Years ago I posted the Calculating Erev Pesach Zmanim that discussed the addition of sof zman achilas chametz and sof zman biur chametz times to the API. Based on a request on the KosherJava project’s GitHub repository, a new isTaanisBechoros() method was added to the API. The Taanis Bechoros fast day usually occurs on Erev Pesach, but in years like this year (5781/2021) when Erev Pesach occurs on Shabbos, the fast is moved back to Thursday the 12th of Nissan. Erev Pesach occurs on Shabbos an average of once every 10 years. The frequency of such occurrences ranges from 3 to 20 years. It will next occur in the year 5785/2025, followed 20 years later in the year 5805/2045. The code is included in the new v2.2.0 release of the KosherJava zmanim library. The following code sample shows the basic usage of the new method.
JewishCalendar jd = new JewishCalendar();
HebrewDateFormatter hdf = new HebrewDateFormatter();
jd.setJewishDate(5781, JewishDate.NISSAN, 12);
System.out.println(jd.isTaanisBechoros());
The full moon visible from Jerusalem’s Inbal hotel sukkah. In the previously published Zmanim For Kiddush Levana Before Shavuos 5778 article, we demonstrated how location plays a key role in the earliest time one can recite Kiddush Levana / קידוש לבנה. This article will focus on the Sof Zman Kiddush Levana, or the latest that one can recite Kiddush Levana. In the past we posted the technical Calculating Kiddush Levana Times Using the Zmanim API post, with a simple example of using the KosherJava Zmanim API to calculate Kiddush Levana. Here is a slightly more complex example. The Bach on the TurHilchos Kiddush Hachodesh (Orach Chayim תכ”ו 426) discusses not reciting Kiddush Levana on Yom Tov. He writes that in Tishrei 5390 (1629) there was cloud cover from Yom Kippur until the first night of Succos. The Bach who was the Rabbi in Kraków at that time (see the Be’er Haitev 426:5), writes that they said Kiddush Levana on the first night of Sukkos. This is right after he mentioned that it is our custom not to recite Kiddush Levana after halfway between molad and molad (following the Maharil and Rema, and not the Mechaber who allows a little extra time). Was tzais (the earliest time to recite Kiddush Levana), on the first night of Succos in Kraków that year (5390 / 1629) after the midpoint between molad and molad? Is the Bach saying that in this case bedieved you should still recite Kiddush Levana, or is he just saying that it can be said on Yom Tov when waiting until after Yom Tov will be too late?
The Impact of Calendar Dechiyos / דחיות
The day of the molad of Tishrei is the target day for the first day of Rosh Hashana. However, the Jewish calendar has four rules that delay the start of the Jewish year by a day or two (in a case of two delays combining), a subject that we will hopefully cover at some point – עוד חזון למועד. If not for these delays known as dechiyos that occur about 60% of all years, the 15th night of the month of Tishrei, would always be early enough to recite Kiddush Levanah. The average lunar month is a drop over 29 and a half days (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3.3 seconds), so the halfway point that is the end of the earlier time quoted by the Bach would be 14 days, 18 hours and 22 minutes after the molad. The calculation below shows that in the case of 15 Tishrei, 5390 (the evening of Oct 1, 1629), even the earlier zman for sof zman Kiddush Levana did not happen until the morning of the first day of Succos. The molad of Tishrei that year was about 2.5 hours before the day’s end. This resulted in a dechiya of Molad Zaken / מולד זקן. This delayed Rosh Hashanah by a day pushing it from Monday to Tuesday. There was no dechiya of Lo ADU Rosh / לא אד״ו ראש, so the delay was not as long as it could have been (had there been a combination of the two dechiyos). Sunset on the first night of Sukkos that year in Krakow was at 5:18 pm (using standard time), and the moon rose at 5:54 pm, so they were able to recite Kiddush Levana that night.
Despite dechiyos, the time of tzais in Krakow is before sof zman Kiddush Levana on the the first night of Succos approximately 73% of the time, making the ability to recite Kiddush Levanah on the first night of Sukkos for the longitude of Krakow (that is close to Yerushalayim) more common than not. As you will see below, the farther west you go, the less likely it is to happen.
