The helek, also spelled chelek (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

חלק, meaning "portion", plural ''halakim'' חלקים) is a unit of

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

used in the calculation of the

Molad ''Molad'' (מולד, plural ''Moladot'', מולדות) is a Hebrew word meaning "birth" that also generically refers to the time at which the New Moon is "born". The word is ambiguous, however, because depending on the context, it could refer to th ...

. Other spellings used are ''chelak'' and ''chelek'', both with plural ''chalakim''. The

hour An hour (symbol: h; also abbreviated hr) is a unit of time conventionally reckoned as of a day and scientifically reckoned between 3,599 and 3,601 seconds, depending on the speed of Earth's rotation. There are 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 ho ...

is divided into 1080 halakim. A helek is 3

second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

s or ¹/₁₈ minute. The ''helek'' derives from a small

Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...

ian time period called a ''she'', meaning '"barleycorn", itself equal to ¹/₇₂ of a Babylonian time degree (1° of celestial rotation). :360 degrees × 72 ''shes'' per degree / 24 hours = 1080 ''shes'' per hour. The

Hebrew calendar The Hebrew calendar ( he, הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, translit=HaLuah HaIvri), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance, and as an official calendar of the state of Israel. I ...

defines its mean month to be exactly equal to 29 days 12 hours and 793 halakim, which is 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 seconds. It defines its mean year as exactly 235/19 times this amount, or 365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes, and 25 and 25/57 seconds (approximately 365.2468222 days).

Bibliography

* * * * Hebrew calendar Units of time {{time-stub