Parashat R'ei
Word of Mouth

A weekly feature of Torah Tidbits to help clarify practical and conceptual aspects of the Jewish Calendar, thereby better fulfilling the mitzva of HaChodesh HaZeh Lachem...

We bench Rosh Chodesh Elul this Shabbat. Rosh Chodesh will be on Thursday and Friday, August 31st and September 1st.

The Molad of Elul will be Tuesday night, 33 minutes and 3 parts (10 seconds) after midnight, a.k.a. Wednesday, August 30th, 1:12am Israel Summer Time.

Rambam would say R'vi'i, 6 hrs, 597 chalakim. (He started counting hours of the day from 6pm and he didn't use minutes. An hour is made up of 1080 chalakim (18 per minute x 60 minutes).

The actual (astronomical) Molad is almost 12 hours earlier than the announced Molad — Tuesday, August 29th, 1:19pm (IST).

The first visibility of the lunar crescent will be Wednesday evening. That means if we had a Sanhedrin today, Thursday would be the first of Elul, its one day of Rosh Chodesh.

Av has 30 days, therefore Elul has 2 days Rosh Chodesh. Elul has 29 days.