Sof Zman Kiddus Levana Around the World
Being that Sof Zman Kiddush Levana is a fixed time globally, and can’t be said before local tzais, the farther west you are, the less of a probability you have of encountering a late Kiddush Levana. Conversely, the farther east you are, the greater your probability is of encountering a late Kiddush Levana. The chart below was inspired by Rabbi Dovid Heber’s example in his seferShaarei Zmanim of the rare ability to recite Kiddush Levana on the 17th of the month in Anadyr, Russia. This town is at the far eastern portion of Russia, not far from the International Date Line. The chart shows the percentage of times that Sof Zman Kiddush Levana in Tishrei and the annual average for various places around the world occurs after tzais (calculated as 8.5°) on the 15th, 16th and 17th of the month.
The code below shows rudimentary use of the Jewish Calendar functionality and molad retrieval for the historical date of the Bach’s 1629 Sukkos night kiddush levanah.
Molad: 29 Elul, 5389 / Sep 17, 1629, day of week: 2, Hours: 15,
minutes: 46, Chalakim: 5
Tchilas Zman Kidush Levanah 3 Days: Sep 20, 1629 at 14:25:19 CET
Tchilas Zman Kidush Levanah 7 Days: Sep 24, 1629 at 14:25:19 CET
Erev Succos: 14 Tishrei, 5390 / Oct 01, 1629
Sof Zman KidushLevanah Between Moldos: Oct 02, 1629 at 08:47:21 CET
Sof Zman Kidush Levanah 15 Days: Oct 02, 1629 at 14:25:19 CET
Odds & Ends
While Tishrei has much higher odds than most months for a late Sof Zman Kiddush Levana, Shevat is very close to Tishrei, and sometimes exceeds it. Cheshvan and Kislev are the only variable length Jewish months. In a chaser (Deficient / short) year they will both have the short month length of 29 days. The months of Cheshvan and Kislev are followed by Teves that is always 29 days. With the possibility of three 29 day months in a row, and being in the winter with early Tzais times, the month of Shevat is the most likely to have a very late sof zman Kiddush Levana, as pointed out by Rabbi Heber in his Shaarei Zmanim.
The reason that Anadyr only has a 57% chance of being able to recite Kiddush Levana year-round on the 15th VS 73% in Sydney, even though Anadyr is 3% more likely to have Kiddush levana on the 15th of Tishrei, is due to the high latitude of Anadyr (64.7° N) that results in 25.4% of the months not having tzais on the 15th.
The closest case to almost not being able to recite Kiddush levanah on the 15th of Tishrei without dechiyos would be in a location immediately to the east of the Chazon Ish dateline such as Kurima Island on a year when the molad was exactly at sunset in Yerushalayim and the true opposition (full moon) was much earlier than the average opposition, causing the moon to rise after sof zman kidush levana. Calculations show that this would never actually happen on Sukkos though it is likely to occur on Pesach since the molad of Nisan is much more likely to be before Rosh Chodesh.
In the Parsha Code Removed from KosherJava Zmanim Calendar API article posted two years ago, I documented the removal of the parsha code from the KosherJava Zmanim API due to licensing issues. I would like to announce that thanks to Yechiel Paricher, the zmanim library now supports a clean LGPL implementation. Yechiel’s Jan 17, 2019 pull request that was a port of his C libzmanim code, was finally merged on August 22nd, and over the past day, the old formatting code for parshiyos was restored after being changed to work with the new code. The new code not only restores the old functionality, but adds support for the special parshiyos of Shekalim, Zachor, Parah and Hachodesh. It also added support for Shabbos Mevorchim and Machar Chodesh.
