[Avodah] Not Making Kiddush Between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.

[Zev Sero]

Prof. Levine wrote:

> What I have never understood is why this is a 60 minute hour and the 
> time is based on the "secular" clock.

There's nothing particularly "secular" about the standard hour,
which is 1/24 of the mean length of the day, nor about the standard
24-hour day centered on mean noon.  It's a perfectly logical way of
dividing the day for purposes that don't depend on sunlight.


> To the best of my knowledge, 
> the 60 minute hour is not "generic" to Halacha.

It is, e.g., in kiddush hachodesh.  And RMF holds that mean noon
is the halachic noon for all purposes, including the calculation
of "sha'ot z'maniyot", which are therefore different in the morning
than in the afternoon.


> So why aren't Shaos Z'manios used in the 
> determination of what between 6 and 7 means, rather than secular 
> time.

Because this is astrology, and it makes little sense to say that
a planet's influence is affected by when the sun happens to rise or
set in a particular location.  (Then again, this may indeed have been
how the Maharil understood the hourly system, and therefore how the
minhag he describes was in fact observed, regardless of how the
Amoraim understood the original system.)


> For the record. the 60 minute hour goes back to the Babylonians 
> whose number system used base 60.

Yes.  They also came up with the astrological theories that are
in the gemara.  But I don't see how the division of the hour into
60 is relevant here.  The relevant division is that of the day
into 24, which is *also* a Babylonian invention.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas