For the source text click/tap here: Beitzah 5
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The discussion on yesterday’s daf was whether a beitzah she-noldah be-Yom Tov (an egg that was laid on the holiday) was considered muktzah on the second day of the holiday in the Diaspora. Our discussion focused on why we still keep a second day even at a time when we work with a set calendar and no longer need to communicate the establishment of the new month to far-flung communities.
In a prescient warning The Gemara asks: And now that we know the determination of the first day of the new month, what is the reason that we observe two Festival days in the Diaspora? Because they sent a warning from there, from Eretz Yisrael: Although now there is a fixed calendar and there is no uncertainty, be careful to observe the custom of your fathers that you received, because at times the monarchy will issue decrees of persecution restricting Torah study and the fixed calendar may be forgotten. And the people will come to have their proper observance of the Festivals be disrupted again. In fact a decree that attempted to quash the Jewish calendar was actually issued by Emperor Constantine in 325 CE:
We explore the edict of the Council of Nicea and Hillel II's response, from a christian perspective and Prof. Sacha Stern, the foremost authority of the ancient calendrical systems.