"The customary fast days of BeHa"B fall out on the first Monday-Thursday-Monday set after 1 Iyar (and often coincide with Yom Haatzmaut!" Sorry, but they're not customary for me because I've never heard of them. Kindly (a) write out the abbreviated words (b) bring this am ha-aretz up to speed. Thank you.
Hey, would a Sadducee have started counting the omer this year on this first day of Pesach or the following Sunday?
Shira, Torah.org says:
Thus we see that there are two types of fast days that exist in Jewish life. One is to commemorate past tragedies and historical national events while the other is to be seen as an act of contrition and repentance and a means of spiritual self-improvement. Because of this second type of fast day, the one of repentance, there is a custom of Behab – Bet, hey, Bet - Monday, Thursday and Monday – fast days that occur at the beginning of Cheshvan and Iyar. These are days of repentance to ask forgiveness for any excesses of behavior that may have occurred during the preceding holiday months of Tishrei and Nissan.
I do not recall saying s'lihot and Hallel at Mercaz HaRav 20+ years ago. Maybe my memory is just faulty...
Thanks for the info, Larry.
I believe that at Mercaz HaRav, they say both Hallel and Selichot in the same service when that happens.
Do they fast?
No. Yeshivas generally discourage optional fasts because they make it difficult to concentrate on learning Torah. Many will say Selihot on BeHa"B without anyone actually fasting.
I think I remember something about delaying Behab for a week b/c of Yom Ha'atzmaut while I was in KBY, but I may be mistaken, and it might be that we did Hallel and Slichos on the same day.
Rav Dovid Lifshutz Z"L said selichot behab and hallel in the main minyan at YU
Aviya HaCohen had a piece this past weekend where he said that the biblical chag Shavuot had no set date and was connected to the 50th day after the Omer which was brought when the barley was ready to be brought. It was chazal that connected it to matan torah and "squeezed" it into the posuk by re-defining the morning after shabbat as meaning after chag rishon.
It was pointed out to me that we play with the date of 9 Av when it falls on shabbat, and that leads to unusual halachic practices for the date of 10 Av, such as postponing t'fillin to Mincha, reading a haftara in the morning, saying the bracha of Nahem. So these depend on the observance of the fast, not the date.
The difficulty with your examples is that none of them (except the Purim one) commemorate date-specific events but rather are tied to such events, thus they have no specific daae but rather the first Saturday or second Shabbos before, etc.
Yom Ha'atzmaut is tied to a specific date and event. Even the Purim analogy doesn't work because the shifting date of Purim was based on the need for people who otherwise might not hear the megillah to do so. Nowadays with cars and the ability to get around at will, I doubt the heter of market days would still hold up.
10 Av (unlike 9 Av) is actually mentioned in Tanach.
Hey, would a Sadducee have started counting the omer this year on
this first day of Pesach or the following Sunday?
I just learned that according to the solar calendar in the Book of Jubilees, the omer began on the Sunday following the end of Pesach (not during Pesach). Since dates in this calendar always fell on the same day of the week (the year was 364 days, or exactly 52 weeks), this meant that Shavuot always fell on Sunday, 15 Sivan. (Ironic that this only happens in the calendar in which the 15th of the month has no astronomical significance.)
BZ - how did the Jubilees calendar account for their c. 1.25 day discrepancy with the solar year?
No one knows for sure.
I'm going to write a whole post about this calendar, it"h tomorrow.
great.
does it"h mean what i think it means?
Done, and yes. 
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