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If you realized that you didn't yet daven minchah and it's past shekiyah, when is the latest that you can begin praying the Amidah? I'm looking for different people's cutoffs.

Loewian
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Ani Yodea
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9 Answers9

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YU Torah online has a good summary.

The subject is disputed by the Vilna Gaon and Rabbeinu Tam. The first allows only up till sunset; the second up to when the stars appear.

Mishna Berurah 233:14, limits the leniency to recite Mincha until tzeit hakochavim. He cites the opinion of P'ri Megadim, Eshel Avraham 233:7, who rules that one cannot actually recite Mincha until tzeit hakochavim, but rather until Rabbeinu Tam's shekiat hachama which is a few minutes before tzeit hakochavim. [R. Ovadia Yosef, Yechaveh Da'at 5:22, cites numerous Acharonim who disagree with P'ri Megadim and maintain that according to Rabbeinu Tam, one may recite Mincha until tzeit hakochavim.] Mishna Berurah then notes that even those who normally follow the opinion of Rabbeinu Tam should nevertheless show deference to the opinion of the Vilna Gaon and recite Mincha before astronomical sunset.

Nevertheless, Mishna Berurah, Sha'ar HaTziun 233:21, rules that even according to the Vilna Gaon, there is room for leniency in a pressing situation. R. Ovadia Yosef, op. cit., notes that although the Vilna Gaon himself does not allow one to recite Mincha after shekiat hachama, one can argue that within the opinion that shekiat hachama occurs at astronomical sunset (i.e. the Vilna Gaon's opinion) one can still maintain that latest time for Mincha is at tzeit hakochavim. According to R. Ovadia Yosef, the question of whether evening (for the purpose of Mncha) begins at shekiat hachama or tzeit hakochavim is not necessarily connected to the question of whether one follows Rabbeinu Tam or the Vilna Gaon.

Avrohom Yitzchok
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From: http://www.torah.org/advanced/weekly-halacha/5757/chaysara.html

One should be extremely careful to finish davening Mincha by Shkiah, sunset, since many early Poskim (12) hold that it is forbidden to daven Mincha after that time (13). It is better to daven on time without a Minyan than to daven after the proper time with a Minyan (14).

B'dieved, one may daven Mincha up to 20 minutes (15) after sunset. Some Poskim suggest that when davening Mincha this late, the following condition (Tnai) should be stated: If the present time is still "day", then my Tefillah is Mincha and my next Tefillah will be Maariv. If, however, the present time is already "night", then this Tefillah should be counted as Maariv and the next one will be Tashlumim (a makeup) for Mincha (16).

12 Rabbeinu Yona, Shiltei Giborim, Levush, Gra.

13 Mishnah Berurah 233:14; Aruch Hashulchan 233:9; Igros Moshe OC 1:24

14 Mishnah Berurah 233:14. Many other Poskim, however, hold that it is better to daven with a Minyan even if the Minyan will commence after sunset, see Mor Uketzia 233; Minchas Elozer 1:23; Einayim L'Mishpat Brachos 27a.

15 Mishnah Berurah allows one to daven Mincha B'dieved up to 15 minutes before the stars come out. Since, according to some views, the stars are out 35 minutes after sunset, the latest time Mincha may be davened is up to 20 minutes after sunset.

16 Biur Halacha 233:1.

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Loewian
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The first Lubavitcher Rebbe says one can be lenient to pray Mincha during Bein Hashmoshos (twilight) which in Russia during the equinoxes it's about 30 minutes after sunset).

see here http://chabadlibrary.org/books/adhaz/piskey/17.htm (2nd to last paragraph)

Meir Zirkind
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In the mishna in Berachos 26a, the tana'im dispute until when one can daven mincha. R' Yehuda says until plag hamincha (the second half of the time of mincha ketana, which goes from 9 1/2 hours of the day till twelve), the Chachamim say until the evening. The gemara (26b-27a) proves that 'until plag hamincha' cannot mean until the end of plag hamincha (twelve hours), as then there would be no dispute between R' Yehuda and the Chachamim (as they also hold that one has until the evening, ie the end of twelve hours of the day). Thus it is clear that according to the most leninent opinion (the Chachamim), the time after which one cannot daven mincha is also the time that the hours of the day end.

It is well known that the Magen Avraham and the Gra argue about this, the M"A holds that the day goes from Alos HaShachar until Tzeis HaKochavim, whereas the Gra (and the Levush) holds that it is from sunrise till sunset (in truth this is debated by the rishonim as well).

It should also be pointed out that the view of the M"A is based on the position of Rabeinu Tam, that halachic sunset is 54 minutes after the viewed sunset (the Levush argues that even according to Rabeinu Tam the day goes from viewed sunrise to viewed sunset, but without Rabeinu Tam the view of the M"A cannot start).

