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I assume the whole “Common Era” shtick was developed by secularists, not by frum yidden, but it’s certainly made the rounds to the point that I wonder if it’s now socially unacceptable to say “AD” as a frum yid.
Does this really make any sense? Isn’t this just the same thing as getting a Christmas tree and calling it a “Chanuka Bush?” You’re still counting from the same thing either way. The entire dating system is based on the start of Christianity. If it were actually a halachic problem to use it, we wouldn’t even be allowed to use the number.
What we are saying is that we are not counting the years from the start of their religion, but rather from the Common Era, the accepted year of counting in modern times.
It is used by secularism as well, so it is just a socially accepted year, hence “Common Era”, of the commonly accepted time.
Not connected to religion anymore.
Agav, the years were arbitrarily chosen in 523 CE for one reason: because it was 70 years before the Churban Bes Hamikdash.
That’s accurate.The birth of their god was not then anyway.
They said that because it was 70 years before the Churban.So, it’s actually a Jewish calendar, based on the Churban.
But I get your point, nonetheless.Calendars usually choose an arbitrary date. The Romans often used the date of the mythological founding of Rome. For a while the French used the date of their revolution, and America uses the data of independence (on official texts of laws). Many countries until recently used the date of the current monarch coming to the throne. For a while, we often used the date that Alexander is believed to have conquered Eretz Yisrael. The year used in most western countries is a mythological date, and using BCE/CE is a way to make it less insulting for non-Christians. The Talmud clearly allows using non-Jewish dates on documents, so at least they shouldn’t insult us by trying to make every date into a religious statement.
It isn’t
Just because the Counci of Nicaea concocted that it was retroactively 325 hasn’t bearing on the actual sysyem
This question is for Orthodox Rabbis and Poskim, not random people from this Coffee Room.
(No offense intended.)The next time you bring a check to the bank for deposit to your bank account,
try to write the Hebrew Date on the check, instead of the secular date.
The bank will probably refuse to process your deposit without the secular date.Your points about the provenance of the secular calendar system are totally correct but the reality is that we need to use secular calendar dates for most commercial activity, international travel, communications etc. Our protocols regarding corrections to adopt for lunar versus solar calendars, daylight savings versus standard time, arbitrary designations of geographic time zones etc. have each evolved to address distinct problems, some religious in origin and others functionally driven but all somehow accepted by default to make life workable in an increasingly interconnected world.
Technically the correct way to write “2025”
Is “2025 years from the birth of our Lord & Savior”
“Anno Domini” means “Year of our Lord”
I think that’s the problem some Jews have.
While every way you look at it we use the Christian calendar there is some difference between (with no choice) recognizing the date used in the culture we live in & outright referring to Yezus as “Our Lord”Are you allowed to eat Facon because its fake bacon?
are you allowed to eat kani because it imitation crab?
Can BMG talmidim say cutlery because it the Rosh Yeshiva name?
Can you call a football a pigskin?
can you call someone a fat hog?Other great thoughts to ponder
Since the christian version of these acronyms actually refer to a foreign god, then for sure there’s a halachic problem to use them which does not exist with BCE and CE.
CE (Vulgar Era) is attributed to the astronomer Kepler. I think he used the term when he was showing that it is “wrong” in a sense of being several years of the event his religion was trying to commemorate. So, in that sense, when we use these numbers, we are reminding the velt that they can’t even get their dates right.
Why not just use traditional numbering “in the 4th year of president Biden”, this seems to be the most common usage during Roman empire and other countries. Roman republic just used the name of one the councilors, given that both of them had one year terms.
Neville: You shouldn’t assume just because “people use it” that it is therefore okay for us to use the yearly numbering system. (Forget about the AD/CE question altogether.)
Many frum Yidden will *not* use the years counting from the Christian Avoda Zora. (Even if it is inaccurate by a few years, that’s what it tries to honor by counting from.)
I know people who use the shortened version of ’25 instead of 2025 because of this issue.
