Halachos regarding Late shabbos | Rabbi Anthony Manning | July 2 2025

Uh good morning everybody. Can I thank our thank our sponsors for today's shar all the sharim this morning are sponsored by Sar and Rene Corey and Rever shirts in memory of Rabbi Khim shirts uh who is Sarah's father and Rea's husband Rafim Elza Ben Mosha on his seventh y side which was on the second of tamuz should be an aliyah for his nama um and the shirim for the whole academic year sponsored leu nishmoas brandit and zelik ben kman alma shalom Again, if I could remind you to turn off your phones, uh that would be great. Okay, here we are again. Barak Hashem back uh with our shim. I'm sorry I've missed you over the last couple of weeks, but uh we are as promised about to deal with a topic which will require us to have a little bit of our scientific brains on this morning. I must confess I'm not a big science person. and I was an arts, languages and law uh student rather than a chemistry, physics and biology one or astronomy. Uh but I'll try and get the science right. No doubt people will send me messages if I get it wrong. But it's not just a scientific issue. It is a very fundamental hakic issue which is the issue of sunrise and sunset more sunset than sunrise. And I'm not going to sing you the song. Okay? It's okay. But How do we calculate the end of the Jewish day and the implication that that has for uh Shabas? Sorry, I can hear someone talking over here. Is this is what? Okay, sorry. Sorry. Please, please carry on. Um how uh how important this is for the purposes of uh Shabas, calculation of Shabas, the end of Shabas, brisma. We'll see lots and lots of examples of that as we go through hashem. So I hope you all have a sheet. There are a few diagrams on the sheet. We'll see if we can keep them uh you know helpful and make them uh bring to life what we're trying to do. So I brought you in source number one uh an extract from uh a very familiar story that we've seen maybe even you've been involved in where Lal promised that the flight is getting in on Friday afternoon in good time for Shabas and then everybody gets in with five minutes or something like Shabas and then Alal says well you had time to get back for Shabas. Yeah, if I lived in Bengurian airport, then I would have had time to get back to Shabas, but I since I don't um I've had to stay in Bengurian airport. And of course, the moral of the story is don't fly into Israel with a intending to get in on Friday afternoon. Um but what is the deal if somebody does end up in that situation? What are the parameters? What can they do? What can't they do? Uh how do we calculate exactly when Shabas comes in? Uh etc. And we'll we'll talk a little bit about the hackic framework at the end as to what we can and can't do if Shabas comes in. Uh and we're still on the road if you like. But first, we need to try and work out the answer to one of the biggest conundrums in Jewish thought, which is what is Bain Hashmot, the twilight zone? The word twilight in English is from the word twi as in twin, as in two lights. There's a double light, there's a fading light of the day, and there's the dusk, etc. It's a kind of in between zone. And in makava in Jewish thought, bhashots represents the suffk that is never. It is not possible to resolve. It is intrinsic. It's not a suffic because we just don't know. It's a suffic because we can't know. It's a liinal zone. It's something in between. And it's even used in Jewish thought. If you remember the story of when Rabi Ishmael is asked by his nephew um he says, "Uncle, I've learned all of Torah and now I want to learn secular studies. Can I learn secular studies?" To which he answers him, if you can find a time which is neither day nor night because he says you have to learn to if you can find that time which is neither day nor night, that's when you can learn secular studies. And and the understand he's not saying no. There's a good word for no for Heb in Hebrew. law, you know, he's not frightened to say no. He's saying to him, yes, there is a twilight zone. There is an abashot which you have to find and there it's used in a kind of figurative sense. But here we're using it in a real a real halakic sense. When does the day end? When does the day begin? Um it's not a simp simple thing. So as we all know from our time on this earth, uh the sun doesn't just switch off at night. Nobody throws the switch and it suddenly gets dark. Things gradually um become dimmer. And this dimming of the sun's light is what we call bane hash mashad. And I brought you a little picture here on the bottom of page one where there's a little diagram there of the day and the night and the and the sunsets that we use if you like uh in general legal terms there sunset when the sun goes below the horizon. Then there is actually technically probably for for for mathematical purposes when the middle of the sun goes below the horizon. We'll see for hierarchic purposes that's not the case. It's when the tip of the sun goes below. Then there's something we call civil twilight. Civil twilight is usually when the when the lights go on in the street. That is when the sun is six degrees. If you can imagine there's a 180 degrees below the horizon. Six degrees below the horizon. Uh and then there's nautical twilight which is basically when you can't you can't see anything but the horizon on the sea. That is 12 degrees below the horizon when the sun is 12 degrees. And then there's astronomical twilight which is when there is real no light in the sky at all. game, leaving aside light pollution, clouds that look orange all the time. We look up at night and the whole world looks orange half the time. That's because of all the pollution and the light pollution. But astronomical twilight is when it's 18° below the horizon. And I put a few times on there uh for you roughly around now uh in Yurus. Now, in terms of sukim, what sources do we have? Well, the first source seems to say that day equals light. Number two, God calls the day the light day. And the night he calls um the dark he calls night. Okay, so that gives us an easy answer. When it's light, that's called day. And when it's dark, that's called night. But when is it light and when is it dark? because it's light after the sun goes down because the the sky is still reflecting the uh the light from the sun which is below the horizon. So is that still called y because it's still light to a degree. Then we have a a little bit later in the same chapter when God creates the sun and the moon. Number three, so God makes two great lights, the greater lights to rule by the day and the lesser lights. Now, there's a beautiful sh to be given which is not the sh for today as to how the midrash interprets that change, that shift from the two equally great lights to the greater and the lesser light. And of course, there's a lot to be said about that, the the moon's lost light and the midrash of the moon and