New Moon Signaled By Hilltop Fires Because Fax Already Obsolete

“Our ancestors used the fax, possibly as far back as the time of the Judges.”

Hills of Samaria, July 31 – When the New Moon is proclaimed by the Court of Seventy Elders in Jerusalem later this week, agents of the court will ascend mountaintops along the ridge spanning the country from north to south to signal the onset of the next month, relying on torch signals because they are more efficient and modern than their predecessor, the fax machine.

On Thursday or Friday, witnesses are expected to come to Jerusalem and testify that they have observed the first sliver of the new moon. After undergoing cross-examination by the Court’s astronomy experts, the assembly of sages will determine whether to proclaim Friday or Saturday the beginning of the month of Av. Once that decision occurs, a court appointee will light a flame atop a portion of the Temple Mount visible from the next hilltops over. Observers who have ascended the hilltops that evening in anticipation of receiving the signal on one of those two nights will then ignite their own torches and wave them to signal the agents on the adjacent mountaintops, until the entire nation is alerted and can be unified in observance of the calendar. Officials said the system was developed as the technology of the fax machine became outmoded in prior centuries.

“Our ancestors used the fax, possibly as far back as the time of the Judges,” explained High Court Elder Simon ben Eliezer. “But over the years, superior methods of communication have emerged, and we are no longer dependent on the crude, unreliable, and often illegible messages that the fax would produce.” Accurate transmission of the information is crucial, said ben-Eliezer, since unified conduct of festivals and other observances depends on it, and facsimile technology was never reliable enough to provide any sense of security that the proper messages were being received.

The irregularity of the moon’s orbit around the Earth necessitates the Hebrews’ lunar calendar to be set by visual observation. While the average duration of a lunar month is slightly more than 29 days, sophisticated calculations are necessary to predict with any precision when the next new moon will occur. However, the range of possibilities is limited to a relatively short window of no more than about two days, so that the signalers need ascend the hilltops only on the thirtieth night since the previous new moon, and the following night if no signal is received. In theory the use of the fax machine provided the Court of Elders with signaling technology that did not require dozens, if not hundreds, of people to set foot outdoors and to climb hills, but its unreliability ultimately made such communication technology obsolete in comparison with torch signals.