Shortening the date doesn’t accomplish anything
UJM
A maiseh I think you’ll enjoy:
In shul people were talkign to an old survivor about Europe pre war etc. Someone asked him “ven zent ir geboiren, in Toof resih …?”
He replied “ven ich bin geboiren hut men nuch nisht azoi gerachent”Should we also change the name of Satmar to something that doesn’t shtim from Saint Mary?
@ubiquitin the current practice of using 5785 AM is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until about a thousand years ago, all Jews used the Greek Era (aka minyan shtarot, 2336 AG). But when they came to western europe, they switched to using anno mundi in hebrew deeds.
When he was born very few people were from “Toof Kif” they said the last two numbers. I was born in the States as were my parents and 3 of my grandparents. I was raised that ‘77 is only for legal purposes. I was born in 5737.
Where I have to use the civil date in a document, I try to use, for example, 25 (without the apostrophe) so that it is not an abbreviation of 2025, but just counting from a year that is as arbitrary as I can make it. Sometimes, however, the form requires the full 4-digit version, so there is no choice. By the way, in wedding invitations for my children, I never placed the civil year, just, for example, “25th May”. The guests won’t arrive a year late!
“Common era” is worse in every way. The word Common means – it is common to all of us and everybody. You took the Christian calendar over all over devices, and called it common, normal, standard – you have just now made all of us follow their ways and told us their days are our days. Outside of this board, even temporary workers of all stripes are forced to take dec 25th off. Telecommuting temporary workers get no exceptions. It is common.
Because otherwise, are you some type of odd and strange or uncommon person?I prefer and I would suggest it is smarter to say AD. If the person was real, and we are counting from a specific event, then at least we’re counting from a historic event. Calling it “common” gives it meaning and proselytizes us as much as saying “happy holiday” on Dec 24/25 and then telling me that the season is over the very next day. It’s not my holiday, stop including me. Call it by it’s proper name, some of you will argue, but if that’s what they call it, then it’s just a day on the Calander like boxing day imo The inclusive version is giving me days I don’t want.
Hundreds of years ago, most Europeans were very religious Christians.
In our times, many Christians are secularized, and their Christianity is more cultural than religious.
In our times, even Xmas has become secularized and commercialized;
for many Christians, Xmas is no longer the very-religious holiday that it was hundreds of years ago,What I just said might be Halachically relevant, or maybe not.
I leave that decision to the Orthodox Rabbis and the Poskim.AAQ,
It was common to count the years from the beginning of the reign of the king (or president, PM, etc). See the Gemarah in Rosh Hashanah.
The issue of replacing one king with another king when they assume the throne is not a problem.
But, Yezus is not a “King” like Biden.
Yezus is the “King of Kings & Lord of Lords”
So it’d be improper & blasphemous to replace him with a “Regular” King.
(How i know all this? Don’t ask:-)I think “common”, originally vulgar in latin, before vulgar got current negative connotation does not mean anything good, such that “uncommon” is weird.
Maybe you got corrupted by our democracy that “common” = “popular” = wins the votes …It simply means – used by most people (a fact) and it is a common convention to count years so that we do not get into a mess using different years.
Maybe, it is even better to say VE than CE, the way Kepler said it, if we can get away with calling them Vulgar.
Im surprised that Sam Klein hasn’t mentioned that פרשת מקץ is the only parsha that says the amount of words which comes out to 2025 which is our Gregorian year!
The most logical conclusion here is that we’re using terms like 2025 for things where the entity uses that term as a frame of reference.
Such as receiving an email from a company…
If I remember correctly, many Jews traditionally refer to the founder of a certain religion as Yushka Pandrick, because his real father was the Roman soldier whose name was Pandrick.
We are indicating that we don’t count the date from some deity of theirs but their designated calendar. We live in a world where their secular calendar is required, so we do the best under the circumstance.
This discussion is one-sided: obviously, would-be posters who object to the years will not post posts that will have that date posted above their post. Time for a heimishe branch of blogging software with dates from Alexander. AAQ. Year 0 of Trump II.
NCLM one is allowed to say jesus, thats just his given name, its the second part which is problematic since it means hes mashiach
In the end, does it matter?
