[Avodah] The Molad of Tamuz

[Richard Fiedler]

On Shabbat Mevorchim prior to the start of Tamuz the Molad was announced as Wednesday 6:05 PM and 7 chalakim in many shuls throughout the world. Such is as it is listed on Chabad’s Molad Times website.

In other shuls the Molad was announced as Thursday, 0 hours and 97 chalakim. Such is the traditional way the Molad was announced. Minutes are not used. 

Now I doubt that many would say  Elu v’Elu here. One of these announcements was wrong.

Everyone should agree that the Molad occurred on Wednesday, June 13. According to the Rambam "When you know the time of the molad for any particular month, and add 1 - 12 - 793, you will arrive at the time of the Molad of the following month. Thus, you will be able to determine on which day of the week and at which hour it will take place, and how many units of that hour will have passed.” The hour in the Rambam refers to the hours after the start of the day. Since each hour contains 1080 chalakim then 97 chalakim would be the equivalent of (90/1080)x60 or 5 minutes plus 7 chalakim. In the Hebrew Calendar the new day starts at sunset which in the Chabad calculation an assumption is made of 6:00 PM making the Molad 6:05 PM plus 7 chalakim. 

On June 13 the sun set at 7:45 PM Israel Summer Time which is actually 6:45 PM but certainly the Molad occurred before sunset so Wednesday would seem to be the correct day. The logical error here is that we are using both an assumed sunset time of 6:00 PM and an actual sunset time of 6:45 PM in the same calculation.

The source of the problem is the non-traditional and erroneous addition of conversion to minutes into the discussion.

From the Rambam the Molad of Tamuz was 0 hours and 97 chalakim which means 97 chalakim after sunset which clearly is Thursday. If I would want to say this as a real time that people could relate to I would state this in Israel Summer time of 7:50 PM and 7 chalakim. 

Though only occasionally is there a conflict in the day of the week as happened for Tamuz. But only when the sun sets in Jerusalem exactly at 6:00 PM is the announcement of the Molad correct in the Chabad and other commonly used tables.



One final question which I am curious as to the opinions of the members of this forum, why do we announce the Molad at all?



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