace in the Apostolic Scriptures (NT). Instead, we see Paul arguing against being contentious about the calendar in Colossians 2:16.
e) It makes sense for practical reasons. Yeshua said his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30). In our society, a sighted-moon calendar can be a greater burden to observe than the fixed calendar. In my view, this puts it one step further away from Yeshua’s halakha. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying here: I am not saying we should always do what is easy for us. Sometimes, following God’s commandments requires sacrifice and dying to self. We should always endeavour to obey God without compromise. Instead, what I am saying is that, in the absence of other conclusive determining factors, an easier/lighter halakha ought to be preferrable to a heavier/burdensome halakha.
As an aside, I know that some proponents of sighted-moon calendars think that Yeshua is alluding to the new moon—particularly to Yom Teruah—in Matthew 24:36 when he says that “no man knows the day or the hour.” Some even erroneously conclude from this that we DO know the day and the hour, and therefore it is incumbent upon us to predict the date of Yeshua’s return—which is completely at odds with the plain sense of the verse! This is one of those Hebrew Roots urban legends that has taken root in some circles. While I do think that Yom Teruah points to Yeshua’s return, I don’t think the phrase “no man knows the day” has anything to do with Yom Teruah. Contrary to some claims, there is no evidence that Yom Teruah was ever called “the day that no man knows.” Moreover, there is no biblical requirement that Yom Teruah be a surprise. If someone really wants to make it a surprise, there is nothing inherently wrong with that either. But it strikes me as an unfair burden to impose on an entire community.
f) I believe God can use the fixed calendar. God is not surprised or dismayed by potential errors in calendar calculations. Such errors can occur both with community observation (e.g., if the new moon is obscured) as well as with mathematical calculations. I don’t think the Almighty is phased by these things. In fact, I believe he condescends to honour the days that his people honour. One indication of this for me is the way historical events often line up with important dates on the fixed calendar. Perhaps the biggest example of this is the ninth of Av. The tragedies that occurred on that day in medieval and modern times happen to coincide with the fixed calendar. To me, this does not mean that the fixed calendar is the “only true calendar.” Rather, it tells me that God can use and honour the dates that his people reckon for the moadim. God is merciful to us, and he meets us where we are at. He knows our human limitations, and he is willing to work with them.
Conclusion
My stance is to be as respectful toward others as I can while still holding to my personal convictions without compromise. Incidentally, many of my reasons for following the fixed calendar (especially A and D) also dictate that I show respect for those who differ from me in calendar observance. When Yeshua returns, he will resolve all calendar debates; until then, I endeavour to put into practice Paul’s advice in Romans 12:18: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
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