Luach Davar Be’ito 5780 Showing both תש”פ and תש”ףWith the start of the new year 5780, I have been asked the following question numerous times. What is the proper Hebrew spelling of the Jewish year 5780 (2019/2020). Is it spelled תש”פ or תש”ף? This is the first time in 30 years that we have this “burning” question, with the previous one being 5750 (1989/1990) תש”נ or תש”ן. The question arises when the Hebrew spelling of the Jewish year ends with a Hebrew final form (also known as end, “ende” or straight (versus bent)) letter of מנצפ”ך. This happens in years ending with a 20, 40, 50, 80 or 90. According to the Academy of the Hebrew Language’s article שנת תש”ף regarding the spelling of the year, the final form תש”ף is the correct spelling. However, things are not that simple. The excellent 1,700+ page calendar לוח דבר בעתו / Luach Davar Be’ito published annually by Rabbi Mordechai Genut, straddles this by showing one form on the front cover and the other on the spine. In the introduction, Rabbi Genut writes:
ישבנו על המדוכה כיצד לכתוב תש״ף או תש״פ. כדי לרצות בעלי 2 הדעות, נקטנו (כאשר נקטנו בלוח ה׳תש״ן) שבשער הכריכה יכתב ה׳תש״פ ואילו בכריכת הגב יכתב ה׳תש״ף.
In the calendar he published an 11 page essay on the subject by Rabbi Yaakov Matalon who provides the following reasons to use the תש”פ version:
ראשי תיבות or Hebrew abbreviations only end with a final form letter if the abbreviation is typically read as a word such as רמב״ם ,רמב״ן and רי״ף. Abbreviations such as יוה״כ that are read as יום הכיפורים are always spelled ending in a non-final form letter. The Academy of the Hebrew Language reads the year as the proper word תָּשָׁ״ף, while many (most) disagree and read it as תאו-שין-פא.
The abbreviated year is not an abbreviation at all, but a number in its Hebrew format, and final form letters do not belong at the end of a number. This has been the tradition in writing and publishing Jewish books, where the non-final form spelling of page and chapter numbers has traditionally been used. This can be seen in the Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, Tehilim and other sefarim. There have been exceptions to this rule, but they are indeed exceptions. The same tradition is in place on most Jewish monuments.
For kabbalistic reasons the Sefer Chassidim in chapter 1154 mentions that the end form of the letter ף is avoided where possible in tefilah (מוסף is an unavoidable exception). The Sefer Harokeach mentions the same concept in chapter 337 regarding the lack of any ף in Birkas Hamazon. This would apply to this year that ends in an 80, but not the other 4 examples every century.
Rabbi Matalon ends with:
מסקנתנו היא, שמִּבֵּין שני האֳפנים, עדיף לכתוב באות רגילה, לא-סופית: תש״פ, תש״צ. מכּל השיקולים נמצא שזה האופן העדיף. מצד שני, נראה שאין מקום לטענה שהכותב באות-סופית, תש״ף, תש״ץ וכדומה, טועה הוא. אופן כתיבה זה, למרות חסרונותיו, מקובל אצל רבים, ואין מי שרואה בו טעות.
In short, neither is incorrect, but the better of the two is the non-final form תש”פ.
A primer for this halachic dateline post if you are not familiar with the subject, is the earlier Halachic Date Line Map post about the Jewish date-line. Based on the opinion of the Ba’al Hamaor, the Chazon Ish ruled that the dateline is 90° east of Yerushalayim, and it can’t split a landmass. The concept of graira is used to drag the land past the dateline to the water’s edge. This concept of graira is based on the Yesod Olam, a talmid/disciple of the Rosh. For this reason, according to the Chazon Ish, Korea and Australia follow the local date and not the previous date.
Islands Connected to Mainland by a Bridge
A question touched on in the previous article that was mostly theoretical, was about an island connected by a bridge to the mainland. Would the concept of graira apply to the island? The kollel members in Melbourne and others do not visit Phillip Island on Sundays for this reason, but Chabad chassidim who do not follow the Chazon Ish’s opinion, do visit Phillip Island on Sundays.