the sun and what that has to say about masculine and feminine and the and the the female being subordinated in this world and then coming back to the four to equality as we reach the world to come. I'm not getting into that now. There's a lot to be said about that. Uh and uh that's a very exciting share, but that's not for now. But here you see it sounds that the sun is what defines the day. Okay. So that's a little bit different from the first source from source number two because now it seems that the day is only when the sun is up. So when the sun goes down then that's not the day. So now then we have a number four. So is explaining to the people what they have to do to rebuild the walls of and he says we're all going to do the work. We're going to work hard and we're going to have half the people standing on guard because it's very dangerous. There were people trying to stop the work. Half the people are standing on guard and half the people are working. How does how is that going to work? And we're going to work from sun daybreak which is before the sunrise all the way till the stars come out. Full work day longer than the Irish working day as they would say in England. Okay. But that's another story for my apologies to anyone Irish listening. Okay. And I said to the people when I told them this instruction is we're all going to stay in. going to camp here at night because we can't go home otherwise people will come to destroy our work and the night time is going to be for guarding the the days for now when did you just say the mala will go from to from break of day all the way till the stars come out and he says that's called the yum that's called the day for malika so here you have already three sources two in Kumash, one in uh ina which seem to give different understandings of when does the day start and end. Is it sunrise to sunset which is what it sounded like uh from braces chapter Alf number three or is it daybreak to to stars out etc etc. The GRA gives a fairly useful um definition of how to understand this as long as you live in a place that it never rains. Okay, which it rules out a lot of places. Number five, and we can seem is a very key character here. The first generation Amura from from Bavl, he says the following. If you can see one star, probably meaning here a planet. Okay, it's still daytime. If already you can see two stars, you're in the in between zone. Three stars, Laya. And here we get our idea of three stars coming out. We have a Bryce at the backside up in even older source and Rabio comes in and says and actually he's saying no not what we s thought at first not not planets planets you can see during the day Venus you can see when the the sun is still out Venus is very bright and not like tiny little stars in a Milky Way that you can only see on a very very very dark night medium size stars, okay? Not too big, not too small. Kind of Goldilocks stars as it were. So, we're looking for three stars. One star is day, two stars is made of mashes, three stars is night. Okay, bear that in mind as we go forward. Next, number six. Not everybody understands the twilight is a period of time. We're going to see here then Iban Ezra who is following a view in we'll see in the Gomorrah in Shabas in in a few minutes where the Iban Ezra says that Benmashes is here and gone in an instant. Look at number six he says the meaning of the describes on his commentary on it's the second So you're looking at the sun going down. He wants to say is that second that right the middle of the sun not the not the top of the sun or the bottom of the sun the middle of the sun at that point half the sun is above the horizon and half the sun is below the horizon when facing the person. Now that's very interesting because we're not going to follow that in at all. We're just going to dis disregard that idea. But I brought it so that you could see that depending on what the context is or etc. Different people have different understandings of what what that means to be benot says the thera is very uh astronomical here. It's exactly the middle of the sun as it goes below the horizon. But the hakic presentation of this is not like that. It's in number seven. And here we have a gammorra in shabas which we need to try and understand. And I want you to imagine in your mind a beautiful sunset. You're sitting on the veranda sipping a pinina colada or whatever is your thing that you sip when the sun goes down and you're watching the beautiful red sunset. Try to imagine what the sky all around you would look like. And we're going to describe that here. Number seven, the rabbis taught is by definition questionably day or questionably night. And not only there's a question, but we don't know if all of is or is from the night or somewhere in the middle and for the purpose of which is what we're talking about here. We're both ways. We assume that is whatever leads us to the most solution, the most stringent solution. So at the beginning of the day we assume mashad is already shabas. Okay. And at the end of the day we assume that mash is still shabas which of course can't be if you think about it but we don't know. So we're going to be m either way the benes and how do I know when is benes mash. So this gar doesn't go with one star two stars three stars. It gives you a um a different kind of approach. Okay. from the minute when the sun has sunk that there's a red strip on the eastern horizon. Not the western horizon. The western horizon where the sun sets looks red for a good long time. But on the eastern horizon, this is what happens. If you ever want to see the shadow of the earth, then uh you can see it every single night. We don't have to wait until there's a lunar eclipse because if you look on the eastern horizon, if you you can get videos online and and and see this, you see that there's blue sky, the sun goes down in the west and then there's a dark sort of gray silvery sort of blob sort of line, not blob line that comes up. That is the shadow of the earth on the sky as the sun is going underneath it. And there's a red line on top of that and that is called the belt of Venus. the belt of Venus. That's what they call it in uh you know colloquial terms. That is what it's talking about. If that little red line is still there, then it's still Venosmosis. And of course, that dark uh line goes gets bigger and bigger and bigger until eventually the the shadow of the earth is on the sky. By the way, it was a very big debate in the ancient world. Why is the sky dark at night? Now, you might turn around and say, well, obviously because the sun's gone down, but it's not so straightforward. If you were an ancient person sitting on the earth looking up at the sky and you thought that there's a big blue uh like ceiling somewhere a very very long way away, millions of miles away. Let's say there's a big blue thing and the sun is underneath it. That's what it looks like. So if you ask a