[Avodah] Announcing the Molad

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 05/18/2015 01:49 PM, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote:
> At 11:40 AM 5/18/2015, Micha Berger wrote:
>> Bottom line, no one knows what the molad we're announcing really means.

> Yet it says in the siddurim that it should be announced so people know
> when it is!

It's the number used for calculating the calendar. That's all people
need to know.

> My understanding is that what is announced is Jerusalem solar time
> and this is different from Jerusalem local time.

No, it's different from J'm *standard* time, i.e. the modern time system
invented by the railroads, which of course we take no notice of.


On 05/18/2015 02:47 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> But the point I asked "what am I missing?" about was Rabbi Gamliel
> questioning what people thought they saw, not the average.

Why are you discussing that?  The topic is the announcement in shul,
which relates entirely to our calculated system, not to RG's system.
You wrote that nobody knows what it is that's being announced, and I
dispute that.  RG is entirely irrelevant, since he was dealing with the
actual moon, not the notional moon that our system deals with.

> Yes, that explans the length of the molad, but not the point in the
> idealized cycle. How much moon must be visible for it to be a new
> moon? [...] they make the fundamental error of discussing mean
> conjunction -- no moon -- not the first sliver.

I don't think they made an error at all. The molad is the conjunction;
the earliest time at which the moon can be seen is six hours after
the molad.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name