Rosh Hashana is on exactly the right day

I suppose that “God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world,” as Mr. Browning said, because Rosh Hashana falls on the perfect day this year. Last year the Jewish New Year began while beach chairs still sat on the sand.

Everyone knows the Jewish holidays are never on time. They’re either too early or too late or in the middle of the week, starting at sundown on a workday. This places an inordinate burden on women, who often begin to wobble under the staggering responsibilities of family and food shopping, cooking and baking and jobs.

This year is quite perfect. Even though the eve is on a Wednesday, a longish weekend follows. Kids have begun school, and this break is a timeout for the observant and the secular alike.

The fact is, the Jewish calendar and the civil calendar have little in common besides keeping track of time. The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth around its axis (a day), the revolution of the moon around the Earth (a month) and the revolution of the Earth around the sun (a year). These three phenomena are independent of one another, so there is no direct correlation among them.

The civil calendar used by most of the world has arbitrarily set the length of months at 28, 30 or 31 days. Very logical, but Judaism is an ancient religion; if you’ve been counting the days one way for 5,772 years, change comes slowly. Besides, faith and logic often collide.

In the Jewish calendar, months are either 29 or 30 days long; years are either 12 or 13 months. If you follow the planets and stars, it all makes perfect sense, and the holidays always fall at exactly the right time every year.

But what has this to do with the price of kishke or making noodle pudding for 35? Just that this particular year, the holiday is in synchrony with the autumnal equinox. We are not used to such mitzvahs.

And, may I say, inconvenient timing is the least of it for a long-suffering people.