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... 

The Molads announced in the last issue of TT were “messed up” a bit. The announced Molad, based on average and converted to Israeli Summer Time is Thursday, May 1, 1:26pm. The actual, astronomical Molad is less than 2 hours later, at 3:14pm. The actual Molad can be as much as several hours before or after the average time. The time from one Molad to the next averages 29d 12h 44m 1p. (18p=1min., 1part=33 seconds)
The time between two “actual” Molads varies. This is mostly explainable by Kepler’s Second Law of Planetary Motion (more correctly, G-d’s law of Planetary Motion, discovered by Kepler) and the fact that the orbits of the Moon around the Earth and the Earth-Moon around the Sun are not circular.

Sunday night, May 4th is first op for K.L.(Thurs. night May 8 for 7-day minhag.)

On another Rosh Chodesh note...
When Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh coincide, we have a special Musaf Amida. The final paragraph of the middle bracha of the Amida is as follows:

According to the ARUCH HASHULCHAN (and others), there is a piece of the bracha that is missing from most Siddurim. It is a part that is familiar from the Amida of Chagim, and there seems to be no good reason why it is not part of the Shabbat-Rosh Chodesh Musaf.
Rinat Yisrael has put the piece back into the Amida of Shabbat Rosh Chodesh in the fourth addition of their Siddur. A few other Siddurim have the full text, as well. The DBS database of prayers has it, too.

We include it on this Rosh Chodesh pull-out for your information, and possibly for your use. If you are so inclined, it would be prudent to ask your own Rav if it is okay for you to say this version of the bracha.

By the way, the phrase in parentheses is said during a Shana M’uberet (13-month, 2 Adar year), but only until (but not including) Nissan. It is included here for use during the first part of 13-month years to come, but we do not include it anymore during this year.

There are at least two Shabbat-Rosh Chodesh in a year; occasionally, there are three.
Rosh Chodesh Kislev and Sivan never fall on Shabbat.
When there are two days Rosh Chodesh, it is one or the other day that can be on Shabbat, never both.
Rarest Shabb-RCh is Adar Bet, 3.9%. Last in 5741; next in 5765, 5768, 5812

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