[Avodah] Where is the Molad announced for?

[Zev Sero]

On 22/12/20 5:08 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:

> As I've posted in the past, we can equally ask: When the molad *interval*
> was most accurate, on whose clock was the *time* the molad actually
> happened similarly most accurate? Those are likely the same question
> because the molad interval was most accurate in the mid-4th cent. Around
> when our calendar was set up -- our most likely generation for enacting
> the announcement of the molad time.

The practice of *announcing* the molad before birkas hachodesh is 
extremely recent. Early- to mid- 20th century.  Traditionally there was 
no announcement. Siddurim included an instruction that it is proper to 
*know* the molad at that time, so people would try to find it out, but 
for some reason the idea of informing everyone in the most efficient 
manner, by announcing it just before they needed to know it, didn't 
occur to anyone until recently.

So the rest of the discussion is not about the announcement but about 
the time itself.

The point of difficulty I have with your explanation is that it rests on 
an assumption that the interval in our tradition was completely precise 
when it was enacted. It seems to me that it was always rounded to the 
nearest chelek; if there happened to be a time when it was precise, 
that's nice, but it's not necessarily the time it was enacted. It could 
just as easily have been slightly short at the time, just as it's 
slightly long now.

I do think the plain implication in the Rambam is that it was *intended* 
to be Y'm time, and therefore was set a few centuries earlier than you 
suppose, or else the rate of change has itself changed and we can't know 
now precisely when it was accurate.

-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a *healthy* and happy 5781
zev at sero.name       "May this year and its curses end
                      May a new year and its blessings begin"