Elie's Expositions

A bereaved father blogging for catharsis... and for distraction. Accordingly, you'll see a diverse set of topics and posts here, from the affecting to the analytical to the absurd. Something for everyone, but all, at the core, meeting a personal need.


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Sunday, October 05, 2008

Counting Kings

Thanks to TRN and Bruce for responding to my earlier Yomin Noraim math quiz! Look at the comments there for their answers to #1 and #2, and here for the answer to re-run question #3.

Now a quick, and (I think) much simpler bonus question:

4) Exactly how many times each year do congregants (i.e., not chazzanim) say each of the following blessings?
- Baruch... Hamelech Hakadosh
- Baruch... Hamelech Hamishpat

9 Comments:

At 10/6/08, 2:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll try this one.

38 times for HaMelech Hakadosh:

3 on each of the seven weekdays of aseret ymei tshuva (arvit, shacharit, and mincha), 4 on each day of Rosh Hashana and on Shabbat Shuva (the above plus mussaf), and 5 on Yom Kippur (the above plus musaf and neila).

This adds up to (3*7) + (4*3) +5 = 38.

21 times for HaMelech Hamishpat:

3 on each of the seven weekdays of aseret ymei tshuva (arvit, shacharit, and mincha). This bracha is not said on Shabbat or Chag.

 
At 10/6/08, 12:39 PM, Blogger Elie said...

Bruce: Thanks! Please take another look though; there's a bit of double-counting here.

 
At 10/6/08, 10:15 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

don't we also say in several shmoneh esreis "v'tzadkeinu bamishpat hamelech haamishpat "

 
At 10/7/08, 6:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Elie: Yes, I caught my mistake yesterday. There are only six weekdays in the Aseret Ymei Tshuva. Thus, the first answer is 35 and the seond answer is 18.

 
At 10/7/08, 11:58 AM, Blogger Elie said...

Bruce, correct! The couple of points here that I found interesting are:
- Unlike the previous questions, the answer here is not impacted by what day RH falls on, since there is always exactly one Shabbos Shuva between RH and YK.
- It works out that HaMelach Hakadosh is said nearly twice as often as HaMelech Hamishpat. That's a bigger disparity than I would have intuitively thought without "doing the math"!

 
At 10/7/08, 12:00 PM, Blogger Elie said...

Tova, you are correct. Perhaps that makes up for saying the beracha ending in HaMelech Hamishpat so many fewer times.

 
At 10/7/08, 1:55 PM, Blogger trn said...

Seven weekdays, or six?

Oh, you caught that.

I admire how knowledgeable you all are about tefilah.

Here's something I was pondering over Rosh Hashanah:

Rosh Hashanah is the only holiday that is two days both inside and outside of Israel. This must mean that it is the only occasion during the whole year that there exists a full day-long period of simultaneous observation for any location in the world.

One, is this correct, and two, what is the time at which this is true?

 
At 10/8/08, 1:53 PM, Blogger Elie said...

TRN: I believe your case must be correct. The time where it would work, if I'm thinking correctly here, is between sunset starting RH day one and sunset starting RH day two, at the point just East of the halachic international date line. This is the spot where the time is earliest anywhere in the world, since right when you cross Westward, it jumps a day ahead. So when RH starts at that point, it's between one hour and 23 hours later everywhere else, and thus still RH.

Now where the halachik IDL is, that's another story!

 
At 10/8/08, 4:17 PM, Blogger trn said...

Thanks Elie for your thoughts on this! I admire your clear explanation, too.

So, the idea that the full simultaneous day begins as the first day of Rosh Hashanah finally begins at the last possible longitude sounds right.

Remember though that time according to sunset is continuous, not broken up into twenty-four uniform time zones. And also, perhaps the varying of sunset times at different latitudes creates problems.

 

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