[Avodah] Molad Alert: Friday night

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha Berger quoted an old post of his:
> In the mid-4th century, the currently announced molad would
> have been accurate for mid-way between the Nile and the
> Euphrates....

and added:
> 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.

It is difficult for me to accept that the molad calculations were based on such a random location as RMB describes. One might respond that "the center of the Jewish world" is not at all random, but is quite useful and logical.

But consider this:

If you take the duration from one standard calculated molad to the next, and multiply it by the number of months since Creation, and deduct that from any recently announced molad, you'll find that the very first molad occurred at exactly 8:00:00 AM on the Erev Shabbos of Adam HaRishon's creation.

Yes, but 8 AM according to which clock? Surely, it must be the local time for some locality which was very significant to the Creation story, and not some random point in the Middle East.

My bet would be on Yerushalayim, Tiburo Shel Olam (Navel of the Universe). [Sanhedrin 37a] I suppose Gan Eden could also be a candidate, and that might fit the area RMB describes, but I'd prefer it to be a location west of there, such as the place where Adam had been before he was put out east, in Eden. (Bereshis 2:8)

Reb Micha: You write that the location where the molad is correct has been slipping eastward. Could you please calculate backwards from nowadays, and backwards from the days of the Sanhedrin? Is it possible that even if the molad is not accurate for Yerushalayim *today*, it was indeed accurate for Yerushalayim at *Creation*?

Akiva Miller

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