three-year-old like what can you see? The sun goes underneath it. It lights it up. Okay. And then let's say the sun goes somewhere else at night. Why does it not continue to light up that sky? Meaning maybe the sky is a long long way away. What we should see at night is the the like a little shadow of the earth. Little black shadow going across the blue sky as the sun goes on the other side of the earth. Why? Why is it dark? Why is why is the sky not blue night and day? Because the sun and the sky is so far away. The sun must light it up. How can the earth cover up the whole sky? What's that? I understand the earth is turning, but if the if the sky is so far away, put a light put put a put a little thing like the earth here and put a light over here. Yeah. and then put a screen on the back. You don't see a dark screen when the sun goes over here. You see a light screen with a little black shadow going across it. Why didn't And they worked out actually if you can see the Rambam, this is old astronomy, not just a Rambam, but the Rambam in his first comment on the Gomorrah in on the Mishna in Brahas when he describes Amash Shaka. He says it has to be that what we see as the sky is not some big blue screen millions of miles away, but it's the atmosphere of the earth. And what and that's in fact what the case is. And he actually gives a an amount there. He says it's 51 mil thick, which is fascinating which about 50 km, which is about the the width of the stratosphere. And that's exactly the reason is because what we see as the sky is not some big blue screen millions of miles away, but is the light refracting through quite a thin layer on the top of the earth, which is the atmosphere. And of course, once the sun goes underneath, the shadow of the earth completely blocks the sun from reaching that atmosphere. And that's why the sky is completely dark. And therefore they realized that what's lighting up in the sky is a very thin little layer on top of the earth rather than a big blue screen somewhere a long way away that already they realized if you're interested in that ram bam exactly where he got 51 mil from I'm not 100% sure I didn't go into it in depth but it's pretty pretty accurate in terms of the the width of the atmosphere that we actually see as being light fine so if you see this belt of Venus it's benmash go back into source number seven in the middle if the bottom half of the Um, eastern sky is is gray, but the top is still light. That's But if the whole thing goes gray and dark, then already that's night because the shadows cover the whole thing. Now remember, this is Yehuda's opinion. Rabbi Yehud is the key person. We're going to pass and like, and we're going to see him saying something slightly different later on. says, "You know something? I'll give you something more useful. Not everybody can see the red and the and the sky and the colors. Sometimes it's raining. The time it takes to walk half a mill, that is the time of bay mash." That's very useful. Now, we'll see we don't actually pasan like, but we are going to use that idea of the time that it takes to walk a certain uh length as being a better guide because then we can actually have a better feel. Of course, in the back in the old days when didn't people didn't have a watch, how are you going to measure how long it takes you to walk a certain amount? You'll have to just know how many paces you'll have to count your paces and know how many paces you take. We take it for granted that people have clocks and watches. Until relatively recently, they certainly not watches. Even clocks were only invented in the end of the 14th century and they only became reliable in the sort of 16th 17th century. So people had to kind of work it out. They didn't have clocks. Um how long is a mill? So that's nice and straightforward. One hakic mill is 2,000 Amot. How long is an amma? So that is the take legs between your elbow and the top of this longest finger. Which finger is called the amma? Because that's the finger that you measure your amma with. Is the amma relative to your height? If you're a very small person, do you have a little amma which is less time to walk a mill because it's only 2,000 of your little measurements? And if you're a giant, you have that's a whole other discussion. The answer is basically no. It's a standardized amath for most purposes, not all. Just like we say a foot when you measure something in feet today, feet and inches, you don't measure by your feet, my feet, her feet, and his feet. You measure by a standardized foot. Um, so the same idea as an armor. So that's a mill. By the way, it's less than a an English mile. I brought you in the footnote here in case you were interested. Uh, there have been many many measurements of miles over the years. There's a the modern mile is 100 1,760 yards which is about 1.6 kilometers. But then you've got the nautical mile, the Scottish mile they used to have. The Irish mile was around 2 km. The Welsh mile which was used until the 13th century was around 6 km. The Prussian mile was 7 12 km. The Austrian mile was 7.5 km. The Hungarian mile was over 8 km. The winner the winner of the longest mile in history is the Norwegian mile which they used to use which was over 11 kilometers long. Now needless to say nobody uses any of these miles anymore. They're all historical. Everyone uses standardized miles. But the interesting thing is that the Jewish mill is the smallest of all of them. Okay, let's just finish off. Stay on page number two. And the final opinion is Rabiosi. The last line is here and gone in a in a in a in a flash. like the Enezra says a little bit but he says you don't know when it is it's not when the middle of the sun's there it's here and gone and it's not a time period which we will not follow okay fine so what do we have let's keep clarity here we have so far Benesus is two stars not one not three but two stars we have uh it's where this belt of Venus red is on the eastern horizon it's where the lower half of the eastern horizon is dark but the other half upper half is still the light and the Gmorra in number eight says Because basically all of these three measurements are the same. Certainly the last two um and that is what benesmosis is. And then the Gmorra gives us something that's going to be very helpful. Number nine very very important which we'll see number nine here. And how much does that measure out? So the way we pass like a mill. Now remember this very important three parts of a mile of a mill. Okay. What does that mean? Talsa re mill three quarters of a mill. Now remember that three quarters of a mill that is benes and that's how we're going to pass. If a mill let's say takes you 18 minutes to walk and we're going to see where the 18 minutes come from um that's going to give you 13 and a half minutes for 3/4 of a mill. Okay. So just keep that in mind. The problem however comes in source number 10 which is Rebehuda the