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Page 1 of 163. Cover of Rambam: One Page at a Time, Volume 1, The Rambam and the Moon. An artistic illustration of the Rambam writing by lamplight at night, a crescent moon in the window behind him.

This comic is available to read on www.tebeka.com only; it cannot be printed or copied. © Rabbi Haim Tebeka.

Illustrated comic

Rambam: One Page at a Time

Volume 1 · The Rambam and the Moon

Volume 1 · the comic’s first release

A comic that goes through the Rambam’s laws of Kiddush HaChodesh, the sanctification of the new month, one illustrated page a day.

Over 20 weeks of daily pages, Volume 1 goes from the Rambam’s life and world to witnessed Rosh Chodesh, the fixed-calendar arithmetic, the Sun and Moon position models, crescent visibility, and astronomy versus astrology. It ends with calculation labs, a glossary and a source directory.

A fictional, artistic reconstruction. Every depiction of the Rambam and of the scenes in this comic is a fictional, artistic reconstruction: the drawings, the settings and the dialogue are imagined, not historical records.

Each daily page lists the sources it draws on, and the source directory at the end of the volume gathers them.

This comic is available to read on www.tebeka.com only; it cannot be downloaded, printed or copied.

Start reading → Go to Day 001

Contents

Before you begin

At the end of the volume

The 20 weeks

  1. Week 01 · A boy born in twelfth-century Córdoba (days 001–007)
  2. Week 02 · Exile, study, leadership, and Fustat (days 008–014)
  3. Week 03 · Three jobs: calendar, court, visibility (days 015–021)
  4. Week 04 · Who establishes Rosh Chodesh? (days 022–028)
  5. Week 05 · How witnesses are examined (days 029–035)
  6. Week 06 · How the court's decision travels (days 036–042)
  7. Week 07 · Why a leap month protects the seasons (days 043–049)
  8. Week 08 · From witnessed months to the fixed calendar (days 050–056)
  9. Week 09 · Parts, Molad, carries, and remainders (days 057–063)
  10. Week 10 · Postponements and year shapes (days 064–070)
  11. Week 11 · Lunar years and solar seasons (days 071–077)
  12. Week 12 · The sky as a coordinate grid (days 078–084)
  13. Week 13 · From the sun's mean place to its true place (days 085–091)
  14. Week 14 · From the moon's mean place to its true place (days 092–098)Day 094 is not in this web edition.
  15. Week 15 · Nodes, latitude, and the moon's tilted path (days 099–105)Day 105 is not in this web edition.
  16. Week 16 · Assembling Rambam's visibility pipeline (days 106–112)
  17. Week 17 · Thresholds: impossible, possible, uncertain (days 113–119)Day 117 is not in this web edition.
  18. Week 18 · Why possible does not guarantee visible (days 120–126)
  19. Week 19 · Why the crescent tilts (days 127–133)
  20. Week 20 · Astronomy is not astrology (days 134–140)Days 136, 138, 139 are not in this web edition.