Click here for the Scholar chat schedule.
Email us your question and we'll try to respond within 24 hours.
Type in your email address here:
Select a topic:
Type in your question here:
The Scholar is ready to answer your question. Click the button below to chat now.
A Scholar is currently unavailable at this time, so please check back again. In the meantime you can click here to email Moses your question or search our archives for related topics.
PRINT EMAIL COMMENT
The answer is because the Jewish month follows the cycle of the moon: a 'new moon' means a new month. Ideally (and the way it was done for the first thousand years of Jewish history) to determine the new month witnesses came to the Sanhedrin and testified that they saw the 'new moon'. The Sanhedrin would then establish day so and so as Rosh Chodesh, the first day of the month.
Now, Jewish months can either be 29 or 30 days, depending on when the new moon of the next month is sighted. So if you were far away from Jerusalem, you would not know what day had been pronounced the first of the month. Consequently, you would not know which day the holidays started, and you might be one day off. So Jews outside of Israel celebrated two days of the festival instead of one, since one of the two days was certainly the right day.
Today, even though we have a set calendar (see When and why did the Jews switch to a perpetual calendar?) that tells us exactly when the holiday is, we still follow the old custom of our ancestors, who kept two days instead of one.1 That’s why we have eight days of Passover and two days of Shavuot etc.2 But in Israel where they never added an extra day, they don’t add it now either.3
From a Kabbalistic standpoint, it has been said that outside the Holyland we need an extra day of holiness to accomplish the spiritual objectives of the particular Holiday, whereas in the Holyland one day is enough.
Footnotes
ADD A COMMENT
Editor's Comment
As is the case in any legal system, laymen can't simply alter a law. In Judaism we need a proper Sanhedrin in order to enact changes in Halachah. No such Sanhedrin exists today. Furthermore, I don't know if any Sanhedrin would want to change that law, and here is why:
a. Millions of Jews, for hundreds of years, have celebrated this day as a holiday, and thereby imbued it with holiness. In Judaism we are constantly looking to increase holiness; not diminish it.
b. According to Kabbalah, the extra day is there not only for technical reasons. Rather, because of the decreased level of Divine revelation outside of Israel, it takes two days to absorb the holiday holiness.
Holidays » Passover » AboutHolidays » General Information » Holiday Information
