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Author Archives: mradwin

Candle-lighting, Havdalah & Fast times

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Hebcal can generate Candle-lighting & Havdalah times for Shabbat and holidays, and start and end times for fast days. Over 100,000 world cities are supported.

Candle-lighting times / הַדְלָקַת נֵרוֹת

By default, candle lighting time is 18 minutes before sundown (40 minutes for Jerusalem, 30 minutes for Haifa and Zikhron Ya’akov) on Erev Shabbat (Friday) and Erev Chag (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Pesach, Shavuot).

Hebcal gives an option to specify a different number of minutes before sunset if you don’t follow the 18-minute minhag (for example, some light candles 20 minutes before sundown).

Chanukah candle-lighting times are at civil dusk (solar depression of 6 degrees) on weekdays. Chanukah candles are lit just before Shabbat candles on Friday, and immediately after Havdalah on Saturday night.

Havdalah / הַבְדָּלָה

Havdalah is calculated according to tzeit hakochavim / צֵאת הַכּוֹכָבִים, the point when 3 small stars are observable in the night sky with the naked eye (sun 8.5° below the horizon). This option is an excellent default for most places on the planet.

Hebcal also offers the option to use a fixed number of minutes past sundown. Typically one would enter 42 min for three medium-sized stars, 50 min for three small stars, 72 min for Rabbeinu Tam, or 0 to suppress Havdalah times.

Fast times

Minor fasts begin in the morning at alot haShachar / עֲלוֹת הַשַּׁחַר (solar depression 16.1 degrees) and conclude at tzeit for 3 medium sized stars (solar depression 7.083 degrees). Both start and end times are displayed for following minor fasts:

  • Tzom Gedaliah
  • Asara B’Tevet
  • Ta’anit Esther
  • Tzom Tammuz

Hebcal displays only a start time for Ta’anit Bechorot because customs vary about when to end the fast (often at a siyyum at the conclusion of morning services).

Major fasts (Yom Kippur and Tish’a B’Av) begin just before sunset at regular candle-lighting time and conclude at Havdalah time. On Yom Kippur, fast start and end times are indicated with the regular “Candle lighting” and “Havdalah” event titles.

A note about accuracy

How accurate are candle lighting times?

If you ever have any doubts about Hebcal times, consult your local halachic authority.

If you select a location (or enter geographic coordinates) above the arctic circle or below the antarctic circle, the times are guaranteed to be wrong. The NOAA algorithm used to calculate the position of the sun is inaccurate at extreme northern and southern latitudes.

Daily learning: Mishneh Torah and Chofetz Chaim

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We’re pleased to announce two new daily learning calendars on Hebcal.com.

The Daily Rambam is a learning program that divides Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah legal code into daily units, to complete the whole work in three years. We offer the one chapter a day schedule. We plan to also offer the 3-chapters-per-day schedule.

The Sefer Chofetz Chaim deals with the Jewish ethics and laws of speech. This cycle takes 1/3 of a year to complete. The book is divided into 119 parts in a regular year and 129 parts in a leap year. We plan to offer a daily learning schedule for the related text Shemirat HaLashon.

You will find both Daily Rambam and Daily Chofetz Chaim calendar feeds on our calendar downloads page. You’ll be able to subscribe to perpetual calendar updates on iPhone, iPad, Android (via Google Calendar), Outlook, macOS Desktop Calendar, or any app that supports iCalendar (.ics) feeds.

Displaying today’s Omer count

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If you’d like to display today’s Omer count on your website and you’re comfortable with a bit of Javascript, you can use a snippet like this:

To display the Omer count in another language, change the &lg=s to another supported language code (for example h for Hebrew, es for Spanish, etc).

If you’d like to display the long omer count in English or Hebrew, you can dislay item.omer.count.en or item.omer.count.he

  • he: “הַיוֹם שְׁמוֹנָה עָשָׂר יוֹם, שְׁהֵם שְׁנֵי שָׁבוּעוֹת וְאַרְבָּעָה יָמִים לָעוֹמֶר”,
  • en: “Today is 18 days, which is 2 weeks and 4 days of the Omer”

See also item.omer.sefira.he, .en, and .translit.

  • he: “נֶּֽצַח שֶׁבְּתִּפאֶרֶת”,
  • translit: “Netzach sheb’Tiferet”,
  • en: “Eternity within Beauty”

Reinstalling Hebcal for Apple Watch

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If you install Hebcal for your Apple Watch and then delete it, it may be difficult to reinstall. This problem occurs because the Hebcal watch app does not have a companion iPhone app.

To reinstall the app on your watch, you won’t be able to use the App Store on your iPhone. Instead, you will need to open the App Store on the watch itself and search for (and install) Hebcal.

Press the Digital Crown to see the Home screen, then tap the App Store.

Then, search for Hebcal, and you will see a screen like the following:

If you’ve downloaded the Hebcal app before, you’ll see a blue cloud icon with an arrow pointing downwards. Tap the blue cloud download icon to download and install the Hebcal app on your watch.

Or, you may see a small blue “GET” button if the watch believes the Hebcal app has never been downloaded to your watch. Tap the GET button to download and install the Hebcal app on your watch.

Then, tap the blue Open button to launch Hebcal.

Chanting Torah – audio of parsha

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In addition to providing details about the weekly Torah readings, Hebcal makes it convenient to listen to the audio of a professional cantor chanting Torah trope.

If you visit the Hebcal parsha pages from a larger display (desktop/laptop computer or a tablet), you can click the speaker icon to visit Sefaria‘s embedded PocketTorah audio.

The Sefaria native mobile app does not currently support the PocketTorah audio, so the Hebcal speaker icons are not displayed on mobile phones. The audio is displayed only on Sefaria website and depends on a larger screen, such as a desktop/laptop computer or a tablet.

For many years, Hebcal linked to audio provided by the World ORT “Navigating the Bible II” website. Unfortunately, after 20+ years on the Internet, the ORT website stopped working in July/August 2022.

If you liked Navigating the Bible, you can use the aforementioned Sefaria integration. Or, you might consider trying an alternative, such as PocketTorah (free) or TropeTrainer (not free, but very high quality). Hebcal is not affiliated with World ORT or with TropeTrainer or PocketTorah.

Original post from May 2013

We’re pleased to share that ORT’s Navigating the Bible website has been upgraded to MP3. For many years, Hebcal.com has linked to ORT’s excellent site for Torah readings with Hebrew, translation, transliteration and chanting.

When released 13+ years ago, ORT’s trope/chanting audio was based on a format called RealAudio. Unfortunately, RealAudio doesn’t work very well on modern devices like tablets.

As of May 2013, ORT has upgraded to MP3 – a more modern audio format. Users can listen to individual verses or download whole readings to listen to on their phones, tablets or other mp3 players.

Our sincere thanks to Vladimir Dribinskiy, ORT’s Chief Program Officer, and to the entire World ORT team!