same rebud who we're asking like not rebi but Yehuda who said basically it's three quarters of a mill says as follows from to when the stars come out is 4 mill and that's going to get everybody scratching their heads for about a thousand years what is going on because If Baymashot is the time from when the sun goes down to when the stars come out, which we've assumed. In one place he says it's 3/4 of a mill, 13 and a half minutes, let's say. And another place he said it's 4 mil, which is how many minutes if an 18 minutes is a mill? 72 minutes. And you've probably heard the 72minut thing being thrown out. That's where this is where it comes from. So what's it going to be? Is it 13 and a half minutes or is it 72 minutes? You can't have it both ways. And the problem we're going to find is that most of the Mforishian certainly in Europe sitting looking at the sky in the middle ages it was neither of these things. If you were a bayutam looking at the sky in the early 12th century and said how long does it take from when the sun goes down to when it gets dark? It is way longer than 13 and a half minutes and it is almost always shorter than 72 minutes. So what's he going to do with that? How's he going to understand that? We'll see how we get there in a minute. You could take the easy route out and just say that Reba changed his mind. There is one the Maramal Shaka says that he started off by saying it was 4 mil but then later on he said 3/4 of a mill and that's how he passed it. Okay, then the whole shear is finished. We can all go off and have a cup of coffee right now. But that's not what we're going to say. Yes. Oh, good. We're going to get that. We're going to get that. So the Viggon is going to point out that of course if you're in Babylon at a certain latitude it's quite different from if you're in northern Scotland at a different latitude and not just the latitude as you quite rightly pointed out but the time of year we are going to conclude that all of these assessments is only on the equinoxes in the middle of March the middle of September but obviously if you're in the middle of the summer certainly if you're in northern latitudes then things are much more elongated and in the middle of the winter you have a very short day. A friend of mine was the chief rabbi of Norway for a few years and he had to go to the north of Norway to supervise the smoked salmon uh production and in the north of Norway in the winter basically it just never gets light and they basically stood there it never gets light and they said uh basically when should we dak like now you know this is light it's going to get and then they said when should we dra also now because they're so basically they they they have to we had a series of shear a while ago which you may remember on keeping hala in extreme places. One of them was the international date line. One of them was hala in outer space and the other one was I forgotten what the other one was. Oh halak in the far north and the far south at the polls. Okay, we can repeat those at some stage but not right now. Okay, let's have a look at number 11 12 13 14. I'll very quickly summarize these as to how long it takes to walk a mill. You've got three options. 18 minutes is the one that most people go with. There's a villagon that says 22 and a half minutes and there's a ram that says 24 minutes. One of the things that's um annoying in all of these calculations is that they didn't have decimal placement certainly in the time of the Gomorrah and they had to do everything with fractions. And you can get there with fractions. You know, you add a half and a quarter and a 10th and a 25th and a this and that and the other. But it's an awful lot easier um when you have decimal placement and the digit zero. If ever you want to wake up in the morning and be thankful for something in life, be thankful for decimal placement and the digit zero because it makes life enormously more straightforward. If you look at how the in in the calculation of how to how big a mikvah is, if you look at the mortim trying to put it all together using fractions, added to fractions, added to fractions, added to fractions, you know, a fourth grader we, you know, even without a calculator, could work that out in a few seconds with decimal numbers. When did we get decimal numbers? uh 733 is when the Indian ambassador to Baghdad brought the uh decimal placement from India to the Arabs about 200 later calls it al- Mashab al-Hindi al-Hindi the Hindu the kashban so you can thank the the Indians for that probably for other things as well so here we have 18 22 and a half and uh and 24 minutes and I put a little uh a little chart for you at the bottom as to how that works. Now, how are we going to resolve our problem? On the one hand, we have um a 4 mil time for Benmash and on the other hand, we have a 3/4 of a mill. And here we get into the interesting part. Turn over to page four, please. Because we have to ask ourselves the following question. What happens to the sun at night? Now, you may think you know the answer to that question, but where does it go? Now if you again if you were living if you were living in the ancient world looking at the sky the sun seems to sink below the horizon it's not clear where it goes after that it's gone and then the next morning like clockwork it comes up on the other side but where's it been all that time in between so the Gammorra raises this question it presents two cosmological um approaches well that that is a very very good question that is a separate but probably related debate but it's not necessarily related. Meaning if you think the earth is a sphere or if you think the earth is flat, even if you think the earth is flat, then the earth might the sun might go down just might go underneath it and then come back up at the other side. It doesn't have to be a sphere. Do we as Jews think the earth is flat or the earth is round? So since at least Rafigon Rafigon is absolutely explicit and he said he's already in the nth century, he wrote a commentary on Sephiats. Sephiats is a very unusual book. It's a book of numbers and letters and how they combine in order to create the universe. Is it a book of cabala or at least mysticism? Rafali clearly doesn't think so because he's not a mystic but it might well be a book of mysticism. I'm not getting into that now. But in Rafal Gong's commentary on the safi so we're talking about the early 10th century. He says very explicitly the world is world is round and anyone who thinks the world is flat is just not not not correct. In the time of kazal it's not clear. There are certain midrashim that seem to indicate that they also thought the world was a sphere. They're talking there's a midrash about Alexander the Great going up in a space rocket into the atmosphere and looking down and seeing the curvature of the earth like a ball. Okay, that's interesting. It's not explicit but it's interesting. There is