arig@cvl.UUCP (Ari Gross) (01/31/85)
> > There was a question raised about Shabbes at the North Pole and in space. > There once was a Jewish community in Spitzbergen in Norway, that is far > above the arctic circle. Obviously there were times when there was no > daylight during a "day", and thus Shabbes could not start or stop. > Since the essence of the mitzvah was to rest one day out of seven, they > began Shabbes at an arbitrary time and ended it twenty-five hours later. > > I am sure that someone with better access to responsa and to source books > can find out more. > > As for space, the question does not yet apply. An Israeli, on a visit to > the US, will celebrate only seven days of Passover, not eight. Astronauts > are on a visit to space, and should follow their custom and time, since > time is a variable in space. They should follow the example cited above > and declare a certain time sunrise, and another sunset and daven > accordingly. > > A better question comes when we colonize Mars, and people actually live > there. How long is a year, month, day? Does one have two new moons?? > --))). > > David Esan (!moscom!de) I will try and give an intelligible answer to the question of when Shabbat would commence on the North Pole and on Mars based on some responsa (or journal articles ) that I have seen. First, to the North Pole. The North Pole has a 12 hour day and a 12 hour night on March 23 of each year (or thereabout). As it gets close to summer, however, the days become 24 hours long and there are no nights(ie no sunsets). As it gets close to winter, one would have nights that are 24 hours long and no daylight. Rabbi Shlomo Goren discusses this in a response reprinted in the Journal of Orthodox Scientists of America (I saw it awhile ago and no longer remember the exact issue it was in). He was asked when Shabbat would be observed in Northern Ireland where the days become very short (or long) and sometimes disappear completely. I believe that his psak was as follows : If one is in a place where there are still sunrises and sunsets then Shabbat would be observed from one sunset to the next.If there are no longer sunrises and sunsets (North Pole in the middle of the winter or summer) then there are two options available - following Jerusalem Standard Time or following the nearest city that has some Jewish inhabitants and still has daytime and nighttime. I think each of those options has its halachic sources to back it up though. Rabbi Goren does not discuss keeping Shabbat on the moon , on Mars etc. A most thorough analysis of the whole matter is given in Tradition, vol. 7, no. 1, 1965 by Rabbi Azriel Rosenfeld. He works through the differ- ent possibilities and concludes the following: When one is in a place that has sunrise and sunset then Shabbat is from sunset to sunset every 7th day. Now as one is say in the North Pole and winter comes upon him the daylight hours start waning. First sunrise is at 9 AM then at 10 then 11 and so on -- and sunset is first at 6PM then 5PM then 4 and so forth until eventually sunrise and sunset are only minutes apart, and finally there are no more sunsets and sunrises -- it is light outside 24 hours a day. Rabbi Rosenfeld argues however that it is really continuous since even when the sun no longer goes over the horizon it still reaches a lowpoint then comes back up.Just as when there is only a half hour long day every 24 hours in the North Pole during the winter, say from 12 to 12:30, Shabbat would be observed from 12:30 PM (sundown) to 12:30 PM on the following day(plus whatever one waits after shkeeyat hachama), so when there is no sunrise and sunset we would consider the point when the sun is lowest upon the horizon as sunset, and Shabbat would be from say 12 noon to 12 noon on the following day. Using the same argument, during the summer, when there are 24 hour days and no nights , Shabbat would be from midnight to midnight (or close to it). He goes on to say that Shabbat is relative and if your traveling it could become longer or shorter(as could the length of a day). Consider, for example, someone traveling on a boat. If he started on a cruise going West around the World and kept only 24 hour days then eventually he would gain a day(or more) -- meaning he could leave from a city and return to it sometime later (say the cruise embarked and disembarked there) and while for everyone else it might be Saturday for him it would already be Sunday. Since this would be an intolerable anomaly, necessarily his day would have to be more than 24 hours long (when traveling, or shorter if he was traveling East) so that he keeps apace with the time in the particular zone that he is in. With respect to outer space, Rabbi Rosenfeld writes that it is inconceivable that if one goes around the earth in a spaceship once an hour, and sees seven sunrises and seven sunsets every 420 minutes, that he would keep Shabbat several times a day (a day meaning every 24 hours). Therefore, he suggests that using Jerusalem time as a standard is probably the right thing to do. The same would apply on the moon. He rejects the notion of following the same time for Shabbat as the place where one took off from (a notion accepted by others) since astronauts on the same spaceship might have to keep different times or different days for Shabbat. With respect to Mars, since it has sunrises and sunsets but its days are 24 and a half hours long it is a little harder to deal with. If we treat a day on Mars as a day halachically then one could return to Earth on what is to him a Friday but to everyone else a Saturday (he lost a day up there). To use Jerusalem time would present a problem in terms of when to pray, etc. He suggests using Mars time as a standard for when to pray,etc and Jerusalem time as a standard for observing the Sabbath. For more specifics, I would suggest seeing the article. Hope this has shed some light on the matter. Sincerely, Ari Gross (a newcomer to the net) arig@cvl.arpa