5785/2025
Shabbat’s Ending Time
What is Shabbat’s ending time? It depends on the shul one attends. But why do these disparities exist? Why is there not one set time when Shabbat ends? The answer hinges on understanding the period known as Bein HaShemashot.
Bein HaShemashot
The Gemara refers to the period between sunset (Shekiah) and the appearance of three medium-size stars (Tzeit HaKochavim) as Bein HaShemashot. The Gemara (Shabbat 34b) writes that there is a Safek (doubt) about this period, whether it is day or night. Thus, the Gemara concludes that Halacha imposes stringencies on both days. For example, we begin Shabbat and Yom Tov at Shekiah and end these days only at Tzeit HaKochavim.
Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (Shiurim Lezecher Abba Mori z”l 1:97-104) cites the Ritva (Yoma 47b s.v. Amar Rabi Yochanan) who explains that Chazal did not consider Bein HaShemashot to be Safek day or night because of a lack of knowledge. Rather, Chazal believe Bein HaShemashot has aspects of both day and night. The Rav explains the dual identity of Bein HaShemashot as emerging from the two different standards of night and day of Sefer BeReishit’s first chapter. By the standards of the first day of creation, Bein HaShemashot is considered day. On the first day of creation, the appearance of light distinguishes between night and day (BeReishit 1:5). On the fourth day of creation, though, the appearance of the sun determines day and night (BeReishit 1:14). Thus, by day one’s standard, Bein HaShemashot is day because there is still light. However, by day four’s standard, Bein HaShemashot is night because the sun no longer appears above the horizon.
Rabbeinu Tam and the Vilna Gaon
Poskim debate, though, about the precise contours of Bein HaShemashot. The unresolved debate between the Vilna Gaon and Rabbeinu Tam is its primary controversy. Tosafot (Shabbat 35a s.v. Trei) note an apparent contradiction between Shabbat 34-35 and Pesachim 94a. Shabbat 34-35 indicates that night begins thirteen and a half minutes after Shekiah or the time it takes for an average individual to walk three-quarters of a Mil (according to the Shulchan Aruch O.C. 261:2, a Mil is two thousand cubits; roughly three thousand five hundred feet). According to the Shulchan Aruch O.C. 459:2 and Rama O.C. 261:1 (but see the Bi’ur Halacha 459:2 s.v. v’im who cites dissenting views arguing it is 22.5 or 24 minutes), an average person walks a Mil in eighteen minutes. Thus, Shabbat 34-35 implies that night begins thirteen and a half minutes after Shekiah. However, Pesachim 94a points toward night beginning seventy-two minutes after Shekiah, or the time it takes to walk four Mil.
Rabbeinu Tam resolves the contradiction by explaining that nightfall or Tzeit HaKochavim occurs seventy-two minutes after the sun sets, following Pesachim 94a. Bein HaShemashot, in turn, begins thirteen and a half minutes before night or fifty-eight and a half minutes after sunset. Thus, according to Rabbeinu Tam, it is daytime until fifty-eight and a half minutes after sunset, and Bein HaShemashot is between fifty-eight and a half minutes after sunset until seventy-two minutes after sunset.
Many Rishonim concur with Rabbeinu Tam, including the Ramban (Torat Haadam, Inyan Aveilut Yeshana), the Rashba (commentary to Shabbat 35), the Ritva, (commentary to Shabbat 35), and the Ran (in his commentary to the Rif on Shabbat). The Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 261:2; though see Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 266:9) codifies Rabbeinu Tam in the context of Hilchot Shabbat. Chassidim follow Rabbeinu Tam for stringencies and end Shabbat “late.” They rely on Rabbeinu Tam for leniencies regarding rabbinic matters such as Tefillah times. This point explains why Chassidim daven Mincha long after sunset.
However, the Shach (Y.D. 266:11) cites the Teshuvot Maharam Alashkar, who believes that the Rif, Rambam, and Rosh (the Shulchan Aruch’s three pillars) disagree with Rabbeinu Tam. Significantly, the Biur Halacha 261:2 s.v. Mitechilat notes that many Geonim (Rav Hai Gaon, Rav Nissim Gaon, and Rav Sherirah Gaon) also disagree with Rabbeinu Tam’s approach. Most prominently, the Vilna Gaon (Biur Hagra to O.C. 261:2) marshals many proofs from the Gemara to reject Rabbeinu Tam. The Vilna Gaon believes that Shabbat 34-35 is the primary source teaching that night begins thirteen and a half minutes after sunset.