Gammora that if you see a statue like Atlas, you know, with the earth on his uh shoulder that's because the earth is a ball sitting on the shoulders of that god etc etc. So which ancient Greece so a lot of people thought the earth was spherical. Not everybody thought you'll fall off the end of the earth when you get there. But this might not be related. Have a look at number 15. Says the garra fascinating two or three lines. The Jewish rabbi the Jewish sages say by day the sun goes underneath the sky. Let's call the sky the firmament the blue thing that's up there. Okay. The sun goes underneath it. And at night time, it goes over the top of the sky where you can't see it and comes back down out. Let's just understand what that means. This is the Babylonian cosmology that they felt that the atmosphere was thick. What happens is the sun goes down. It sets below the horizon and as soon as it disappears it then goes out not underneath it then goes out through the thickness of the atmosphere then back over the top where you can't see it because you can't see through the atmosphere. So the sun all through the night the sun is going over the top of the atmosphere when you can't even see it and then in the morning it comes back out through the thickness of the atmosphere. This is what the Babylonians held in order to appear and then come up underneath the sky. This is according to the Gomorrah the view of the rabbis of the Jewish rabbis and they understood based on the Babylonian approach that there are hundreds of little windows all the way through this uh the firmament where things can come in and out through the thickness. And if you think about what we dav in the morning especially on Shabas we actually talk about this. Let me just give you a couple of quotes not on your sheet. At night time we say when we talk about the sun and the moon coming out, the God in his wisdom opens up the relevant gates for things to come out. And on Shabas morning we say even more. He opens the doors of we say this every Shabas morning. God helps the stars and the sun and the moon break through the kala break through the windows in the heavens. That's the Jewish view according to the Gomorrah goes out around the back. And the non-Jewish sages by day the sun goes underneath the sky. And at night, it goes under the ground. It doesn't go over the top of the sky. It goes under the ground. Whether or not the ground is flat or spherical, it goes under. So, who's right and who's wrong? We the Jews say the sun goes through and over the top. The non-Jews say the sun goes underneath. I'm a rabbi comes and says in this venu and it seems that they're right and we're wrong which is really really interesting and you could build Rav Hersh has a lot to say about this. Rah uses Isamara as a paradigm to say that you have to understand that when Khazal are talking about science they're going on the best science available at their time. They're not going on Msora that comes from Sinai. They're not scientists. They're they're geniuses in ethics and morality and but they're not scientists. And you see you see from Rabbi Danasi the minute that they realized that the Jewish approach on whatever this science is was outdated, he changed it. He went uh over to the what's what was called the tomic system of cosmology where the the sun went underneath. Others don't read it that way. Uh but we'll we'll we'll leave it at that for now. Okay. So this seems to be at the the root of what's going on. There is this debate as to where the sun goes and we say one thing they say the other thing and we seem to agree with them. There are three resolutions which will give us the hakic conclusions as to how to deal with this. Remember our main problem three quarters of a mill is Benoshas versus 4 mil. The same person seems to say both of these things. So solution number one is the gaonim and the grot. Now who are the gaonim? The gaon were living after the time of the garrah up until the in the early middle ages for most of Jewish history certainly in the medieval period people didn't have access to the works of the gaonim many of the manuscripts of the gaonium have only emerged over the last 3 400 years but the gaon's position is very clear and also this is the position more famously for us of the grot of the vil naggon don't get confused with the name gaon the vil ngon was of course not one of the gaon the gaon lived from the sixth century to the 11th century and the vagon was in the 18th century. But have a look at here in the uh in the Mishna in the he says the vagon resolved this problem and this is how he says we should pass him number 16 the vagon says as follows he gives many many proofs that for our purposes the beginning of it's the beginning of when the sun first goes Just like we see elsewhere and the second that the top of the sun goes under the horizon that's bes from that moment on he says it is prohibited to do any on Shabbat that you count 13 and a half minutes from then and then you you have your bes because follows this view of hud We follow this view on Shabasim and it goes for three quarters of an hour. Ah what is the four mill? What is the 72 minutes according to the vagon it's got nothing to do with our debate. That's when all the stars come out. It's not relevant to the it's not a part of the Baymash calculation. When all the stars have come out that's that's 72 minutes later. But for our purposes, the minute the sun goes below the horizon, then you have the beginning of Benes Mashot. Count 13 and a half minutes and you've got then Laya vai. And he says that's how we go on Shabas. Okay. Now, we're going to see soon that people didn't always pass him this way. We almost entirely all the all the world the Orthodox world now follow this vagon. But they didn't always do that. And we're going to see why in a few minutes. So that's one resolution. Again, 3/4 of a mill is the answer. And the four mill the 72 minutes is when all is an astronomical you know analysis. It's when all the stars come out. Resolution number two the uran railza of Mets. Now it's important that you know who he was. Rabza of Mets was one of the abalats. He was a student of Rabenuam and and we'll see this in a minute uh in in great detail. But the the Mets actually has an interesting look at what he says in number 17 the in this book. on your he's even more he says that no is not when the sun goes below the horizon it's even before that because he holds the says rebel of Mets actually says the twilight zone is 13 and a half minutes before the sun goes down not after the sun goes down how can it be the twilight zone. How can it be Benash and the sun is still there? Why why would he hold that? And the answer is because Reza of Mets went with the Babylonian version of cosmology that things go through the thickness. And he says starting 13 and a half minutes before the sun goes down, the stars begin to come back through the atmosphere. And that