{"id":28832,"date":"2018-07-12T11:15:35","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T08:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=28832"},"modified":"2019-09-10T17:26:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T14:26:05","slug":"jewish_moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/jewish_moon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jewish Face of the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many eons ago in the ancient world, the Jews adopted the moon as the basis of the Hebrew calendar. Only isolated groups, such as members of the Judean desert cults, attempted to build the Jewish calendar around the sun but all such attempts ended with the destruction of the Second Temple, and the lunar calendar was universally accepted as the Jewish calendar.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Birkat HaLevana | The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, NY, USA, Unkown Date; Ms. 8740, page 50<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The moon emerged as the undisputed victor in the battle for the Jewish perspective of time. While the days in Jewish culture are determined by the sun – from sunset to sunset – the calculation of the days into months depends on the \u201cbirth\u201d of the moon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sefer Evronot<\/a> | The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel, 1716.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the pagans regarded the moon as a god in its own right, the moon\u2019s central function in Judaism is expressed not only in the calculation of the months but also in the blessing recited at the beginning of each Jewish month \u2013 \u2018Birkat HaLevana\u2019 [the \u2018Blessing of the Moon\u2019]. The blessing praises the one God, the Holy One Blessed Be He, creator of all natural phenomena.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Seder Kriyat Shema U\u2019Birkat Halevana | Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1738; Ms. Rosenthaliana 407, page 23<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This also seems to be the reason that, throughout the generations, Jews drew the moon with human features, as it is considered a natural phenomenon created by God and therefore not a transgression of the prohibition against making idols or graven images.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Seder Birkat Halevana | Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1743; Ms. Rosenthaliana 698, page 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How was the moon drawn by Jews throughout history?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[],"tags2":[],"class_list":["post-28832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judaism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Jewish Face of the Moon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How was the moon drawn by Jews throughout history?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/jewish_moon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Jewish Face of the Moon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"...\" 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