Sighting of the New Moon

The timing of The Father's Feasts were to be determined by the sighting of the New Moon in Israel by two witnesses reporting to the Jewish Sanhedrin. A new moon is the time when the moon is as close to the sun as it can get so it is "hidden"; a full moon is when the moon is as far from the sun as it can get and reflects the sun's light.

Before 713 BC all calendars in the world had 30 days in a lunar month. But after Mars had that close encounter with Earth the days in a lunar month were slightly shortened. For that reason the leap month of Adar II became so important as it helped re-aligned the Jewish lunar calendar with the harvest cycle. The determination of the readiness of the barley grain at the end of the first Adar was a mechanism that helped assure that the barley grain would be ready for Feast of Firstfruits. Another month called Adar II would be added when the barley needed another month to mature. Those cultures not having such a reset mechanism slowly drifted off proper harvest time as time went by.

In the fourth century AD a predetermined lunar calendar was set by the Jewish patriarch Hillel II which was independent of actual new moon sightings in Israel. While pragmatic and useful for the Jewish folk who were now scattered over the earth, having no Sanhedrin, it distances an actual new moon sighting experience from the month, reducing it to a mathematical equation, no longer tied to the harvest cycle.

An overview of some of the timing of the Feasts in relation to the new moon is as follows:

• Yom Teruah is the only Feast starting at the New Moon.
• Yom Kippur and the choosing of The Lamb occur on the 10th of their respective lunar months.
• Purim and Pesach are observed on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of their respective lunar months, at the time of full moons.
• Feast of Tabernacles begins on the 15th of its lunar month which is right after the full moon.
• Chanukah begins on the 25th of its lunar month and being eight days long, it will always include the new moon in its middle days, making the lights/lamps of Chanukah shine that much more brightly in the dark of night.

The Jewish months are (by their various names) beginning with the month of the exodus from Egypt:

Abib-Nisan - Pesach (Yeshua's Death), Firstfruits (Yeshua's Resurrection)

Iyar-Ziv - alternative Pesach

Sivan - Shavuot (Yeshua's Ascension 10 days before)

Tamuz - Days of Prayer

Av - Days of Prayer (continued)

Elul - the count to Yom Teruah

Heshvan-Ethanim-Tishrei - Yom Teruah, Days of Awe, Yom Kippur, Feast of Tabernacles

Bul-[Mar]Cheshvan

Kislev-Chislev - Chanukah (Yeshua's Conception), delayed Feast of Tabernacles

Tevet

Shevat

Adar - Purim   Adar II - (the "leap" month)

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• Calendar stickers - We print these on "sticky paper" and put them on the calendar when the New Moon is sighted.
• The New Moon Blessing - Print two on the same page by rotating paper and putting through printer again. Cut in half lengthwise.

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