is what's called the beginning of Satavim. Keneshot. And when the stars finally come out then that's satim and that's when the sun sets basically. So he holds he can hold the benash is even before the sun goes down. Now one of the reasons that people took on lighting candles earlier and earlier and earlier is to take account of this opinion that if bos really starts 13 and a half minutes before the sun goes down and then we have to add on to Shabbat like we said last time on top of that then you end up having to light candles quite a lot earlier. If you want to add on a good 20 minutes for tof Shabbat and Benesh Mashad starts 13 and a half minutes before the sun goes down then you're already 33 34 40 minutes roughly before before the sun goes down. So that's the second opinion rebel of Mets most famous perhaps is Rabenu Tam go to the top of page five to says as now where who was raenuam raenutam is the grandson of rashi yakov tam they call him Ishtam because yakov's name was ish nickname was Ishtam yvaleim so they called him rau yakov ben me and he lived near he lived basically around and ram I looked it up this morning I kind of had an idea where was I had no clue where Ramarut was and it's about two hours drive east of Paris. So we're talking about the center of middle of France. Okay. So here's number 18. So says this is four miles 72 minutes and said this is very difficult because at the end of the shabas that we brought we said one is we conclude the opinion of there is the tal is three quarters of a mill he just set the question which we already know 4 mil or 3/4 of a mill and here he says 4 mil what's his answer so came up with a fascinating answer I think the following he says he says no no no it's really 72 minutes from when the sun goes under the horizon the And over there the three quarters of a mill he's talking about a different stage of Rabenam comes along and says I think there are really two going on here. This is how he resolves the there's the inim and there's the in shabas. The way it works as time is as follows. You start the clock when the sun goes down. Okay. What happens after that? When the sun goes down, it starts to go out through it disappears below the horizon. It goes back through the uh through the thickness of the of the the firmament because he subscribes to the we'll see soon the Babylonian approach. And he says it takes basically 72 minutes for it to go all the way through. The last 13 and a half minutes of that period is Benmashes. What we're talking about when it's suffices down below the horizon, the sun is just going, you can't see this happening because it's all below the horizon. He said the sun's going through that's why the sky is getting red. The sun's going through the thickness and it's still called day. The sun is still ruling over the world. And therefore Rabenuan came along and said really it's completely hahik day for 158 and a half minutes after the sun goes down. That means that if you apply this you could still drive in your car for nearly an hour after sunset. That's like an hour and 15 minutes after candle lighting time. You could be driving in your car because no we haven't reached the last 13 and a half minutes is where it's all where all the sophic is. Um and that would mean of course at the end of Shabas then it's elongated then too meaning you can't have it both ways and we'll see people started to try this you can't have it both ways if you're going to bring in it in in late you have to take it out late why was this relevant to people obviously not just in hilashabas but it became very relevant with a briser what happens if you have a baby boy who is born 30 minutes after the sun goes down on Saturday night 30 minutes after the sun goes down. So the v Saturday night. So the vil nagon will say that baby is a Sunday baby. It's the sun's gone down 30 minutes after it's like it's it's nighttime. It's already Sunday. The bris has to be on Sunday. Raenutan will say no. 30 minutes after the sun has gone down on Saturday night. You're still within the 58 and a half minutes which is vayama. It's for sure Shabas. It's still for sure Shabas. The bris has to be on Shabas. Next week the vagon will say you are breaking shabas dissa doing a brisma on shabas next week and the time will say no it's a mitzvah you have to do the you have to do it's a shabas baby of course the same also applies on a Friday night the same kind of thing if you have a baby born half an hour after on Friday night the vagon will say it's a shabas bris and raenutam will say it's a Friday bris it's still Friday okay so a lot turns on this and most of the chuvat over the next three or 4 hundred years revolve around this question when do We do the baby. When do we brisk the baby? Yes. Oh, good, good, good, good. Just hold, hold your horses. We'll get to that in just a few minutes. Okay, fine. That's a very important question. So, 19 and 20. Um, you can read in your own time. 19. Basically, Rabenotam clarifies that he believes that even though the Gomorrah seems to say they're right and we're wrong. Rabenam says, "No, no, it just said that they seem to have better proofs than us." But of course, Shalom, the non-Jews can't be right, and the Jewish rabbis can't be wrong. Of course, we're right. And the sun goes through the thickness of the the firmament. So, don't don't get too carried away by the fact it says that they're right and we're wrong. That's not really true. And Rabbenu Tam's position was not just Rabenu Tam lest you think Rabenu Tam is an outlier. And again, what's Rabenuam trying to do? He's trying to resolve to harmonize two different Gmoras. And he does side by creating this kind of system of Tushki which he says fits with the Babylonian cosmology. But it wasn't just him. The Rabenu Rabenu Tam is followed by many many others. I gave you a list here of others. The Ran and the Ramban and many others as well. uh even though others came along as you quite rightly said afterwards and said but it just doesn't seem to work again where is Rabenu time coming from he's sitting in looking at the sky 13 minutes doesn't look right 13 and a half minutes 72 minutes doesn't really look right either he has no watch there is no way that Raben Tam in the year 1100 can measure how many minutes anything is the sun has gone down so even if he had a sun dial it wouldn't help him most of the time It's cloudy, so even if it's during the day, a sundine wouldn't help him. And there's no clocks. Ah, don't they have water clocks? Don't they have sand clocks? If you're incredibly rich, you had some water clock mechanism sitting in your palace or your castle, but ra sitting in a village in he didn't have a water clock. So, nobody has any way of resolving how long anything takes. They just don't. They can guess. They can walk and count how many paces they take, but they can't know exactly. So Rabenam says okay we can't know we're going to resolve it on the basis