MESSIANIC MOON

“The full moon and fulfillment” (Passover, Michael M. Cohen, April 12) referred to the length of the synodic month. The Talmud states: “The lunar month can never be less than 29-and-a-half days, two-thirds of an hour and 73 halakim” (Rosh Hashanah 25), there being 1,080 halakim (divisions) in an hour. This 29.53059 days is to within a fraction of a second of the figure given by NASA and the US Naval Observatory.

The moon’s motions are so complex that Sir Isaac Newton was almost driven to a nervous breakdown attempting to resolve them: “The sun knows his own course, but the moon does not know hers!” (ibid.), and only a God-given oral tradition can explain how the Sages arrived at their figures.

Now splattered over the lunar regolith are the remains of the Israeli probe Beresheet 1’s microscopic Tanach, containing the words: “This is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations” (Deuteronomy 4) – “this is the calculation of seasons and constellations” (Shabbat 75).

The rate of decay of the lunar magnetic field that Beresheet 1 was meant to investigate is readily explained by a Creation not billions of years ago but only thousands. Similarly, the Apollo 11 astronauts had been told to expect being swamped by lunar dust feet thick, and were astounded to find that there was only a halfan-inch depth on the surface. This caused a stir at the time, since the rate of deposition of meteoric dust indicated that “the moon had to be less than 10,000 years old,” in accordance with the Torah chronology!

In Israel, the New Moon Society and the Institute for Kiddush Hachodesh Studies practice observing the limits of visibility of the New Moon in order to be ready for when the Sanhedrin is restored in messianic times, when “the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold the light of the seven days” (Isaiah 30), when “on every New Moon and on every Sabbath, all mankind will come to prostrate themselves before Me, says the Lord” (ibid. 66). AMNON GOLDBERG

Safed