Y om T o v Sheni Yom Tov Sheni - Chidushei Torah@NDS

Yom Tov Sheni
14
Getting the Message Out – Then and Now
One can draw a direct analogy between the methods of announcing
the new moon as described in the Talmud Masechet Rosh Hashanah
and a modern digital broadcast system. Firstly, they have many of the
same goals:
1. The message should reach as many members of the desired
audience as possible.
2.
To broadcast the message as efficiently and as fast as possible
3. To implement security and safeguards against those who would
like to disrupt the communication between the broadcaster and
his audience.
The use of torches for the purpose of transmitting a message can be
likened to a simple digital communication system where teams on
each hill represent the human equivalent of a node on an electronics
network. The arrangement provided a rapid propagation of the fire
signal so that by the and of the night a majority of the Land of Israel
and much of the golah (principally Bavel) would have been notified.
The drawbacks of this system are a lack of any kind of encryption
mechanism and the lack of security. Thus, it was quite easy for
the Kutim to sabotage the system by lighting their torches on the
wrong day. One could consider this act as one of the first recorded
occurances of “system hacking”.
Another drawback of using torches was that the light of the
fire could be significantly dimmed by poor weather conditions.
To circumvent this problem, each team would remain on their
mountain-top for several successive nights waiting for a possible
fire signal from their neighbor 22 . An equivalent issue with a digital
communications network would be the effect of poor signal to
noise ratio on communication reliability. Many protocols require
repeated sends of the signal packet until it is received successfully
and an acknowledgment is returned to the sender. Fortunately, the
months of Nissan and Tishrei (the two key months where notifying
the Jewish communities of the day of the new month were vital for
22 דבעילו ה”ד .גכ הנשה שאר ןבא ירוט רפס ןייע where he writes that in a situation where the torch signal
did not go out on its designated night, it would be done on a successive night until the message was
transmitted.