of the Gamorrah meaning and this comes on to your question is this an astronomical discussion or is this a hahic discussion which is it so for us this is a hakic discussion meaning if you're an astronomer you don't care which day you do a brisma okay what difference does it make a Jewish astrology okay you're a Jewish so then you care about both okay we actually have in my seminary maj at the moment a young lady who's an astrophysicist she cares a lot I'm sure so Let's go to your point right now. The top of page number six comes along the Minat Cohen and this is you this is remarkable. The Minat Cohen and I want to tell you a little bit about who he was. He's not such a famous person. His name was Rav Abraham Pimental. He lived in Amsterdam in the 1660s. Uh his teachers were Rav um Rav Mera and Rab Abu Hav who were the main uh Amsterdam rabbon. They were the two of the people who put their names on the of Benedict Spininoza. Benedict Spininoza was probably a classmate of the Minhas Cohen or at least he was in school a few years before him. Okay. The Minhasm however when he brought out his safer on on Shabas here and on astronomy he had a third haskama. He got a huska from Rav Matera from Rab Abu Hav and also from someone called Rav Mosha Aguilar. Rav Mosha Aguilar was the Rav in Brazil. Why was he in Brazil? Because Brazil for a short time, Reifefeonim and whose the people they knew um had been to the southern hemisphere. They knew where the sun went at night. There was no discussion because they said, "We've just spent two years in Brazil and we we can tell you where the sun goes. It goes to Brazil. It's in the southern hemisphere." Um, and they also they also know a little bit more in terms of the clocks and how that works. Uh, by the way, when the when the uh when the Portuguese reconquered Brazil, they threw out the Dutch and brought back the Inquisition and therefore the Jews had to leave again Brazil. But there was a Jewish community for that time. So comes along Cohen and says, "Okay, I'm going to cut through this what you said before. Look at 21. The whole explanation of Rabenuami is built on a very shaky foundation and on a completely incorrect understanding because he's still going with the Babylonian system. The sun goes over the top of the rak at night. Now by 1668, this is against all and against all understanding. I tell you, I'll tell where the sun goes at night. He goes to Brazil. He goes under the world. We have experience of this. You can't contradict it. Never met anyone who was from the southern hemispherees. But I have there is no astronomic basis for at all because the sun just does not go through the thickness of the clouds, the sky rather. the there is no second like he says there's one when the sun goes down don't start bringing in a number one number two there's one it's nice and straightforward we have our astronomy who does the cohen then pasan like raenutam interestingly because he says says, "But of course is wrong in astronomy, but at the end of Shabas, I'm going to start doing when Tam says it's still Shabas." So even though he says that Rabenu Tam is wrong astronomically just wrong and the Sparadim had much better access to astronomy and they had much more starlight and much better equipment says I'm still going to Pascan like Rabenu Tam at least meaning you you end up with this interesting situation and I just want to talk about this for a few minutes uh Jacob Katz professor Jacob Katz talks about this Rabenu Tam's um innovation of this idea of a long Baymash where you could be theoretically driving in your car for almost an hour after the sun goes down. Did anyone e follow this? Was this something that people actually we see people pasan like it but did they follow it? So a number of historians want to turn around and say they did but not until significantly later in the 13th, 14th and 15th and 16th centuries. The suggestion is that nobody really followed this. In fact they brought everything in much earlier. We had remember that traumaten from a couple of few weeks ago where he said that the rabbi in cremes used to bring in shabas so early remember this that he used to go eat his dinner go home from shaw eat his dinner go for aat along the danube and come back and it was still light one second that's the opposite of raenutam raenutam is you're meant to be bringing in shabas when it's pretty much dark so how come all these people living in Austria not so long after raenutam in the 1400s are are doing the opposite of what he says. So, Jacob K and others want to argue that actually people did not follow Rabenuam. Rabenutam was a theoretical sack. Later on in the 17th and 18th century, we see that people really did follow Rabenuam and we'll come to that in a second. And he wants to suggest actually it's a remarkable thing. But the back even says this, why did people start going with Rabenutam? Because the whole day kind of shifted. It's interesting. What does the word noon? Where does the English word noon come from? It comes from the Latin word nonzones is the ninth hour of the day. Which hour of the day is noon? The the sixth hour of the day if you're going from sunrise. Yeah. Yeah. So, whoa. The ninth hour of the day is 3 p.m. Why is noon being called the ninth hour of the day? And they want to suggest that days have shifted. that when we start and end the day has shifted in history based on how much access we have to artificial light. If people are very uh rich, people in the Roman times had much better technology, they can run the day much later. Uh by the middle ages when the sun goes down then everybody goes to bed later on. And the back actually says this explicitly when they had more access to artificial light. They used to run trade fairs all over central Europe and the trade fairs went quite late at night cuz they were all lit up at night. And the Jews said, "What do you think? I'm going to go home early on Friday when I can sell things already till Friday night late. We're going to go with Rabenu Tam. Thank you very much. We'd like to keep things going later." And the Bak even says that Mal Shabas because they want to lengthen the day because all the non-Jews were lengthening the day. The non-Jews kind of got up later and went to bed later. It's actually a very interesting thing. what time do people get up and what time do people go to bed? We're so today filled with artificial light and phones beeping and and and clocks dinging. We we just are completely detached from this. But actually when you wake up and when you go to sleep shifted over time. So the theory is actually that this became a real sack much later because people were staying up later and wanted to get back from work later on Friday. It's not me that's saying this. It's the Bach actually says this on uh on the uh on on the Torah. Candles. candles. But they had candles, but they were poor. In the medieval age, they had no money. You had people, some