How Do You Keep Shabbos When the Sun Doesn’t Set?

Or anywhere in the Arctic or Antarctic circles for that matter. Okay, as a general rule I don't answer halachic questions. That's for a real rabbi. I tend to answer hashkafic questions. I used to write for a website gemssem and there'd be questions on hashkafa and questions on halacha. Rabbi Tendler would answer the from Los Angeles would answer the halachic questions and I'd answer the hashkafic questions. So girl wrote in a question and he wrote back to the moderator. He says this is really a question for a real Alosky, it's a hashkafic question. And I said no problem. Tell me what the halacha is and then I'll tell you why. >> [laughter] >> But this requires a halachic decision and that's not my area. I've made no bones about it. My smicha is in issur v'heter. So when somebody brings me their tfillin and says is this possul, I said drop it in a pot of chicken soup and I'll tell you what to do with it. I'm I'm sort of a one That's the one area that I more or less know. >> [snorts] >> But um But this one I happen to have come across once. There's a Tiferes Yisrael where this problem used to come up because of the whaling boats. When you're very far north in uh in Europe you're very close to the Arctic Circle. And the whaling boats would be around there. And as you know, when you get far enough north there's no day and there's no night. In the summer the sun doesn't set. And uh the midnight sun. And uh and in the winter the sun doesn't rise. So what do you do? So my brother-in-law, David Lichtman was a rav in Calgary, Canada, which is somewhat north. But there's places that are further north in Canada where there are from people, and he was besides a rub, he was also a mile. And they called him up there to do a meal up for Shabbos. And he says, but it was in the summertime, the sun doesn't set. When you make Shabbos? When do you you know, when do you take care of Shabbos? And the psak he received was you go straight due south until you hit a from community and you use their zmanim. Yeah? There was an old joke they said they sent the first Jew, Orthodox Jew into space. And he comes back and he's exhausted. And he says, you know, why was this so grueling for you? He goes, you kidding? I didn't get any sleep. Shachris mincha maariv, shachris mincha maariv, shachris mincha maariv, right? So, it doesn't work that way. You would go from the time of where you took off from, Cape Canaveral I imagine, Cape Kennedy, whatever it's called now, you know, wherever you you took off from, that's where you start from. So, if you're that far north where there is no day and there's no night, you go down and go find that particular time. If there is, and this is what the Torah wrote, he says, so it's mincha krias shema was a few minutes because there were some hours of light where these whaling ships were, and then you have to take the amount of time and divide it into 12 sha'os zmaniyos, 12 hours, and you have from from the first till the third hour to be able to to say krias shema. And so he says it could be just a few minutes. But of course you go further north you don't even have that. One of the most delightful things is there is now when you fly El Al you can go to the religious section and it shows you all the zmanim where you are. Cuz this is always tricky particularly when when you're flying from Eretz Yisrael to America it's not so bad because you're gaining time the whole time but when you're going to Eretz Yisrael you know, so you daven maariv you go to sleep and a few hours later the sun's up. I have to daven shacharis and people are not used to this. So you can check on this uh program and it'll tell you when uh on the flight it'll be nights and when you can daven. So uh that's a great app. Anyway, this is David Elaloufsky with our question and answer series.