[Avodah] Molad Alert: Friday night

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Mar 09, 2011 at 11:27:42AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> And, for the nit-pickers: More precise calculations would show a
>> 19-minute difference, as opposed to 20.

> Huh?  Surely it's nearly 21 minutes.  19 minutes, at J'm's latitude,
> would put you somewhere near Gedera.

Nisht azoi pashut. As I wrote last Fri
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol28/v28n033.shtml#08>:
    In the mid-4th century, the currently announced molad would have
    been accurate for mid-way between the Nile and the Euphrates....
    But the tides are still there and the month is still getting shorter
    ...
    At this point, the molad is something like 108 chalaqim
    off. Alternatively, we could keep the molad correct and say the
    "timezone" is sliding east. Not sure why we would want to, but enough
    web sites and books do this excercise. So, we could say that we now
    compute the molad accurately for Kandahar, Afghanistan.

But as far as I can tell, it was never actually for Y-m. It was for the
center of the Jewish world in the final days of the Sanhedrin.

Another point I already addressed that seems to have been missed (since
people are still asking and answering... From last Thu
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol28/v28n032.shtml#14>:
    The reason I learned too long ago to remember when is also found in
    Shaar haKolel. (R' Avraham David Lavut...).

    When BD was / will be meqadesh the chodesh, they make 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>....)

    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.
    ...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
micha at aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht