Skip to main content

Can anyone explain this?

image Next week, December 3rd, is the earliest Shabbos, tied with the following week, December 10th.  It starts at 4:23 both weeks, and then begins to get later.

So what I ask every single year – yes, I really am that tedious – is why the earliest Shabbos does not coincide at all with the solstice – the shortest DAY of the year.  It always seems to come earlier, despite the fact that one would think candlelighting time is somewhat intimately married to day length.  No?

Seriously – please leave your best guess in the Comments section, because I am totally stumped. 

Of course, anytime I’m feeling sorry for myself, I look at candlelighting times for Yerushalayim… where today it happens at 3:56 pm.  That’s because they light 40-minutes before Shkiah (as I understand it, the moment the sun drops over the horizon), whereas outside of Yerushalayim, most people light 18 minutes before.

Still, I guess that’s the trade-off for a holy Shabbos experience like no other. 

But again, any clues about the daylength and candlelighting thing, please leave them below!!!

Comments

  1. I believe you are making the mistake in assuming that both sunrise and sunset uniformly change around the solstices together. That's simply not the case.

    For example, take a look at these sunrise/sunset times for NYC:

    Dec 1 659/1629
    Dec 5 703/1628 (note that in five dayus, the sunset has only moved one minute, but the sunrise has moved four).

    Dec 10 708/1628 (sunrise has moved five minutes later, sunset hasn't changed. The day is five minutes shorter -- but Shabbos wouldn't start any earlier).

    Dec 15 712/1628

    Dec 20 715/1630 (note that the day is still a minute shorter than on Dec 15 -- but Shabbos would start two minutes later. Also note that sunset has begun moving later, but sunrise has *still* not yet begun moving earlier.

    In short, day length is determined by the total number of minutes of daylight. The solstices mark the extremes of those time periods. But sunrise/sunset do not follow in a uniform pattern around the solstices. The days get longer after the winter solstice, but that's not necessarily when sunrise starts getting earlier or sunset later.

    The Wolf

    (Sunrise/set times for NYC taken from here: http://www.sunrisesunset.com)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Isn't it because the Jewish calendar is based on the Moon and the Gregorian calendar is based on the sun?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I ask that same question every year. And I refuse to believe that Shabbat could possibily be as early as my Jewish calendar says it is. "No, it can't be candlelighting time. It just can't be!"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

It's Heart Month: 3 days left to save lives!

Dear Friends & Family: Hi, everybody! Sorry I can’t stop by in person... you're a bit out of my area.  :-) We’re out walking up and down on our street on this beautiful afternoon to raise money for Heart & Stroke.  This cause is important to me (I won't say it's close to my heart , because that would be tacky!).  I hope you'll join me by donating online. Growing up, I watched as every single one of my grandparents' lives were shortened by heart disease and strokes, and my father had a defibrillator that saved his life on more than one occasion.  Heart disease and stroke kill 1 in 3 Canadians and are the #1 killer of women. Please click this link to be redirected to my main page at the Heart & Stroke website: http://tinyurl.com/AtlasHeart Thus ends my personal appeal.  Official information follows.  :-))) ----- Heart disease and stroke is the #1 killer of women - taking more women's lives than all forms of cancer combined. But no one is immune. Th