Sephardic Jews and non-Chassidic Ashkenazic Jews fundamentally follow the Vilna Gaon, although some accommodate Rabbeinu Tam regarding Shabbat’s ending time (see Biur Halacha 261:2 s.v. Mitechilat and Shehu and Teshuvot Yabia Omer 2: O.C. 21; although Rav Shmuel Khoshkermann observes that Rav Yosef Chaim of Baghdad in his Ben Ish Chai does not mention Rabbeinu Tam’s view). I heard Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik state in shiur that he follows Rabbeinu Tam regarding the ending time of Shabbat and Yom Kippur.
The Vilna Gaon clarifies that thirteen and a half minutes applies only in Jerusalem on the equinox. The time must be adjusted according to the season and distance from the equator. There is considerable debate whether Rabbeinu Tam’s seventy-two minutes also varies with time and place.
The Compromise - The Appearance of Three Stars
The Vilna Gaon was particularly critical of the notion that it remains daytime for fifty- eight and a half minutes after sunset. However, saying it is night only thirteen and a half minutes after sunset also is counterintuitive. Thus, common practice adopts a compromise based on Shabbat 35b, which states that Bein HaShemashot ends with the appearance of three medium-sized stars.
The Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 293:2) adds that the stars should be small-sized since it is difficult to determine if they are medium-sized (it is better to err on caution). In addition, he says that the stars must be clustered together. The Mishna Berura (293:5) explains that this latter requirement stems from the Mitzva to add to Shabbat.
Common practice is to gauge Shabbat's ending time based on these criteria, thereby avoiding Rabbeinu Tam and the Vilna Gaon’s extremes. While it does not satisfy Rabbeinu Tam’s Shabbat ending time, it exceeds the Vilna Gaon's. We may call this compromise “the Vilna Gaon-plus approach.”
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Approaches
Modern-day illumination makes it difficult to discern three small stars, and Poskim have shifted to giving equivalents in minutes. Since it is not an exact determination, many different numerical equivalents are set forth. Rav Yosef Adler told me that Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik said to him that forty minutes after sunset in the New York area suffice. Rav Gavriel Elbaz told me that Rav Yitzchak Yosef also prefers Shabbat to end no earlier than forty minutes after sunset in the New York area (this is our practice in Teaneck’s Congregation Shaarei Orah). The Agudath Harabbanim, a prominent mid-twentieth-century New York-based rabbinic organization, ruled that Shabbat in the New York area ends forty minutes after Shekiah. Finally, Rav Moshe Feinstein, Teshuvot Igrot Moshe O.C. 4:62 writes that Shabbat ends forty-five to fifty-one minutes after sunset in the New York area.
On the Israeli side, Rav Yechiel Michel Tucazinsky (Sefer Bein HaShemashot, p.51) believes that Shabbat ends thirty-two to forty-three minutes after sunset in Jerusalem (Bein HaShemashot is shorter the closer one is located to the equator). Most interestingly, both Rav Moshe and Rav Tucazinsky’s numbers emerge to the equivalent of the sun being 8.5 degrees below the horizon. In other words, the sun is 8.5 degrees below the horizon fifty-one minutes after sunset in the summer in the New York area and forty-three minutes after a summer sunset in the Jerusalem region.
Based on this standard, the popular Myzmanim website posts its times for Shabbat’s end in locations worldwide. Shabbat, according to their approach, ends when the sun reaches 8.5 degrees below the horizon wherever one is located.
Conclusion
Now we understand the reason behind the discrepancies between different shuls regarding Shabbat’s ending time. Each approach is valid as they all seek a Vilna Gaon-plus result that matches the appearance of three small stars in a cluster.
For an in-depth discussion of this issue, see Rav Mordechai Willig, Am Mordechai Berachot pp.11-16, and the many contemporary Sefarim that he cites that address this topic at great length.