If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been working on my Zmanim-WP plugin for WordPress for a while now. This blog series is designed to help you dig deeper into the plugin and understand what it does, how it works, and whether it’s right for your needs.
“Sunny Afternoon” – The Kinks
The last post covered the zmanim for the morning hours so, logically, this one is going to focus on halachic times for the afternoon. As a reminder, the focus of this series of blogs is HOW to use each shortcode. I’m open to digging into the WHAT (and even the WHY) if you want. Let me know in the comments. For today, we’ll be looking at:
- Chatzot ([zman_chatzot]) – Solar noon, the point halfway through the available sunlight for that day.
- Mincha Gedolah ([zman_gedola]) – The earliest time to pray Mincha (afternoon) prayers. This comes a half hour after mid-day (chatzot). But of course, “a half hour” is somewhat complicated.
- Mincha Ketana ([zman_ketana]) – Some hold it’s better to wait further into the day for afternoon prayers. Mincha ketana happens at the last 2 1/2 hours before sunset.
- Plag haMincha ([zman_plag]) – This time occurs halfway between Mincha Ketana and sunset and is yet another time some hold as preferable for afternoon prayers.
As with the shortcodes in part 1, they can be used as-is, or with the options I described in the first post of the series.
Examples:
- [zman_chatzot date="saturday"]
- [zman_gedola date="saturday" dateformat="g:i:s a"]
- [zman_ketana offset=-20]
- [zman_plag dateformat="g:i a"]
A Matter of Opinion
Each of these shortcodes requires you to select a shita – a rabbinic opinion – for its calculation. I plan to elaborate on each of these items in another series, but some details can be found on the KosherJava documentation site: https://kosherjava.com/zmanim/docs/api/com/kosherjava/zmanim/ComplexZmanimCalendar.html#getAlos60()
Here are the shitot for the shortcodes we’re looking at in this post:
- Chatzot
- chatzosAsHalfDay
- fixedLocalChatzos
- Mincha Gedolah
- minchaGedola
- minchaGedola30Minutes
- minchaGedola72Minutes
- minchaGedola16Point1Degrees
- minchaGedolaAhavatShalom
- minchaGedolaGreaterThan30
- minchaGedolaAteretTorah
- minchaGedolaBaalHatanya
- minchaGedolaBaalHatanyaGreaterThan30
- minchaGedolaGRAFixedLocalChatzos30Minutes
- Mincha Ketana
- minchaKetana
- minchaKetana16Point1Degrees
- minchaKetanaAhavatShalom
- minchaKetana72Minutes
- minchaKetanaAteretTorah
- minchaKetanaBaalHatanya
- minchaKetanaGRAFixedLocalChatzosToSunset
- samuchLeMinchaKetanaGRA
- samuchLeMinchaKetana16Point1Degrees
- samuchLeMinchaKetana72Minutes
- Plag haMincha
- plagHamincha
- plagHamincha120MinutesZmanis
- plagHamincha120Minutes
- plagHamincha60Minutes
- plagHamincha72Minutes
- plagHamincha90Minutes
- plagHamincha96Minutes
- plagHamincha96MinutesZmanis
- plagHamincha90MinutesZmanis
- plagHamincha72MinutesZmanis
- plagHamincha16Point1Degrees
- plagHamincha19Point8Degrees
- plagHamincha26Degrees
- plagHamincha18Degrees
- plagAlosToSunset
- plagAlos16Point1ToTzaisGeonim7Point083Degrees
- plagAhavatShalom
- plagHaminchaAteretTorah
- plagHaminchaBaalHatanya
- plagHaminchaGRAFixedLocalChatzosToSunset
I know that this can feel like a lot. A good rule to go by is that, if you don’t have a reason to choose otherwise, selecting the default won’t get you into too much trouble.
Until next time!
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