Jewish Musings, Thursday 2/29

[lee058]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.





Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:





Frieda (hopefully)?

Holly

Lee

Louise

Lynne

Peachy





And for those of you who stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[lee058]

Good morning everybody! Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

Today's topic: Leap Year/Leap Day.

Disclaimer: I don't know enough about the Jewish calendar to say if there is a Jewish connection to Leap Year/Leap Day. I do know that the months change around, so holidays are on different days in the secular calendar. Maybe someone with more knowledge could comment about the Jewish calendar? Thanks.

OTOH, Leap Year has been around for a long time, and maybe Jewish scientists of the past had something to do with figuring out that a day had to be added to the calendar. I'm sure there were Jewish astronomers who learned about this from studying star patterns.

Customs: I've read that an old custom was that during Leap Year (possibly only on Leap Day?), women could propose to men for marriage instead of the other way around. If the man said no, he had to get the woman a gift. This could be 12 pairs of gloves (presumably to hide that she wasn't wearing an engagement ring), a silk dress, or even a fur coat.

I've always liked Leap Year/Leap Day, and the addition of February 29th to the secular calendar. I've also wondered about people whose birthdays were on that day; do they celebrate on the 28th or on March 1st?

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[hollygail]

The Jewish calendar is based on a solar year but a lunar month. There are more than 12 lunar months in a solar year. So there are frequent leap years on the Jewish calendar. When it's a leap year, one entire month is added; the current month, Adar, becomes two months of Adar. called either I Adar and II Adar, or Adar alef and Adar bet. There are 7 leap years out of every 19 years. Here's the sequence of which years on the Hebrew calendar are leap years: years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. I, for one, not only do not know when the series begins nor do I keep track myself of whether any given year is "regular" or a "leap" year. I check the Jewish calendar, and if there are two different months called Adar, I know it's a leap year.

This year happens to be leap year both on the Gregorian calendar and on the Jewish calendar. I have no idea how frequently they both occur.

And the business about women being able (is there a better verb? Someone? Anyone?) to ask men to marry was the only tradition I knew of until earlier this morning when I learned about the 12 pairs of gloves (and/or other gifts a man turning down a woman's proposal had to give her)...

[gazelle18]

Thanks for the info Holly!

This morning on the radio the DJ mentioned that it was Leap Day. He said something like: we only get one of these every 4 years. So it’s an entire “free day.” How are you going to spend your once every four years free day? Maybe do something kind? I loved that.

[peachymom1]

We had our quarterly company-wide town hall meeting today, and the first speaker actually told us a few groaner Leap Day jokes!

[louise]

So this year is Leap Year on both calendars. Unless it's your birthday or anniversary type thing adding a day is a lot less disruptive than adding a whole month in what feels like arbitrary intervals. It makes the Jewish holidays go in big swings but they have to do it or harvest holidays would very soon not be occurring at harvest time, etc. We do not have AC in our sanctuary so it is a big deal when the High Holy Days are "early".