If you live in the United States, you will be asked for your date of birth numerous times in your life by governments and businesses. Unless you are going to never get a passport, State ID, go to a doctor’s office/hospital, register to vote, and probably half a dozen other things I forgot to mention, you will be using it.
Just about American Rav says that you have to vote, and in order to vote you have to use the secular calendar (try registering to vote while telling them you were born in 5755).
Just about every American Rav will tell you that if you are seriously ill, you should go to the hospital. Try registering using your Hebrew date of birth.
I’m not aware of any Rav who says that it is forbidden to get a passport or State ID. To get those, you must use your Gregorian calendar date of birth.
Ergo, it is certainly permitted to use the Gregorian calendar date for at least certain necessary functions.
The Wolf
Growing up every refrence to yushka included “pandrick”
I grew up when CE and BCE were in use
For what its worth it makes sense to me
the OP said “sn’t this just the same thing as getting a Christmas tree and calling it a “Chanuka Bush?””Assuming it is (I can think of differences) yes if a person feels the need to bring in a tree its better to call it a Chanukah bush. seems obviosu to nme – note still not good and I’m advocating against it but seems obviously better than calling it a Christmas tree .
similarly I’m not into decorating houses with lights but if someone feels the need to blue/white with menoras and magen dovids seems bettter than green/red santas /candy canesNeville, CE (first VE – vulgar era) is several hundreds years old. Whether to use it will depend on the culture and pressure to assimilate that vary over time/place.
CE is assumed, BCE should be mentioned and AD should not.
NC
I dont understand your question
1) Are you sure theres no shemetz issur in saying AD . Mishna in Sanhedrin says saying an A”Z is “my God” is a chiyuv sekila. Saying “In the year of our lord 2025 ” sounds adjacent to that
2) Even if not assur. and not strictly logical ok so what its emotional AD certainly makes me uncomfortable. why is it bad to say somehting that makes people more comfortable even if built on emotion rather than logic ?
3) I’m not sure there ever was a period where “everyone used BC and AD” These are generally used in historical context no one says “I was born in 1948 AD” or “he died in 1986 AD”) Was there ever popular history books geared to a frum audience that used BC/AD . Artscroll certainly never used it . I have an older History of the JEws written by one Solomon Grayzel published in 1947 that uses BCE/CE. Are you sure BC/AD were in regular use among frum people?NC
Your last post answers my question. thanks
Except for #3 Are you sure it was in “for over a thousand years”
To be clear, im not saying it wasn’t but I’m skeptical that it was in such regular use among frum people” but I will put it before my interest in fleeting, emotionalist, yeshivish social-norms.”
go for it!
If the point of this thread was to make sure there was no definite halachic source forbidding it, youre probably safe . go for it“Neville, CE (first VE – vulgar era) is several hundreds years old.”
Source?J Kepler was writing to prove the “common error”: that their deity was not born in the year 0
Johannes Kepler (1615). Joannis Keppleri Eclogae chronicae : ex epistolis doctissimorum aliquot virorum & suis mutuis, quibus examinantur tempora nobilissima. Frankfurt: Tampach. OCLC 62188677
The History of the Works of the Learned. Vol. 10. London. January 1708. p. 513
to clarify, Kepler actually introduced the term Vulgar Era – seems because he discovered that it does not really correspond to what AD stood for, so he introduced the idea that this is just a convention used by people. This may be an actual good reason to use it – as CE does not correspond to anything in particular.
you can even explain – I do not want to offend your religion by using the wrong date expression
@Neville Chaimberlin Lo Mes,
For that very reason, there are many who don’t use the gentile dating system because of what you mention, but then there are otheres that don’t see it as THAT bad….
@pure, this guy I know went to a meat restaurant ordered a cheeseburger top with fake bacon and milkshake and did want to pay because the use the gentile dating system.
PS don’t say dating system here it may cause some single men here to get upsetcommon > gentile dating system.
Do you mean bars or tinders? And that is why it was called the Vulgar era.
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