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From: cs193bah@unm-la.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: To my dear friend Eliyahu Teitz
Message-ID: <254@unm-la.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Feb-85 22:05:16 EST
Article-I.D.: unm-la.254
Posted: Thu Feb 14 22:05:16 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Feb-85 06:22:27 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Univ. of New Mexico, Los Alamos
Lines: 65


In article <1150@aecom.UUCP> Eliyahu Teitz writes:

>  As far as I can remember, I lit Channuka candles when the sun set in
> my home town of Elizabeth, N.J. and not when it set in Israel. Also, on
> Yom Kippur I ate until sunset at home and not in Israel and broke my fast
> the following night after nightfall here and not there. So why do you say
> that the holidays are dependent on Israel time? The holidays are dependent
> on local time. Therefore, when one goes where there is very little daylight
> on theoretically runs into a problem as to the time for prayer. There are
> many responsa on the issue, but the safest solution is to try and avoid 
> those areas as much as possible ( if one really cares ).

>  One final point on the issue. I detected a condescending tone in the
> article I am responding to. Not only are yeshiva students required to 
> daven, but every Jew ( man and woman alike ) are obligated to pray in 
> some manner daily. Of course, I might just have read too much into the
> article, but these sideswipes at the religious are really uncalled for.

Dear Eliyahu:

I did not infer that the haggim are dependent on Israel time, but rather
are celebrated to coincide with the celebration of the holiday in Israel.
Don't you celebrate two seders on Pesach and an extra day of Sukkot?  If  
Israel is celebrating Tu b'Shevat, can you decide to postpone the celebration
for six more months?

Similarly, I think a case can be made for the fact that from a reference frame
centered in Israel, a yeshiva bocher travelling 0.999993 the speed of light
will have only aged one day during an entire Israeli year. Since six hours
aboard the space ship corresponds to a full season (spring, etc.) in Israel,
and since G-d commanded us to celebrate the haggim each in its own season,
the yeshiva bocher (who has no seasons aboard a space ship) should go by
those in Israel.

Of course, the most rational reply was given by another poster who quoted
Rav Goren as deciding that shabbat and haggim have no such restrictions
on a space traveller.

To such as yourself who feels that "the safest solution is to avoid those
areas" I can give you no answer, since you feel that Jews do not belong in
space, but do belong in Elizabeth, N.J.

As for my "condescending" tone and "sideswipes at the religious", I think
you are reading an intent in my postings that are nonexistent.  I do not
make "sideswipes" at yeshiva students (I was one myself).  I do not look down
on the religious.  I even don't mind replying to your intolerant postings.

Now that you mention it, however, I do have a problem dealing with 
self-righteous people who are always judging other people's lack of
religious observance.  These people are often the same people who have a
jar of "negel wasser" next to their beds, and then tell other Jews to either
hand them a family history or get into a mikvah.

Maybe when Mashiach comes (soon in our days), he can teach us whether it
is more important to love one another or to berate each other for not
being as religious as his neighbor.                    
---

bill peter                         {ihnp4,seismo}!cmcl2!lanl!wkp

"Ben Azzai said, 'Do not be scornful of any person and do not be
 disdainful of anything, for there is no person without his hour
 and no thing without its place.'"
---