PARSHA MATH

PATTERNS IN TIME
Halachic Hours
Halachic hours are not fixed hours as the standard accepted 24 hours of the day. The halachic hour generally
represents one-twelfth of the day or night and is called one sha'ah zemanit — varying in length with the
seasons. However, every day has twelve such hours and every night has 12 such hours.
For example, in a day (from sunrise to sunset) that is 12 standard hours long, each halachic hour would
be 60 minutes. However, when there are 13 standard hours between sunrise and sunset, each
halachic hour would correspond to 65 minutes (60*13/12, or 780/12), and so on.
There are two major opinions of the means to define the day:
“Shitas haGra” —the Gaon of Vilna (or the Alter Rebbe, the first Rebbe of Lubavitch) calculate the hour as
one-twelfth of the time from sunrise to sunset
Mogan Avrohom - one-twelfth of the time from dawn (itself variously defined) to dusk/nightfall
Obviously an hour calculated according to the second system will be longer than that of the first. However,
given that the calculation of the latter begins at an earlier point in time (dawn rather than sunrise), the end of
three hours, for example according to that calculation, will occur earlier than it does according to the shitas
haGra.
SAMPLE
(for Los Angeles, California)
12/21/2007 03/21/2008 06/21/2008
Standard time Daylight savings Daylight savings
Dawn
05:34 a.m. 05:40 a.m. 04:10 a.m.
(day begins - Mogan Avrohom)
Sunrise
06:54 a.m. 06:54 a.m. 05:42 a.m.
(beginning of day to Shitas HaGra)
Midday (Chatzos) 11:51 a.m. 1:00 p.m. 12:55 p.m.
Sunset
04:48 p.m. 07:06 p.m. 08:08 p.m.
(end of day to Shitas HaGra)
End of Dusk
06:08 p.m. 08:20 p.m. 09:39 p.m.
(end of day - Mogan Avrohom)
Based on the above sample, complete the following chart
12/21/2007 03/21/2008 06/21/2008
Standard time Daylight savings Daylight savings
Length of Halachic hour:
to Gra
To Mogan Avrohom
End time for Krias Shema (end of
third hour):
to Gra
To Mogan Avrohom
End time for Sharcharis (end of
fourth hour):
to Gra
To Mogan Avrohom
Middle of Night to all

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