Islands in Bays
There are differing opinions whether an island in a bay would also be included in graira. Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Goldstein in his השבת בכל מושבותיכם (pages 85-88) brings the following opinions. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in הליכות שלמה (Moadim, vol. 2, page 70) is of the opinion that an island in a bay would be considered part of the land that partially surrounds it. In the same vein, (but not specifically in reference to a bay), Rabbi Moishe Sternbuch in מועדים וזמנים vol 7, ch. 236 mentions something similar (that the easternmost border of Australia would be a vertical line from north to south at the longitude of Brisbane, the eastern-most point of Australia). What is not clear is how large a bay can be. Rabbi Goldstein mentions that drawing a line from Siberia to Malaysia (thus creating a “bay”), would put Japan on the same side of the dateline as the Asian mainland. The Chazon Ish clearly stated that Japan was past the dateline. Presumably, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch would agree that such a large area would not be included in graira. Given the lack of detail about the size of bays, it is possible that these poskim would only include very small bays (within the techum perhaps). It should be noted that Japan is only in the “bay” if you use a rhumb-line. Drawing a great circle line would result in Japan being out of the “bay”. Rabbi Dov Landau in the פשר חזון, and Rabbi Moshe Heinemann do not include bays as part of the graira zone. Rabbi Sternbuch was asked about bays by Rabbi Goldstein, and he agreed that according to the Chazon Ish, bays would not be included in graira, so Rabbi Sternbuch either reversed his earlier opinion, or he disagrees with the Chazon Ish’s opinion. There are related opinions that bays themselves do not drag islands within them into graira unless land to their east is part of graira. See Rabbi Leib Blum’s קו התאריך בכדור הארץ for details. For example the Sea of Okhotsk is to the west of the Kamchatka Peninsula. This means that they are of the opinion that you can’t have land to the east that is part of graira such as the Kamchatka Peninsula, and have Sea of Okhotsk and Sakhalin Island to the west of it that is considered past the line, (and back again to Siberia that is part of graira). The same would be the case in the portion of the Yellow Sea to the west of the Korean Peninsula and east of the Chazon Ish line, as well as the above mentioned Phillip Island and French island that are in the Western Port Bay near Melbourne. Bays such as Moreton Bay that includes Bribie and other islands near Brisbane, as well as Ulleungdo Island in the Sea of Japan would not be included in graira, since there is no graira land to the east of it.
Incheon International Airport and the Halachic Dateline
In January 2019, the Star-K held a Kashrus training seminar in Shanghai for mashgichim who live or work in Asia. Among the sessions, was a shiur about the halachic dateline by Rabbi Dovid Heber who shared the URL to my halachic dateline map with the participants. One of the mashgichim, Rabbi Yosef Wexler, who travels from Eretz Yisrael to Asia regularly, noticed a potential issue related to the Incheon airport, the main airport in South Korea (near Seoul). The airport is located on Yeongjong Island, that is connected to mainland South Korea by two long bridges. The island is within a Bay (formerly Chemulpo Bay), that is itself within the Yellow Sea that is itself a vary large bay. Ifgraira would not apply here (bridges and bays would not be considered a connection) and you followed the opinion of the Chazon Ish, the airport would observe Shabbos on local Sunday (the same issue faced in Japan). This impacts mashgichim who bypass Japan on Sundays, and regularly fly to Korea on flight KE958 on Motza’ei Shabbos from Israel on their way to China etc. The flight lands at about 3pm Sunday local time, when the airport may be observing Shabbos. It would also impact anyone else who plans on flying in or out of the airport between Motza’ei Shabbos and Sunday night.
Psak Halacha
Please consult a posek before relying on this for halacha lema’aseh. There are a number of opinions, and I will touch on a few of them.
