short takes

[cellio]

I have half a large cantaloupe and more than enough fruit salad. So far, it appears my other options are blender drinks and sweet cold soups. I guess that shouldn't surprise me too much, but I wonder if I can do better.

Today's mail brought a membership appeal from "Toys for Tots Christmas Club". Oh, let me count the ways in which they have missed their mark... no, on second thought, let's not. :-)

I've spent the last month being a registered Democrat for tax purposes. (I'll fix it after the mayoral election -- err, "primary".) It should be fascinating to see what that does to the makeup of my junk mail.

A question occurred to me while contemplating a conference in England that ends on a Friday (not that I'm expecting to be allowed to go, but): If I get onto a west-bound plane shortly before Shabbat, and at no point during the trip am I in an area where it is already Shabbat, is that kosher? (It might not be smart, of course, as one delayed connection can ruin one's whole day.)

Note to anonymous coworker: if you only get the error after you've edited the code, and you can't produce it from the checked-in version, it is not my bug. :-)

Comments

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

If I get onto a west-bound plane shortly before Shabbat, and at no point during the trip am I in an area where it is already Shabbat, is that kosher?

Ooooo, good question! Technically, I suppose, the sun has not set *where you currently are* so it could be kosher. But this points up that such regulations were ill-prepared for the advent of high-speed travel.

A related issue is this: hypothesize that you're above the Arctic Circle near mid-June, or at the South Pole in December, anyway at some place+time where you have 24-hour sunshine. When does Shabbat begin/end?

[mishtaneh.livejournal.com]

I actually encountered the "standard" answer to that one: apparently one is to use the z'manim for the nearest location which has (a) reasonably normal sunrise/sunset (usually considered latitude < 60 degrees) and (b) a significant Jewish population. The specific example given was that a Jew in Iceland would use the z'manim for London to determine the start and end of Shabbat.

(That said, all such advice has "ask your rabbi" attached to it.)

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

This question came up at a retreat that I attended. We further generalized the situation to encompass modern extremes beyond arctic settlements: space.

What do you do about Shabbat when you're in an orbit where the sun rises and sets on your craft more or less (sometimes much more or less) than once every 24 hours? How about Shabbat on the moon, where the length of the "day" is reasonably fixed, but still 28 earth days long (14 earth rotations each of day and night?)

One opinion suggests following Jerusalem time, while another suggests adhering to local time regardless of inconvenience. Another just brought up the general question of how to make a yearly calendar function in the absence of 24 hour days and 365.25 day years.

[cellio]

What do you do about Shabbat when you're in an orbit where the sun rises and sets on your craft more or less (sometimes much more or less) than once every 24 hours?

There's already a responsum on that. Col. Ramon requested it before flying the shuttle mission.

You might enjoy this post from mabfan.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Cool! Thanks for posting the link.

[cellio]

mishtaneh's answer is the standard one if you live there. If you're just visiting, some say you use your home times (but applied locally). So if, say, Shabbat starts at 8:15 here in Pittsburgh and I travel above the arctic circle, I'd begin my Shabbat at 8:15 local time.

And, all that said, if there's actually a local Jewish community, you instead do what they do.