gnomi | Erev Shabbat Jewish Blogging

This week, Jewish time.

No, I don't mean the stereotype that every Jewish event starts 15 minutes after the posted time (though I've heard this called by other nationalities/groups besides Jews as _____ time). I'm referring to what we mean by an hour in halacha (Jewish law).

There are a number of mitzvot that have to be performed by a specific time of day. For instance, the sh'ma has to be recited by "the third hour." And on Passover, we are required to stop eating chametz (food not kosher for Passover) by "the fourth hour" and have destroyed/nullified the chametz by "the fifth hour."

We do not mean 60-minute hours. The hours to which the rabbis of the Talmud refer are calculated by taking the total number of daylight hours and dividing by 12. We refer to these hours as "sha'ah z'manit" (plural "sha'ot z'maniot). So different times of the year have different-length hours. The beginning of third hour in the month of Nissan (the month that contains Passover) falls at a different time than the beginning of the third hour during Kislev (which is the month that contains Chanukah).

Here is a list of some of the times that are important in Judaism.

Shabbat shalom!