WORD OF THE MONTH

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... 

ROSH CHODESH ADAR WILL BE YOM SHISHI (FRIDAY - AND SHABBAT KODESH...

The Molad of Adar will be on Friday (Feb.23) 4h 57m 9p
In Rambam notation, that's SHISHI 10h 1035p
In clock time (Israel Standard Time) that's Friday at 4:37am
All of the above times are the same and are based on the AVERAGE timing of the moon's cycle. The astronomical (a.k.a. as ACTUAL or TRUE) Molad will be on Friday at 10:22am

Notice that for this month (it varies) the actual Molad is about 6 hours later than the one we use for halachic considerations. Nonetheless, that is our Tradition. For example, the earliest time for Kiddush L'vana is 72 hours (3 full days) after the Molad. We use the AVERAGE Molad to fix the earliest K.L. even though it would be before the Moon is actually three days old. (This point is not applicable to this month because the first K.L. is Monday night which is more than three days after either the actual or the average molad.) In any event, we use the average timing, even when it deviates from the actual by many hours. JTYLTK