[Avodah] The Molad of Tamuz

[David Cohen]

I saw this whole discussion all at once in a digest, so I'd like to comment
on a few different things.


   1. Regarding the question of how to map "molad time" onto an actual time
   on our clocks:  For the primary and originally intended purpose of the
   molad, setting the calendar, the answer is that it doesn't matter.  All we
   need to know is whether the "molad time" is before or after the cutoff for
   Rosh haShana being on a given day.  The question of what the "molad time"
   means in actual time only matters if you're using it to determine the
   earliest or latest time for kiddush levana.

   2. As RZS wrote, since the time from molad to molad is intended to be
   constant, it *should* be obvious that "molad time" is local *mean* time (of
   some meridian or another).  Yet, as RSM demonstrated, despite this
   ostensibly obvious point, other shitot do exist.  In order to understand
   how this could be, consider that the universal everyday use of a
   timekeeping system centered around mean noon is a relatively recent
   development.  People living in a society using fixed hours that got "reset"
   every day at apparent solar noon or at sunset -- and who didn't have their
   own clocks -- or at least didn't have clocks  precise enough that they
   wouldn't need to be reset every day anyway -- probably wouldn't feel the
   one- or two-minute difference in the lengths of their "24-hour days" over
   the course of the year.  Unless they were students of astronomy, they might
   not even be aware of it.  Someone using apparent solar time might have
   really thought that each noon is exactly 24 hours after the last one, and
   someone using Ottoman time ("sha'on Eretz Yisrael") might have really
   thought that each sunset is exactly 24 hours after the last one, and that
   all of the seasonal variation is in the time of sunrise.

   3. Regarding the question of whether any shul announces the molad in the
   traditional format (hours and chalakim from 18:00), rather than using
   modern nomenclature, see the article at
   http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%206%20Loewinger.pdf, where Eng. Yaakov
   Loewinger advocates doing exactly that.  One of the gabba'im in our shul
   started doing it like that years ago, and when I succeeded him I continued
   it for a while (using the molad Av that will be announced this coming
   Shabbos as an example, I would say "hamolad yihyeh 12 sha'ot ve-890
   chalakim mi-techilat leyl Shishi"). but I stopped after a while because it
   was leaving almost everyone thoroughly confused.

   4. Regarding Sha'on Eretz Yisrael (SEY) --the Ottomon clock -- in those
   contexts in which it is still used (in "Yishuv haYashan" circles), the time
   of sunset is absolutely set to 12:00, not 6:00.  You can see this in the
   way each molad is listed in SEY in the Tukachinsky luach.  As RMB pointed
   out, there is a clock showing SEY next to the "regular" clock in the Gra
   shul in Shaarei Chesed (it's still there -- in "cheder harabbanim").  The
   Perushi shul in Batei Warsaw also has both kinds of clocks, and in Batei
   Nitin, both of the 2 clocks on the wall are set to SEY!  Just yesterday, I
   davened in Batei Broyde, where the clocks on the wall are all set to
   "regular" time, but the schedule mentioned (in addition to giving the
   regular clock time) that maariv at the end of the fast would be at 12:18
   SEY (as opposed to 12:30 SEY like it is on regular days).

-- D.C.
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