42 New Moons of Chaos

On New Years day (Rosh HaShana) the twelve months cycle ends and we are accustomed to enumerate the months of the year and assign them symbols. Look at the beautiful image in the photo. It is part of a page of a Hebrew manuscript from Poland from the year 1640. The heading reads "Moladot Shel Thohoo" (Moons of Chaos) and on the relief itself, in the right hand column, is a list of all the months of the year. But what is the meaning of all the rest? What do the other three columns signify? And what are the "Moons of Chaos"?

Wise men debated the question whether the age of the world dates from the creation of man or from the creation of the world. After all, according to the first chapter of Genesis, man was created on the sixth day of the creation of the world, and according to tradition – on Friday the 1^st of Tishrei (the first month of the year). It follows therefore, that the world was created on the 25^th of Elul (the last month of the year). It must therefore be that the world itself was also created on the 1^st of Tishri. The logical conclusion is that the world was created a year before the creation of man. Due to these considerations we have two chronologies for the world: a chronology for the creation of man which wise men called the "chronology of man" or "chronology from the beginning of time", and a chronology for the creation of the world which wise men called "chronology from the beginning of chaos" – since that was the beginning of the chaos from which the world was created. The chronology referred to in the Talmud is the chronology of man but in the course of time the chronology of chaos was adopted by Judaism.

The tablet in the picture, therefore, is the exact account of the birth of the months. The three rows to the left of the names of the months indicate the birth of the months (new moons) according to the day of the week, the hour and the part of the hour (the hour in this system is divided into 1080 parts). These calculations were extremely important in order to determine the Hebrew calendar and the leap years, and heated disagreements over these matters were not unusual.

The eventual victory of "Moons of Chaos" over the "chronology of Man" is interesting – victory whose meaning was a decision in favor of the concept that does not place man in the center but assigns him a more modest role as part of the world. Although man is the crown of creation he is not the measure of all things.