As per Rabbi Heber, Rabbi Yonasan Weiner (a posek in Ohr Sameach) asked R’ Chaim Kanievsky about Phillip Island (that as mentioned above, has a bridge and is in a bay), and he said that it is ‘צריך עיון’. Based on this, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann ruled that if someone is in the Incheon airport from shkiah on Friday (local day) until it gets dark on Saturday, one should keep regular Shabbos. From when it gets dark on Saturday night until it gets dark on local Sunday deoraisas should be avoided, but derabanans are permissible. This would permit most activities. The following quote in Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Goldstein’s השבת בכל מושבותיכם should be noted:
שמעתי מדודי הגאון רבי משה היינעמאנן שליט״א שאולי גבול היבשה הוא כשיעור תחום שבת מסוף היבשה
Yeongjong Island is at its closest 1,950 meters from mainland South Korea (from the eastern tip of the island to Wolmido, a former island that is now connected to land), and thus beyond tchum Shabbos. It is therefore not within the extended maritime graira zone. This applies to Incheon, but not the Yellow Sea. Rabbi Heber in his note to the Star-K mashgichim stated that melachos deoraisa should not be done within 35 minutes of landing since that is the earliest time the KAL958 flight passes the Chazon Ish line over the Yellow Sea. At this point according to the Chazon Ish it would be Shabbos. This was also mentioned by Rabbi Goldstein as a possible deoraisa. See below for more details.
Permissible Activities on Incheon Island on Sundays
There are many variables and variations in various melachos, so please consult a posek before relying on this for halacha lema’aseh.
Note: This list is only meant for Incheon airport on Sundays (from Motza’ei Shabbos until it turns dark on Sunday night) and other areas where a majority of opinions hold it is a weekday, but an accepted minority hold it is Shabbos. This list should not be used in any other locations or on a day that is accepted as Shabbos.
Traveling as a passenger to and from Incheon airport by plane or car. You do not have to worry about the 12 miltchum Shabbos.
Carrying your belongings more than 4 amos outside the airport, or carrying them into the airport – there is no reshus harabim deoraisa on the island
Walking in the airport including the use of escalators and moving sidewalks.
Triggering automatic sensor doors, sensors in bathrooms etc. (there no need to wait for someone else to activate it).
Scanning boarding or other passes (including to open electronic gates).
Going through security, taking muktzeh out of pockets, and passing through metal detectors.
Electronically signing into a lounge.
If a paper signature or writing is required, try to avoid it. If there is no other option, use your alternate hand (left for a righty, right for a lefty). An ambidextrous person can’t do shinuy by changing hands, and can’t sign or write.
Typing on a computer and typing or calling with cellphones is permissible, but the screen saver or the automated powering down of the monitor has to activate by itself to “erase” your writing. For power saving and security reasons, almost all computers will end up having a screensaver or a monitor power down and clear the screen. If this is not in place, and your “writing” will remain on the screen, it is more of a maaseh ksiva. Saving the document to your hard drive is permissible.
Problematic Activities During This Time
Opening a taxi door that causes the dome light to turn on (ask the driver to open your door, or have him open his door first, thus turning on the dome light)
Writing (with paper and pen).
Showers in the lounge should be avoided since there can be deoriasas involved.
Making coffee should be done the same way you would do it on Shabbos. Instant is fine, brewing fresh in a machine should not be done.
Rabbi Shlomo Miller in his approbation to the above mentioned Hashabbos Bechol Moshvosaichem, mentions that:
… והביא שטה אחת דכדי שיראה הוי בכלל אסטרליא וכן הי׳ דעתי נוטה [כמובן א״א להביא ראיות ברורות בזה] אולם יש להוסיף דלפי הגמ׳ בכורות נ״ד: עד ט״ז מיל הוי שעור כדי שיראה ויש אחרונים שהביאו מזה לגבי היקף מחיצות בשבת במחיצות הנעשות מאליהן דצריך שיהא העומד בתוכו רואה את המחיצות ע״כ עד ט״ז מיל יש מקום להסתפק אפשר שנגרר אחר אסטרליא.
This intuition (that he is unsure of) would potentially remove the questionable status of Incheon airport.
