Conference taveng::bagels

    As far as I can ascertain the 7 day cycle emanates from the four phases
    of the moon (28 days), each phase being of seven days. I have no way of
    substanuating this claim but it the reference/research is in the back
    of my mind. If anybody else can impart any more knowledge on this I
    would be grateful.
    
    
    Martin 

Forgive my ignorance of moonology but why are there "four phases"?
I mean the changes in the apearance of the moon are gradual, so isn't
four an arbitrary number?  Seems to me the only two states of the moon
which aren't arbitrary are "getting bigger" and "getting smaller".

Can someone enLIGHTen me?

Sid

    Re all:
    
    Well, I think the real question here is, "What makes Luna tick?"......
    
    But seriously I hope you don't get the impression I'm "moonstruck"....
    
    Anyway, from my first class last Monday I learned that the Jewish
    calendar is a lunar-solar calendar. Leap months are still employed
    but the neat part about it is if Passover in 1971 fell on a Tuesday,
    Passover in 1990 will also fall on a Tuesday. This is in contrast
    to the Gregorian calendar in which all kinds of games have to be
    played in order to make things come out correctly.
    
    Hope that helps.
    
    Mark

re .3
  For a discussion of the lunar-solar calendar, see topic 197 and my notes
.18, .19. 

    In any case, the moon does NOT have a 28-day cycle (which would, I
    agree, divide nicely into 4 7-day weeks.  If it did, our Jewish
    calendar would have 28-day months.  It alternates (roughly) between 29
    and 30 day months, because unlike us "moderns" (who somehow got the
    illusion that there is a full moon every 28 days), the ancients, and
    astronomers, are well aware that the cycle is more like 29 1/2 days.
    
    The division of time into 7-day weeks is probably a Mesopotamian
    invention, greatly improved by the later addition of Shabbat!
    
    Ed

    Many human societies have weeks, with lengths varying from four
    to twelve or more days.  Seven is a popular number all around
    the world, as is five.
    
    			-John Bishop

    Refer to THE SEVEN DAY CIRCLE by Eviatar Zerubavel
             published by The Free Press, A Division of MacMillan, Inc.
    	                  866 Third Avenue
    		          New York, NY 10022
    		          (c) 1985, $16.95
    		          ISBN 0-02-934680-0 

re somewhere back there...

the four (very aribtrary) phases of the moon are:

new moon
half moon (while its getting bigger)
full moon
3/4 moon (or the half moon while its getting smaller)

from one phase to the next is slightly more than 7 days
(something like 7.375 days, or 7 days 9 hours and a few chalakim) (ha ha ha)

I have started reading the book suggested in .7 and I am finding it very
interesting. Thankyou very much for the reference.

According to this book, the Mesopotamians (also called Chaldeans) used a lunar
month and considered the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th days to be "evil days".
During those days cooking and work were forbidden because it was "unlucky". The
author calls these intervals "quasi" weeks because any scheme tied to the lunar
month cannot involve a regular interval for the reason mentioned in .8.

There is a theory that originally, the Jews celebrated 1 Shabbat per year on
the seventh day of the year. After coming into contact with the Mesopotamians,
the Jews perfected the idea of a 7-day week that is independant of any natural
cycle other than the day, with Shabbat on the 7th day of the week. The author
points out that only a people that were free of lunar worship could have made
this invention.

The author goes on to say that the Greeks in Alexandria independantly invented
a 7-day week based on astrology. Note that Egyptians were sun worshipers and
were also free from the lunar cycle. The identification of Saturn's day with
Shabbat occurred only after the Jews came in contact with the Hellenist
civilization. The strength of this coincidental invention was such that it
supplanted the Roman 8-day week after Rome conquerred Egypt and the Middle East.

That is as far as I've read. It is evident that our present 7-day cycle must
have continued in unbroken sequence since 2nd Temple times.

Dave

Why 7 days in a week???

Obviously there are SHIV'A days in a SHAVUA !!
Why else call it a SHUVUA ?

Actually that reminds me of a joke--
Yeshiva bochur 1: Tell me, Yossel, why should we spell 'breshit' with a gimmel?
Yeshiva bochur 2: But Mottel-- we DON'T spell 'breshit' with a gimmel !
Yeshiva bochur 1: Nu, Yossel, so why don't we spell 'breshit' with a gimmel?!
Yeshiva bochur 2: But Mottel, why SHOULD we spell 'breshit' with a gimmel?
Yeshiva bochur 1: Aha!! Yossel!! THAT'S MY QUESTION!!!!!

:-)

I never questioned the number "7". I was merely wondering whether there was
ever a point in history where the 7-day cycle was ever interrupted for any
reason (for example, did the Roman emperor or the Sanhedron or etc. ever
have 2 Mondays in a row for politcal purposes?). The answer seems to be "no".

It appears there have been 2 attempts in modern history to abolish the 7-day
week. The French Republic attempted to establish a 10-day week (invented by
many of the same people who gave us the metric system). The year was to consist
of 12 thirty-day months plus 5 "blank" days (6 in leap year). Day 10 was
the day of rest and day 5 was a 1/2 day of rest (workers had the afternoon off).
This attempt was a failure and was finally abolished by Napolean. The Soviet
Union attempted to establish a 5-day week. Workers had a regular day off per
week but not all on the same day. This system proved too disruptive to family
life, so they tried switching to a 6-day week. This failed too. Both these
attempts to abolish the 7-day week were deliberately anti-religious.

It turns out that Indonesia has a complex system of "weeks" involving a 5-, 6-,
and 7-day cycle simultaneously. It appears the full system is used only for
divination purposes - certain combinations of the 3 cycles are "favorable" for
certain purposes such as marriage, starting a business, etc.

There is nothing compelling about the number "7" that dictates 7 as the length
of our week. I suppose all we can say with honesty is that G-d willed it.

Dave

    In reply to .9:
    
    There is a Midrash that our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
    observed many of the mitzvot, including Shabbat.  Naturally, this
    must have taken place long before the Torah was given and the calendar
    set up.  Even then, the patriarchs used a seven-day week and Shabbat
    fell on the seventh day.
    
    Brian.

    Another Midrash on the number 7:
    
    Seven seems to appear in several places.  For instance, there is
    the seven-facetted blessing said during Maariv.  And there are seven
    weeks between Pesach and Shavuot.  There are seven blessings given
    at a wedding, seven patriarchs/matriarchs, seven candles in a standard
    menorah (not the special type for Hanukah), seven emotions, and
    teffilin are wound seven times around the forearm when laying them.
    In fact, the Zohar (book of Jewish Mysticism) speaks of seven facets
    of an object: left, right, top, bottom, front, back, and the inside
    (as opposed to the outside which is described by the first six).
    
    So, there are lots of examples of seven being used.
    
    Brian.