people with all the money living in a castle. Everybody else was peasants. By the 17th century, people are not peasants anymore. People can afford basics. The technology had improved to the point that people can people can can light lanterns. They probably had paraffin. I don't exactly when paraffin lamps were invented, etc. But already the world of the 17th century was very very different from the world of the 12th century. It was worlds and worlds apart. It was not the modern world we live in, but it was not the Middle Ages anymore. or it was the early modern world. Let's just look very briefly at the sack because I it's the time is moving on and clearly you're going to look at some of this yourself. uh the basically pas like reenu which is where all of the excitement begins this go to page number seven this is the not just the it's also the of the uh the sofur in source number 25 you can see for yourself he writes very clearly we pass like clearly also bring in yes yes yes they brought in shabas in late and they took took out shabas late but and again that becomes relevant for the bris Because it's not just me being m with Shabb it's being m with bris as well that if you hold the day begins later and the baby is born 30 minutes after sunset then you're going to bris him on Friday and you're not going to brrist him on shabas and to bris on shabas would be shabas so it's not just bringing in shabas later is more lenient it's more lenient for this but it's a stricter for that it's always a double-edged sword so what basically was happening it seems and and you can see from uh the maforia the magnav magnanav is already living in the 1700s 17th century in Poland. People were following Rabenu Tam on the way in and on the way out. What happened in the modern era? So very simply after World War II, it became pretty much completely unheard of to rely on world on raenutam on the way in to be Mel because why? Because all the misoras of Eastern Europe were basically wiped out by the Holocaust. Even before the vil nagon we said the vilnogon disagreed very strongly with raatan the vilagon held that as soon as the sun goes down that is safetyla and therefore the vagon was living in the 1700s in vnner his students came to erit Israel and therefore they spread that clips back to eritrael raenutam quickly went out of fashion Israel who else held like the villagon on this the first labbi the balatania even though they disagreed on quite a lot of other things on this they agreed and therefore theim that came to Erit Israel also away with Rabenuam. who was left keeping Rabenuam theum in Europe. And when they came to America, I even brought you in the footnote here on um one of the footnotes. Yeah, that's right. When the Satarbi came to America, they were they were doing what they used to do in Europe. They were bringing in Shabas late, taking out Shabbas late. Rav Moshi Feinstein went to them and said, "You can't do that here. You can't do because what are the if the Americans see you doing that, what are they going to do? they're going to bring in Shabbas late and they're going to take out Shabbas early because that's what people are going to do here and therefore you you can't do that anymore. And therefore the Satma and other they agreed they brought a whole kennis together from Brooklyn. Um then they said they're going to agree to to not do Rabenam on the way in but still do Rabenam on the way out. And keeping Raben Tam on the the end of Shabas makes a lot of sense. Meaning this is the sack of the sh and or the ran and the ram and many many many other okay it's based on astronomy which is okay but is not astronomy is which shabas is aic consideration and therefore to keep on the way out makes a lot of sense and many people do that as well in terms of what you do if you're stuck so let me just talk about that for two minutes and you most of the rest of the sheets actually in English and you're you're you're free to read it yourself there are some builtinarum during benesmos And the main one is you're allowed to ask a non-Jew to do things for you because asking a non-Jew is a dabon even if you ask them directly and since it's a suffix zone it's sufficon safik dabon so you can ask a non-Jew to do things during raenu time that's everyone agrees during benesmos at least benesmos can we extend that even to raenu times benes mashes Yes. So the the post game on asking a non-Jew, you can't rely on Baytown's Benmashes on the way in. You can't be driving your car 45 minutes after candle lighting time. But if you're stuck on the highway and you jump in a cab and you ask a non-Jew, please get me to wherever you get me to. So that's okay because you ask a nonju and you can rely on that. Um I brought you a whole list of things that uh you can and can't do here. uh if you're stuck coming in late, you have issues with it meaning wherever you are when Shabas comes in, you have to stay in those in that building or at least in that during Shabas. So that's why people end up staying in the airport or they end up staying and Kabad come and rescue them and and bring them food and and uh and stuff for Shabas. Um there are all sorts of things obviously to try and do in advance to to avoid that. If you're in a place where, god forbid, it's very dangerous. You're stuck on a highway and you can't just stop the car, turn off the car, and then just walk along an abandoned highway. So then obviously you're allowed, that's nephesh potentially, and then you're allowed to to do the it's not puak nephesh. Are you ever allowed to rely on to get yourself home on Shabbas night? It's not nephesh, but you're saying, you know, something raenutam says it's not really mashes for another 58 and a half minutes after the sun goes down. Can I just keep driving my car? Okay, because I'd like to get home for shabas. I could stop at a motel and just have a miserable Shabas because I didn't give myself long enough. Or I could get home. The answer to the question is nobody pretty much allows you to rely on rabutam if it's not piku nephesh. with very few exceptions. I brought you uh uh in the in the footnotes here some uh answers that are given uh as to as to when you might be able to to some degree rely on rebel time a little bit to get you in a little bit late etc. Certainly not the whole thing. Um I brought you Rav Vosna who says that be when you know before he came to Israel the kl was raenutam but this is not something that the post allow people to rely on anymore. So um it's fascinating because it brings in not just the astronomy but also the hal that phone is allowed to go off because officially I meant to finish. Okay so that's good. Okay so fine. Um but it also brings in the ideas of when we do rely on on the astrology when we astronomy when we don't rely on the astronomy how haka builds in. We need to talk about that more but for now we'll leave it that way. If you have any questions ask your local Orthodox rabbi.