| re .5
Purim is the celebration of the story of the Book of Esther.
Associated customs include gift-giving, noise-making, wearing of
costumes, drinking ("One should drink enough so that one can not
distinguish between Haman [the bad guy] and Mordecai [our hero]"),
and general silliness. It comes on the 14th of Adar, just a month
before Passover.
David
|
| See, that's the question I was asking. I fly west starting early
Friday, Saturday "disappears" due to the International Date Line,
and I land on Sunday (their time). So when is Shabbos, and when
does Purim start, for those of us on the plane?
(I suppose I should say, in case you are confused, that I don't keep
shomer shabbos!)
|
| I realize that this is a little late for this year, but perhaps
it will be useful in the future. I thought the problem was
sufficiently intriguing that I presented it to our Minyan and
we discussed it during our Purim feast. Now, not all of it bears
directly on the problem raised in .0, but we've tried to be as
helpful as we can; the fruits of our collective research follows:
RESPONSA(?) TO THE PURIM PROBLEM:
The earliest traditions on what to do when crossing the
international date line are found in the creation story, when Eve
was chastised for falling for the serpent's line and eating the
date. Some would call that an interspecific, rather than
international, date line, but in the context of the times I think
that is being picky.
Rabbinic consideration of the international date line is found in
the Maaseket Bedihah. Bet Shammai, as might be expected, cautions
that when one goes to Moab one must be careful only to eat dates
one has picked oneself, lest they be from an immature tree or
untithed, but Bet Hillel permits eating dates, figs and almonds
from the market if one is so hungry that even the sight of the
Moabite marketplace isn't enough to make one lose one's appetite.
Again, it is not clear that this is entirely relevant to the
problem at hand, but one has to take what one can find.
The Hasar Gaon, in the medieval period, said that rumors of an
international date line were to be ignored, since it would serve
no useful function on a flat earth.
In modern times, the Bet Din of Chelm held that if one were
traveling on Purim and it was not possible to read the Megillah
because of seasickness or the bouncing of the stagecoach, one
should at least drink enough to satisfy the admonition to get
drunk enough so as not to know the difference between "blessed be
Mordechai" and "cursed be Haman."
A more recent ruling by the Meshuggena Rebbe (the same one who
prescribed candlelighting times for female Jewish astronauts) is
probably more to the point; he said that if one misses Shabbat by
going west across the date line on Friday, one is obliged to cross
back the following Saturday night, bringing one back to Shabbat.
The problem, of course, is that as soon as one recrosses the date
line, there is the question of how does one avoid violating the
Shabbat. This problem, says the Rebbe, is to be solved by Elijah
(see the Rebbe's new edition of the Pesah Haggadah, with its
"Questions to ask before we let Eliyahu have his wine").
Rabbi Judith Pilpul says men are responsible for such situations,
which is why there has been such a demand for male poskim over the
generations.
Joseph Loharav, a member of our Minyan who specializes in space
halakhah, pointed out that there will be even more difficult
problems to deal with in the years to come. For example, when we
have a colony on the moon and we start growing food there, should
we say ha-motzi lehem min ha-aretz or min ha-lavanah? And what
do we do on Mars, where the day is 40 minutes longer than on Earth
and therefore the calendar will be out of sync? And that's to say
nothing of the problem of deciding which of Mars two moons we use
as a guide to Rosh Hodesh!
(By this time it was getting a little diffucilt te koop up with
the dicscuion with all the wine so these are all the notse i have
and that wil have to do until next Puri m...)
Aaron
|
| Tee hee! Hope you had a good Purim!
As it turned out, I forgot to pack a Megillah, anyhow (along with
a few other items - was awfully busy the few days before we left).
Oh, well, there's alwasy next year...
|