Days and Months

The Friday night Kiddush ends with the blessing “Blessed are you, O’ Lord, who sanctifies the Sabbath.” For holidays, we get a slightly different formula for the blessing; “Blessed are you, O’ Lord, who sanctifies Israel and the Holidays.”

Why the difference?

The issue revolves around how the Jewish calendar works. G-d controls the heavens and the earth. The sun rises and sets because G-d wills it to happen. Since the Sabbath falls every 7th day, it is completely under G-d control. He makes the sun set 7 times, and we have Sabbath.

The holidays are different. G-d specifies the dates of the various holidays, the 10th of this month, the 15th of that month. But man has control over when the holidays fall, because man decides when the new month begins.

The way the calendar works is that the Jewish court would declare a new month when they heard testimony from a witness who saw the new moon. Sometimes due to conflicting testimony (or cloud cover), the new month would be declared a day late. (We no longer use this court system, the calendar was set 2000 years ago based on the rulings of various courts) So, even though Passover always falls on the 15th of Nisan, by declaring the new month a day later, the holiday would be celebrated a day later.

So G-d controls the days, buy Man controls the months and thus the Holidays.