Jewish Timekeeping

Halachah is concerned with timekeeping criteria not only for the purpose of defining when Shabbat begins and ends, but also for the purpose of regulating various other mitzvot whose observance is tied to daytime or nighttime only or to certain times of the day or night.

This has led to the development of a Jewish system of timekeeping whereby the boundaries of day and night and of different divisions of the day are defined in various ways in halachah for different purposes. The study of this system of Jewish timekeeping, of which a major part is the interpretation of these definitions, is a branch of halachah which I, and others, refer to by the name Z'manim (Hebrew for times).

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