The Levush also points out that those who held that the day goes from alos hashachar till tzeis mistakenly believed that at the equinox, day and night would each be twelve hours according to this. Thus reality proves that in fact day starts at viewed sunrise and ends at viewed sunset.

All those who allow davening mincha after shekia take the view of Rabbeinu Tam into account. Thus for most of us, who do not take Rabbeinu Tam into account even at the end of Shabbos, there is no justification for davening mincha after the viewed sunset. See Responsa Bemareh HaBazak, part 8 (http://eretzhemdah.org/Data/UploadedFiles/SitePages_File/123-sFileEn.pdf), siman 1.

user18037
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  • "the view of the M"A is based on the position of Rabeinu Tam" This is not necessarily true, unless you are also assuming morning and afternoon hours are the same length. "of us, who do not take Rabbeinu Tam into account even at the end of Shabbos" On the flip side though absolutely none of us end Shabbos 3/4 mil after viewed sunset. – Double AA Mar 15 '21 at 21:06
  • "those who held that the day goes from alos hashachar till tzeis mistakenly believed that at the equinox, day and night would each be twelve hours according to this. Thus reality proves..." This is a bad argument, since even if there is one opinion that held that mistake (which isn't clear), plenty of others did not. – Double AA Mar 16 '21 at 19:19
  • I'm not sure I understood your first point. Please explain what you mean about morning and afternoon hours - who makes any differentiation and what effect would this have.
  • If MA hours are not based on a mistake about the length of the day, please provide an alternative understanding which doesn't contradict Nidah 65b.
  • Being machmir and bringing out Shabbos later proves nothing, especially when considering Tosefes Shabbos. Doing melacha before RT's nightfall proves that we give zero weight to this shita.
    • – user18037 Mar 17 '21 at 17:43
  • Calculate morning hours by taking the time from dawn to noon and divide by 6 and for the afternoon take the time from noon to tzes and divide by 6. Now noon is at noon and the hours go from dawn to tzes. This is a perfectly valid way to calculate MA hours. We know there were morethan a handful of achronim who used non-RT nightfall for calculating MA hours so this is the most plausible method to be used; plus before clocks, why bother summing the halves and dividing by 12? It's not weirder in the end than having different length hours for day and night which to the modern ear is also bizarre
    • – Double AA Mar 17 '21 at 19:18
  • (Igros Moshe 2:20 for instance didn't see any theoretical problem with different hours in the morning and afternoon.) 2. I admit to not holding in that sugya in Nidah right now off the cuff, but I'm not seeing the big deal. Everyone agrees fixed hours are a thing sometimes. We use them for molad/tekufa calculations for instance. It's not worse for MA to have some of his day hours counted in a night onah than it is for Gra to have night hours counted in his day after dawn. Like Rosh 1:9 לעולם לילה הוא פירוש בלשון העולם נקרא לילה לפי שעדיין לא האיר היום ואע"פ שהוא חשוב יום לכל אותן שמצותן ביום – Double AA Mar 17 '21 at 19:18
  • Plus Meiri writes https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=40776&st=&pgnum=293 that the time needed there is only approximately 12 hours. Anyway it's one thing to claim just the Terumat Hadeshen goofed here, but to claim dozens of rishonim, including astronomically savvy ones like Ran, all missed a fact that they could go outside and see is too much for my imagination. It's enough to accept that many of them didn't know how latitude changed their bein hashemashot from how it was in Israel. – Double AA Mar 17 '21 at 19:19
  • Gra hours have a certain scientific neatness that definitely appeals to our modern minds but we must admit it's hard to identify any rishon who unambiguously used them. 3. I'm not proving we follow the straight read of RT (16° angle, well over 72min in Ramerupt) and that's not logically necessary here. To daven mincha some minutes after sunset it is logically sufficient to accept (MA hours and) that daytime continues past sunset for some minutes and that clearly has the weight of minhag behind it, even if recently it's become popular to be machmir / add tosefes shabbos earlier from sunset – Double AA Mar 17 '21 at 19:19
  • "This is a perfectly valid way to calculate MA hours." I must admit that I had no idea that R' Moshe Feinstein held of such a strange and novel idea. It is strange not just to the modern ear - before there were clocks the only way to measure midday was to estimate halfway between sunrise and sunset. But more to the point, this does not make MA hours without RT sunset any more sensible, and although a handful of late acharonim make this mistake, not one rishon or early acharon did. – user18037 Mar 18 '21 at 05:48
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – user18037 Mar 18 '21 at 05:53
  • A long and fairly complex article, but raises a number of interesting points on this topic: https://zemanim.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Calculating_according_to_the__Magen_Avraham_draftpdf.pdf – Joel K Mar 18 '21 at 06:37
  • @JoelK The same suggestion was made 15 years ago by R Seraya Devlitzky in an article in the journal Meorei Yehoshua vol 4 page 37 – Double AA Jun 01 '21 at 14:42