[Avodah] Molad Alert: Friday night

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 10:50:38AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> The only real reason to know the molad is to calculate from it when
> rosh chodesh should be.  And since kiddush hachodesh can only take
> place in EY, all that matters is when the molad is then...

The reason I learned too long ago to remember when is also found in Shaar
haKolel. (R' Avraham David Lavut, av DB of Niolayev, rav of Mykolaiv,
1814-1890, and as I'm sure RZS knew before I looked him up -- RMMS's
father-in-law).

When BD was / will be meqadesh the chodesh, they made a se'udah that
included saying berakhos for the new month. Our Birkhas haChodesh is a
legacy of that se'udah. The announcement of the molad takes the place
of when the eidim would arrive.

Something I picked up either here or on Mail Jewish was that it was
enacted laafukei the Qaraim, who to this very day go al pi re'iyah.
(E.g. see <http://karaite-korner.org/kknmr.shtml>, which was last updated
with the re'iyah for Tishrei 2010.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/karaite_korner_news> has posts from
yesterday (Mar 2, 2011 CE) about the current search for yellow barley
to determine which is Chodesh haAviv.)

The Shaar haKollel's (and my father's or early-grade rebbe's) explanation
implies that the qehillah should know what the time of the molad means
in terms they think in. This second reason doesn't, since the only point
is reminding the masses it's precalculated.

But in any case, I never had thought the announcement was for the
pragmatic purpose of enabling in-the-head calculations.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
micha at aishdas.org        how can he appreciate the worth of another?
http://www.aishdas.org             - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef