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...

This Shabbat, we bench Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat, which will be on the following Shabbat. Rosh Chodesh Shvat is one day (in our fixed calen- dar) since Tevet has only 29 days.
ROSH CHODESH SH'VAT YIH-YEH B'YOM SHABBAT KODESH HABA ALEINU V'AL KOL YISRA'EL L'TOVA
The Molad will be on Thu (Jan.22), 7:03am
HAMOLAD YIH-YEH B'YOM CHAMISHI, ESRIM V'SHALOSH DAKOT V'TISH'A CHALAKIM ACHAREI SHEVA BA'BOKER [THU 7h 23m 9p]
In Rambam notation: HEI 13:423
The HEI is Thursday; 13 is the hours from 6:00pm the night before (that's the 7 hours of the molad plus 6 hours from 6:00pm until midnight, which is where the "regular" molad notation counts from), 423 is CHALAKIM of an hour, which is 23 minutes times 18 chalakim per minute (that's 414 chalakim) plus the 9 chalakim for a total of 423.
The actual (astronomical) molad is WED 21 JAN 23:05 (more than 8 hours before the announced molad)
Remember that the clock time of the molad (Thu. 7:03am) and the astronomical molad (Wed. 11:05pm) are adjustable for your local time, but the announced molad and Rambam's notation thereof stay as they are regardless of where you are.
In other words: for Israel, the molad is THU 7h 23m 9p which is 7:03am on Thursday. For New York, the molad is 7h 23m 9p which is 12:03am on Thursday. Actual molad is 11:05pm on Wednesday for Israel and 4:05pm Wednesday for New York.

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