The required adjustment is realized by the addition of an extra month (Adar II) in each of seven out of the 19 years that constitute the small (or lunar) cycle of the moon ( maḥazor katan or maḥazor ha-levanah). Without any adjustment the festivals would "wander" through the seasons and the "spring" festival (Passover), for example, would be celebrated eventually in winter, and later in summer. The cycles of 12 lunar months must therefore be adjusted to the solar year, because although the Jewish festivals are fixed according to dates in months, they must also be in specific (agricultural) seasons of the year which depend on the tropical solar year. The solar year is 365 days, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, which means that a solar year exceeds a lunar one (12 months) by about 11 days. The mean synodic month (or lunation) is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3⅓ seconds (793 parts (ḥalakim) in the Jewish system the hour is divided into 1,080 parts each of which is 3⅓ seconds). This is known as the מוֹלָד, molad ("birth," from the root ילד). The conjunction of the moon with the sun is the point in time at which the moon is directly between the earth and the sun (but not on the same plane) and is thus invisible. A month is the period of time between one conjunction of the moon with the sun and the next. The present Jewish calendar is lunisolar, the months being reckoned according to the moon and the years according to the sun.
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