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...

Those who say Kiddush L'vana after 3 days following the Molad, and those who wait for 7 days, have had their first opportunities to say it already. Those who wait for 7 days AND say K.L. only on Motza'ei Shabbat will have their shot this Motza"Sh, Parshat Zachor. (As will those who might have said it earlier but haven't gotten around to it yet.) The last opportunity this month for K.L. is Tuesday night, Feb. 26 - that's Megila night in Jerusalem - at 7:47pm. For those in New York (for example), the deadline is 12:47pm, meaning that in NY one can say K.L. all Monday night, but that's it.

Last week, we were a little off with the T'rumah Haftara stats. We forgot to factor in Rosh Chodesh. For T'rumah we read the Haftara for Sh'kalim 3.3% of the time, Zachor's haftara 4.3% of the time, Rosh Chodesh haftara 6.7% of the time. 85.7% of years it gets its own haftara.

In all 13-month years, T'tzaveh is before the Four Parshiyot and gets its regular haftara (37% of the time). In all but one type of 12-month years, T'tzaveh is Zachor (59%). The remaining 4.3% adds to the 37% everywhere except J'lem, where it adds to the 59%, because in Jerusalem it is Purim with a special haftara, which happens to be identical to that of Zachor).