Several years ago I took my family (including a Swiss exchange student) to the Grand Canyon for Spring Break. We hiked all the way to the bottom of the canyon with all of our camping gear. The first night we camped on the canyon bed. In the middle of the night, I left my tent to pee and for a long time I could not go back to sleep. I just stood outside looking at the sky. I was amazed at the unobstructed night sky with thousands, if not millions, of stars. You see I live in inner-city Houston. Our view of the night sky is obstructed by the lights and buildings of the city, haze, clouds and whatever. I remember when my kids were in elementary school trying to do a school project by making successive observations of the moon. We had difficulty even seeing the moon because of intervening buildings. The experience of the night sky in the Grand Canyon on a cold Spring evening was absolutely magical.

In today’s Daf we continue our discussion of when does night start and day end and what is the theological nature of the period between the two. (I will call that period “twilight” although the commentary to my Talmud says this term does not capture the nuances of the period). Yesterday we looked at detailed descriptions of the twilight sky to determine the demarcation between night and day. We do so because Shabbat begins Friday night and we need to know when the forbidden labors become forbidden. Today we have an alternate measure – when three medium size stars appear in the sky. Neither measure would work well in Houston where the night sky is no longer a natural phenomenon, but more like a man-made perversion of the sky the sages viewed. Thankfully, the Talmud has some helpful advice, “If you are in a city, look at a rooster”. Apparently, roosters perch themselves on roofs during the day – so now I have my solution!

There are three very interesting digressions in today’s Daf. The first concerns Miriam’s well. Miriam was Moses’ sister. While the Jews wandered in the dessert, they began to lack water and complain. After consulting with God, Moses strikes a boulder with his staff and water pours forth. (Moses was only supposed to command the boulder. Since he took the extra step of striking the boulder, God decided Moses was not fit to enter Israel.) Our sages state that the well was granted to the Jews in the honor of Miriam, so it is called the Well of Miriam. They also said that the boulder traveled with the Jews throughout the desert and provided water wherever they went. The Rabbis state that if we climb Mount Carmel, we will see the Well of Miriam sticking out of the ocean. We reached this digression because one way of determining nightfall is by running up and down Mount Carmel.

The second digression concerns the role of custom in setting law. We learn that the Babylonian community had a different custom than some other communities in determining when Shabbat began. The Talmud states, “The Babylonians are retaining their ancestors’ custom in their own hands; hence, although their practice differs from ours, we cannot object to it.” Today, the world is a much smaller place and differences based on geography are narrowing, but custom and practice evolve over time. Pronunciation, grammar, custom, technology, economies . . . . these are just a few of the things that evolve as time moves forward. I am uncertain why laws that were made more than 1,500 years ago do not evolve too, particularly when we acknowledge that custom is the basis of these laws.

The third custom concerns announcing the coming Shabbat in ancient times. Prior to clocks, and given the complexity of determining the exact onset of Shabbat, towns would blow a series of Shofar blasts to announce the coming Shabbat. A Shofar is a ram’s horn that is blown like a trumpet. It makes a harrowing and loud sound. We get a wonderful description of life in an ancient town as the various Shofar blasts indicate which activities need to cease. I really enjoyed reading about how the shopkeepers used their window shutters as tables to display their wares while they were open, but then a Shofar blast telling them that it was time to close.

We discussed previously how Judaism is not really a religion that rejects the world as it is. Rather, Judaism seeks to sanctify the world as it is and bring it closer to God by making almost every action an opportunity to connect with God. The world as it is, however, is not the world as it was. If we want to sanctify the world as it is, don’t we need rules that reflect the world as it is? A question for a deeper thinker than me.