Birthday Celebrations

[Director Michael]

Do you know of a source describing when Noahides should celebrate their birthday? If according to the solar year, should it be according to the Gregorian or Julian calendar?

Torah teaches that the solar years and the lunar years are both important, and the Hebrew calendar is based on both the sun and the moon. Although Jews are commanded to reckon the months of their years by the lunar calendar, a leap-month has to be added 7 times in every 19 years to keep the lunar and the solar year synchronized. So every 19 years, a person's birth-date in the lunar calendar will fall on the person's birth-date in the solar year.

Torah also teaches that G-d's influence to the Gentiles comes through the solar cycle, and His influence to the Jews comes through the lunar cycle.

Therefore, our Rabbis have given me their opinion that based on Torah, is most proper for Noahides to celebrate their birthdays according to the solar calendar.

One place that we see this in the book of Genesis (although it's in connection with a sad event) is that the Flood in the days of Noah lasted for exactly 1 solar year (365 days), in order to purify the world for the Children of Noah. See Rashi on Genesis 8:14. where he says that the solar year is a "whole year" - meaning that the lunar year which is 11 days shorter is not a "whole year" (which is why the Hebrew calendar has to have a leap-month).

The Rebbe explained this in spiritual terms as follows (https://asknoah.org/essay/elevating-creation):

"[When the spiritual value of the nations of the world is analyzed, it is clear that] 'quality' (or 'inner content') and 'quantity' are interrelated. Particularly, when we are speaking about beings created by G-d from absolute nothingness, their very existence – and surely their quantity – is directly related with their quality, the Divine life-force which brings them into being. Thus, the fact that the quantity of the Gentile nations is more than that of the Jews forces us to say that they also possess an advantage over the Jews [in some respects]."

This advantage that the Gentiles are given by G-d, in terms of quantity, is similar to the advantage that the sun has over the moon, which is that the sun always shines out a much greater quantity of light than the moon. There are many benefits that come from the greater amount of light that we receive from the sun. That is why the Gentiles are connected with the sun, instead of the moon.