Amud

Three rounds of work in one update, including one correction to something Amud had been getting wrong. BIRKAS HASHANIM FOR EDOT HAMIZRACH - A CORRECTION A user wrote in, and he was right. Edot HaMizrach do not add a phrase to the ninth bracha. They say a different bracha: Barech Aleinu all winter, with tal umatar inside its body, and Barchenu all summer. The Tur says the contrast outright. So an Ashkenazi who forgot can splice the phrase in where he stands, a Sephardi cannot, and has to go back to the start of the bracha, because it is the wrong bracha and not a missing line. Nusach Sefard and Chabad follow Ashkenaz here, so nothing changed for them, and the dates are unchanged. WHEN TO LIGHT ON CHANUKAH Amud has always known that Chanukah changes the davening. It never said when to light, which is the mitzvah of the day. Now it does, and it names whose opinion each time is, because the Shulchan Aruch says to light "with the end of shkia" and what that means does not resolve. Pick from at shkia (the Gra), ten minutes after (Rav Moshe Feinstein), twenty (Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky), twenty five (Rav Aharon Kotler), 13.5 zmanios minutes (Rav Ovadia Yosef), after shkia and before the stars (Sefer HaMinhagim), at nightfall (the Aruch HaShulchan), or your own figure. Two more settings for Maariv before or after lighting, and Motzei Shabbos at home. Whichever you choose, the oil has to last until half an hour after nightfall, not half an hour from the match. That is why erev Shabbos needs closer to two hours of it, and Amud gives you the number. SIMCHAS AND YAHRZEITS Put in a name and a date and Amud works out the rest: every Hebrew birthday, the bar or bas mitzvah, the bar mitzvah's parsha, anniversaries, and yahrzeits including the first year when the burial was days later. Give the time and city of birth and it works out which side of nightfall it fell on, because 4:20pm on a December afternoon is bein hashmashos in Nottingham and plainly daytime in Brooklyn. If it lands in bein hashmashos it says so and tells you to ask your rov. A bar mitzvah row carries a "That Shabbos" arrow that pages the app to that week, and you can work one out without saving it. The names stay on your phone. WHAT IS COMING UP A full year of Yamim Tovim and fasts, in both calendars, under the Shabbos briefing. BOTH OPINIONS ON EVERY AFTERNOON ZMAN Amud has always shown the Magen Avraham time beside Sof zman Krias Shema and Sof zman Tefilla. That small print now runs across the whole afternoon too: Mincha Gedola, Mincha Ketana and Plag HaMincha. Nothing moved, no new rows, and no time on your card changes. THE EVENING SHEMA REMINDER It now follows summer clock time where you are, instead of only firing on nights when nightfall falls after 8pm. In London that is the whole of British Summer Time, not just high summer, and in South Africa and Australia, where it never fired at all, it now runs through their summer. Nowhere loses a night. ROSH CHODESH Barchi Nafshi now follows your nusach. u'lchaporas posha is fixed at both ends: both days of Rosh Chodesh, and stopping at Rosh Chodesh Nissan instead of running all summer. And a new card for the Rosh Chodesh korban in Korbanos, Uv'Roshei Chodsheichem, at the top of Shacharis. THE DAILY NOTIFICATION NOW CARRIES EVERY CHANGE It was built from the short list on the home screen, so a Rosh Chodesh with eleven changes in it sent three. It now sends the whole day, in davening order. ALSO Rosh Hashanah's shofar, with alos as the hard floor, shkia as the end, and the three hour rule kept to someone davening on his own. Tashlich, the simanim, the new fruit. Ushpizin night by night, in the order you keep. Purim's four windows, including Purim Meshulash in Yerushalayim. The Seder's two deadlines, on the printed sheet. The Yom Kippur ladder, down to havdalah on a flame that was burning before the fast. Birkas HaIlanos in Nisan. Second night candles from an existing flame. And the modern Israeli days, off by default.