Rabbi Shmuel Meir Katz, a posek in Lakewood, discussed the Incheon airport question (focused on the fact that it is on a a man-made portion of the island) in his Time Zone Shailos speech at the The Association of Kashrus Organizations’s 2018 Vaadim conference (24:50 into the recording). He said that a chaburah in Lakewood, NJ brought down a תוספתא נגעים פ״ו ה״ג that ״בית שבים אין מטמאין בנגעים״. The גר״א has a girsa ״בית שבים מטמאין בנגעים״. The ר״ש in נגעים פ׳ י״ב מ״א explains that
בית שבים: מדקתני בית שבים ובית שבספינה משמע דתרי מילי נינהו דשבים אפילו בנוי על גבי קרקע הים שהביאו אבנים וטיט ושפכו בים עד שנעשה כמין תל ובנו עליו בית אין מטמא בנגעים משום דכתיב ״ארץ״ ולא ים
This implies that the only questionable status is for נגעים, but otherwise, man-made land would have the status of natural land. Rabbi Katz holds that the bridge itself would connect the island and give it the same halacha as the mainland. It should be noted that Rabbi Katz also discussed the issue of The Sea of Okhotsk. His opinion is that the line follows the contour of the land, and the Sea of Okhotsk and Sakhalin Island would not be included in graira, but mentioned that Rabbi Leib Blum felt that it should be included due to it being to the west of land that has graira.
Rabbi Mordechai Kuber in his upcoming book, Crossing the Dateline (expected to be published later this year) strongly feels that there is no problem in Incheon airport on Sundays due to it being in a bay (that is in itself a safek). The question of the bridges, its proximity to land, and the many sandbars between it and the land make it at most a sfaik sfaika, which most poskim should agree is not an issue even according to the Chazon Ish. This sfaik sfeka is in addition to the other opinions who do not agree with the Chazon Ish, and are of the opinion that Incheon is not east of the halachic dateline, and therefore Saturday is Shabbos in Incheon, and not Sunday.
Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Goldstein in a letter to me mentioned that there is a possibility of a deoraisa in flying on a flight that is completely or partially on Shabbos
… this is comparable to one who boards a plane which takes off before Shabbos and lands after Shabbos, which, as the Shailos U’Teshuvos Minchas Yitzchok 2:106, the Shailos U’Teshuvos Tzitz Eliezer 1:21 and the Shailos U’Teshuvos Shraga HaMeir 7:27 write, involves an issur d’oraysa transgressing the chiyuv of “shabosson” which is not fulfilled while on an airplane ride. (However, it could be that there is a sevara to say that there is a difference in the d’oraysa of “shabosson” between flying on an airplane for the whole Shabbos and flying over the Yellow Sea for a short time …). If, indeed, this involves an issur d’oraysa, this creates a problem not only for people who follow the opinion of the Chazon Ish with regard to the dateline, but even for people who refrain from issurim d’oraysa on the Shabbos of the Chazon Ish. If so, regardless of whether or not the sevara of graira applies to Incheon Airport, I would think that people should still not be flying to that airport on Sunday. Second of all, even if I am mistaken in the above comparison and there is no issur d’oraysa to fly over the Yellow Sea while it is Shabbos in the Yellow Sea, it would be worthwhile for you to mention in your article that at least while the airplane is flying over the Yellow Sea one should certainly be careful not to perform any melacha d’oraysa such as writing. I am not trying to offer a psak about these points, but I think there is reason to consult with a poseik whether these issues need to be mentioned in your article.
It should also be noted that on page 83 of השבת בכל מושבותיכם, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky is quoted with a different psak than the one quoted above by Rabbi Yonasan Weiner. Rabbi Goldstein sent the following question to Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky
שמעתי שבחוף הים של אוסטרליה יש גשרים ובנינים שנבנו בידי אדם שיוצאים מן היבשה לתוך קצה הים, האם גם בנינים אלו וגשרים אלו המחוברים ליבשה נגררים אחר שאר ארץ אוסטרליה או רק הארץ שנעשה שם בידי שמים ולא מה שניתוסף בידי אדם בתוך הים?
Rabbi Kanievsky replied with his typical brevity
נגררים
I would like to thank Rabbi Dovid Heber, Rabbi Shmuel Meir Katz, Rabbi Yitzchok Meir Goldstein, Rabbi Mordechai Kuber, My father-in-law R’ Feivel Muller and my wife for reviewing this article. This article is published in memory of my mother-in-law Mrs. Helen Muller חיה בת ר׳ יצחק הכהן ע״ה.
