Hebrew calendar a (synodic) lunar month, which is 29 days, 12 hours, and 793 parts (there are 1080 "parts" in an hour, so that one part is equal to 3 seconds). The very first molad, the molad tohu, fell on Sunday evening at 11.11, or in Jewish terms Day 2, 5 hours, and 204 parts. In calculating the number of months that will have passed since the known molad that one uses as the starting point, one must remember to include any leap months that falls within the elapsed interval, according to the cycle of leap years. A 19-year cycle of 235
Lunar month The nodes of the Moon's orbit precesses 360° in about 6,798 days (18.6 years). A draconic month is shorter than a sidereal month because the nodes precess in the opposite direction to that in which the Moon is orbiting Earth, one rotation every 18.6 years. Therefore, the Moon returns to the same node slightly earlier than it returns to meet the same reference star. Regardless of the culture, all lunar months approximate the mean length of the synodic month, the average period the Moon takes to cycle through its phases (new, first quarter, full, last quarter) and back again: 29–30