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

[Prof. Levine]

At 11:55 AM 2/6/2008, Sholom Simon wrote:
> > What I have never understood is why this is a 60 minute hour and the
> > time is based on the "secular" clock. To the best of my knowledge,
> > the 60 minute hour is not "generic" to Halacha. The times of the day
> > are based on Shaos Z'manios. So why aren't Shaos Z'manios used in the
> > determination of what between 6 and 7 means, rather than secular
> > time.
>
>I don't know the actual reason, but I could posit one that seems intuitive
>to me.  The Shaos Z'manios are based on the sun.  But this "influence" of
>various planets are not.  If we go by the stars (ignore that these planets
>are not what we call stars today) it makes more sense to use a fixed hour
>than a solar-type hour.
>
>But on my question, we digres . . . . <g>
>
>-- Sholom

But presumably this reason for avoiding a certain hour to make 
Kiddush predates the institution of the secular hour by the 
Babylonians. For a discussion of this see 
http://tinyurl.com/yugh47  and http://tinyurl.com/9rb7r . Thus, if 
doing this is to make sense, the hour should be Shaos Z'manios, not 
(gentile) hours.

Are you implying that there is something inherently true, from a 
halachic standpoint, about using base 60?

YL



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