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What is Havdalah (or, When does Shabbat end)?

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Shabbat ends after sundown on Saturday night when there are three stars visible. Depending on latitude and longitude, this is usually between 42 and 72 minutes after sundown.

According to Wikipedia,

There are three widely observed practices, all of which have support in the halachic literature:

  • Appearance of three medium-sized stars in the sky (sun 7°5′ below the horizon, or 42 minutes after sundown), as in the Talmud. This is normative practice in Conservative Judaism. In Orthodox Judaism, this position is used widely for the end of rabbinical fasts, but less frequently for the end of Shabbat or biblical festivals.
  • Appearance of three small stars widely spaced in the sky (sun 8.5°-8.75° below the horizon): common practice in much of Orthodox Judaism [10]
    • “50 minutes after sundown” is actually a variant of this position. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled this way because most people cannot easily calculate when “8.5° after sundown” will occur, and 8.5° takes 50 minutes at its longest, near the summer solstice, at the latitude of much of the United States.[2]
  • 72 minutes after sundown (“opinion of Rabbeinu Tam“): equivalent to other definitions of nightfall, and safe according to all opinions. Common practice in Chasidic and other Charedi communities

If I use 72 minutes for Havdalah, why are Havdalah times ~90 minutes later than the previous day’s candle-lighting time?

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Shabbat begins 18 minutes before sundown on Friday night.

Havdalah is 72 minutes after sundown on Saturday night.

So in a given week, Havdalah time is typically 90 minutes after the previous day’s candle-lighting time (18 + 72 = 90). Sometimes there’s an extra minute or two difference, and that’s due to sunset actually differing by a minute or two between Friday and Saturday nights.

How are candle lighting times determined from my zip code?

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Since candle lighting times are determined from latitude and longitude, a process called geocoding is used to determine the geographic position of a zip code.

Our zip code database comes from the 1999 ZIP Code file from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Gazetteer project.

The Gazetteer data from 1999 is much more complete than their data from 1990 — but still not as good as the commercial-quality data you get from the U.S. Post Office. Gazetteer contains zip code, city name, latitude and lognitude but is missing time zone.

Fortunately, the Gazetteer data contain a FIPS code (which represents the county a zipcode is part of). The U.S. National Weather Service provides county-timezone data (keyed on FIPS code), which contains timezone and Daylight Saving Time data for each county. By joining these two data sources, we can get a complete picture of each zip code.

What cities outside of the USA are available?

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Candle-lighting and Havdalah times are available for the following 54 cities:

  • Ashdod (31d48′ N lat, 34d38′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Atlanta (33d45′ N lat, 84d23′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Austin (30d16′ N lat, 97d45′ W long, GMT -6:00, usa)
  • Baghdad (33d14′ N lat, 44d22′ E long, GMT +3:00, eu)
  • Beer Sheva (31d15′ N lat, 34d47′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Berlin (52d31′ N lat, 13d24′ E long, GMT +1:00, eu)
  • Baltimore (39d17′ N lat, 76d36′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Bogota (4d36′ N lat, 74d5′ W long, GMT -5:00, none)
  • Boston (42d20′ N lat, 71d4′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Buenos Aires (34d37′ S lat, 58d24′ W long, GMT -3:00, none)
  • Buffalo (42d53′ N lat, 78d52′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Chicago (41d50′ N lat, 87d45′ W long, GMT -6:00, usa)
  • Cincinnati (39d6′ N lat, 84d31′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Cleveland (41d30′ N lat, 81d41′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Dallas (32d47′ N lat, 96d48′ W long, GMT -6:00, usa)
  • Denver (39d44′ N lat, 104d59′ W long, GMT -7:00, usa)
  • Detroit (42d20′ N lat, 83d2′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Eilat (29d33′ N lat, 34d57′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Gibraltar (36d8′ N lat, 5d21′ W long, GMT +1:00, eu)
  • Haifa (32d49′ N lat, 34d59′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Hawaii (19d30′ N lat, 155d30′ W long, GMT -10:00, none)
  • Houston (29d46′ N lat, 95d22′ W long, GMT -6:00, usa)
  • Jerusalem (31d47′ N lat, 35d14′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Johannesburg (26d10′ S lat, 28d2′ E long, GMT +2:00, none)
  • Kiev (50d28′ N lat, 30d29′ E long, GMT +2:00, eu)
  • La Paz (16d30′ S lat, 68d9′ W long, GMT -4:00, none)
  • Livingston (40d17′ N lat, 74d18′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • London (51d30′ N lat, 0d10′ E long, GMT +0:00, eu)
  • Los Angeles (34d4′ N lat, 118d15′ W long, GMT -8:00, usa)
  • Miami (25d46′ N lat, 80d12′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Melbourne (37d52′ S lat, 145d8′ E long, GMT +10:00, aunz)
  • Mexico City (19d24′ N lat, 99d9′ W long, GMT -6:00, mx)
  • Montreal (45d30′ N lat, 73d36′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Moscow (55d45′ N lat, 37d42′ E long, GMT +3:00, eu)
  • New York (40d43′ N lat, 74d1′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Omaha (41d16′ N lat, 95d56′ W long, GMT -6:00, usa)
  • Ottawa (45d42′ N lat, 75d71′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Panama City (8d58′ N lat, 79d32′ W long, GMT -5:00, none)
  • Paris (48d52′ N lat, 2d20′ E long, GMT +1:00, eu)
  • Petach Tikvah (32d5′ N lat, 34d53′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Philadelphia (39d57′ N lat, 75d10′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Phoenix (33d27′ N lat, 112d4′ W long, GMT -7:00, none)
  • Pittsburgh (40d26′ N lat, 80d0′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Saint Louis (38d38′ N lat, 90d12′ W long, GMT -6:00, usa)
  • Saint Petersburg (59d53′ N lat, 30d15′ E long, GMT +3:00, eu)
  • San Francisco (37d47′ N lat, 122d25′ W long, GMT -8:00, usa)
  • Seattle (47d36′ N lat, 122d20′ W long, GMT -8:00, usa)
  • Sydney (33d55′ S lat, 151d17′ E long, GMT +10:00, aunz)
  • Tel Aviv (32d5′ N lat, 34d46′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Tiberias (32d58′ N lat, 35d32′ E long, GMT +2:00, israel)
  • Toronto (43d38′ N lat, 79d24′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Vancouver (49d16′ N lat, 123d7′ W long, GMT -8:00, usa)
  • White Plains (41d2′ N lat, 73d45′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)
  • Washington DC (38d55′ N lat, 77d0′ W long, GMT -5:00, usa)

Lotus Notes 6 Jewish holidays download

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Lotus Notes is not supported by hebcal.com. These instructions were provided by hebcal.com user Bruce Kahn. Your mileage may vary.

  1. Start Notes
  2. Create a new mail memo
  3. Attach the iCalendar file you just downloaded and save the memo as Draft
  4. Open the Draft memo up and right click on the attachment
  5. From the popup select “View” to see all entries in the file
  6. Select those you wish to import and then click on Import Selected or Import All
  7. Delete the Draft mail memo

Unfortunately there is no direct Import ability for iCalendar data so the steps above are necessary for now. Hopefully this will change in the future.

Included in the Hebcal Jewish holiday downloads are options to select major holidays (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Pesach, etc.), minor holidays (Purim, Chanukah, etc.), special Shabbatot, public fasts (Tish’a B’Av, etc.), Rosh Chodesh, and modern holidays (Yom HaAtzma’ut, etc.).