Q&A: Rabbeinu Tam Time at the End of the Sabbath?
Rabbeinu Tam Time at the End of the Sabbath?
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
Is there, in your view, a halakhic basis for saying that one needs to "take into account" Rabbeinu Tam’s time on Saturday night? Clearly, the Shulchan Arukh ruled like Rabbeinu Tam, both leniently and stringently. But in practice, common custom (sorry for the sweeping generalization) did not accept that ruling and follows what is called the Geonim’s time.
My question is specifically about Israeli time, where sunset is more or less 20–30 minutes,
and I’m asking about the view of some contemporary halakhic decisors regarding Saturday night, who claim that one must take this into account because the Shulchan Arukh ruled that way. Doesn’t that seem to you like an unfounded stringency?
Thank you.
Hello
Answer
I don’t see the fact that the Shulchan Arukh ruled something as a reason to take something into account. Do what you think. I haven’t studied this topic, and I don’t have a position.
Discussion on Answer
I have no idea.
Even in Israel, it takes time until the sky gets completely dark.
Rabbeinu Tam’s entire approach is based on mistaken astronomy.
He argues that after the "first" sunset (the ordinary sunset), when the sun is covered from our sight, it has still not left the world but passes through the "thickness of the firmament" and exits outward through a window, and that this takes another hour; that is what is called the "second" sunset.
These ideas already began in the Talmud; you can see the dispute there already.
Obviously the firmament has no thickness, and this whole thing is nonsense. In fact, several halakhic decisors today have written that there is no need to take Rabbeinu Tam’s view into account for that reason. Many are stringent about Rabbeinu Tam following the Shulchan Arukh (and even there there is a dispute about what his view was—you can infer both approaches from him, although it is fairly clear that he follows Rabbeinu Tam both in the Beit Yosef and in the Shulchan Arukh). There are also Briskers and Hasidim who follow Rabbeinu Tam straightforwardly even for the beginning of the Sabbath and continue doing prohibited labors until Rabbeinu Tam’s time.
And the fact that Rabbeinu Tam wrote that sunset lasts much longer than what we measure here in Israel—do you think he verified that against the sunset in northern France (where he lived), or did he rule that way regardless of the reality around him?