# Leap Year Day, Saturday, the Frum, the Pious and the Al-Muttaqin **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 25, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128 "2016-02-25T19:12:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/21 "2016-02-26T23:43:20Z")
Using the moon to keep track of the season’s isn’t a bad idea, at least within one generation. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/22 "2016-02-26T23:48:56Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Using the moon to keep track of the season’s isn’t a bad idea, at least within one generation. And if you stick in an _ad hoc_ intercalary month when the sync starts slipping too badly, you can keep that going pretty much indefinitely. Moreover, the moon’s phases are handy for tracking days in the short term when solar changes aren’t big enough to be very noticeable. ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/23 "2016-02-27T00:21:32Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Again, what? And you are on some Science Board? Do you realize the earth is round, or are you some kind of Biologist? ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/24 "2016-02-27T01:04:50Z")
I apologize to biologists for insulting them. There is a recent [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=783932&highlight=microwave) about a certain biology teacher, and that’s why I went there. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/25 "2016-02-27T01:29:51Z")
The whole point to religion is to assign meaning to meaningless things. Life, death, existence, Earth, the universe, love, family, the laws of physics, whatever. The false meaning that religions apply to the calendar and other astronomical observations is one of their lesser crimes (and not exclusive to religion, either). ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/26 "2016-02-27T01:33:17Z")
So we’ve agreed that the Earth is round.[sup]\*[/sup] Still not following what on a round Earth you’re arguing, or who you think you’re addressing here. [sup]_Well, spherical_\*[/sup] [sup]\*Well, very slightly oblate.[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/27 "2016-02-27T02:05:12Z")
1. go to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International\_Date\_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Date_Line) 2. Search there for Magellan. 3. Observe the situation for an observant Jew travelling with Magellan vs. one who does not travel. They will disagree on when it is Saturday because the traveler will lose a day if he does not adjust his calendar crossing the IDL. 4. If one were an honest student of the Torah, or some other fundamentalist to whom it is important to perform religious duties on a particular day, it seems this situation should vex one. 5. Why? Well because it is very important for such fundamentalists to study their religious texts carefully, to be in harmony with them, yet here is this (corner) case with no mention in the Pentateuch that one will run across such a thing, nor what to do about it. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/28 "2016-02-27T06:41:02Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > If one were an honest student of the Torah, or some other fundamentalist to whom it is important to perform religious duties on a particular day, it seems this situation should vex one. The students of the Torah [have taken care of this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_law_in_the_polar_regions). > [@](#): > > […] the section in Talmud regarding the “desert wanderer” has been used by modern authorities to analyze this issue. The Talmud contains the following discourse: > > Rav Huna says, if a man is wandering in the desert and he does not know when is the Sabbath, he should count six days [as weekdays] and keep one day as the Sabbath. Hiyya bar Rav says he should keep one day as Sabbath, then count six days [as weekdays]. … As I understand it, many devout Jews believe that “true” Shabbat observance is only possible in the region of the Land of Israel anyway, and Shabbat timekeeping in any other time zone or latitude is merely an approximation to the “true” Shabbat. It’s not that religious people haven’t noticed these issues; it’s just that they’ve come up with workarounds for them, so nobody’s getting all bent out of shape about them. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/29 "2016-02-27T08:44:17Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It’s not that religious people haven’t noticed these issues; it’s just that they’ve come up with workarounds for them, so nobody’s getting all bent out of shape about them. That, I believe, is Hooleehootoo’s point. Another one; what is the qibla at the antipodes of Mecca? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/30 "2016-02-27T11:59:09Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > (Where would Zeno of Elea have gotten if he had stopped the first time someone jeered him ? Onward I go.) > > This is not argument against religion that will have wide appeal. It is a contrived, weird situation. “Saturday observance crossing the International Date Line? Whatever. Ask your Rabbi.” But if you are pious, it might grate on you. Not really, no. Every Jew knows that rules always have exceptions and loopholes. That’s why we make such good lawyers. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/31 "2016-02-27T15:08:12Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > Jews claim that Saturday should be universal, but in some sense Saturday is relative. I blame Einstein. A Jew, no less!! ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/32 "2016-02-27T16:54:58Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > That, I believe, is Hooleehootoo’s point. Another one; what is the qibla at the antipodes of Mecca? I have a friend who used to work for a defense contractor… I think it was Lockheed. Lockheed had an order to build a nicely outfitted plane (…musta been an L-1011 then) which included a compass that should always be pointing towards Mecca. The design was complicated by the need to avoid [gimbal lock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock) in the situation you reference. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/33 "2016-02-27T17:12:59Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > 1. If one were an honest student of the Torah, or some other fundamentalist to whom it is important to perform religious duties on a particular day, it seems this situation should vex one. There are a few problems here. Firstly, it’s not up to you to decide who is or is not an “honest” student of the Torah. Secondly, honest students of the Torah are not inherently fundamentalists. Thirdly, whether or not a thought experiment is vexing is also not your call. Someone might be vexed, or they might not, regardless of whether you think they _should_ be. > [@](#): > > 1. Why? Well because it is very important for such fundamentalists to study their religious texts carefully, to be in harmony with them, yet here is this (corner) case with no mention in the Pentateuch that one will run across such a thing, nor what to do about it. Again, “honest student of the Torah” =/= “fundamentalist.” Sure, you’re right that there is no mention of the international date line in the Pentateuch, nor in any other religious text. There is no mention of a lot of things. And I guess you’re suggesting that an all-powerful deity should have mentioned all that stuff, and that an all-powerful Creator should just have made all the numbers work out for perfectly even weeks and months and whatever. Fair enough, I think it’s all hooey too. There are, indeed, conflicts between the literal words of ancient texts and observed reality. You seem to find this a searing indictment of…what, literalism? Fair enough. But there are no literalists here, and I think the general consensus response to your thought exercises _in re_ leap day and the date line and the lunar calendar is a resounding “_Meh_.” See, you addressed your argument to: > [@](#): > > a religious person who believes your God cares about the number of new moons that pass between some events, or about what day it is modulo 7 …and there is no one here who fits that description. Even the devout. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/34 "2016-02-27T22:18:33Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > And you are on some Science Board? Do you realize the earth is round, or are you some kind of Biologist? > [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > I apologize to biologists for insulting them. There is a recent [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=783932&highlight=microwave) about a certain biology teacher, and that’s why I went there. Good biologists happen to be good scientists. Good scientists happen to know the Earth is, as mentioned above, an oblate spheroid. Face it, your posts in this thread, generally, do not make sense. You’re also being quite presumptuous in the ones that do. Perhaps you should learn more about what a calendar is and how it’s regarded by those who actually do the calculations involved. And thanks for admitting that you’re making a personal insult outside of The BBQ Pit. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2016, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/35 "2016-02-28T14:35:57Z")
Hooleehootoo: > [@](#): > > You probably have no answer as to why God did not make the solar year evenly divisible by whole days. Maybe the solar calendar is of little interest to you. But Psalms 104:19 says the purpose of the Moon is to mark the seasons. Gen 1:14 says the same. Why isn’t a year evenly divisible by a month? Why didn’t God give people a little help with their planting and harvesting by telling them the period between Spring Equinoxes? The simple answer is that for whatever reason, the distance that Earth is from the sun that G-d felt was ideal for a planet to have human habitation, and that distance takes 365.25 (approximately) days to orbit. There is no need to tie planting and harvesting seasons into the moon, knowledge of the solar year is good enough for that. The “seasons” that the moon is meant to mark are the times of human events, such as holidays. > [@](#): > > If you think every 7 settings of the Sun are extremely important to keep track of, what do you say to the fact that two travelers , one going East and one West around the earth will meet again with different opinions on what day it is? Kudos to the author of the Kuzari for figuring this out, or a least getting it into print, but the intellectual gyrations of dealing with Shabbat and the Date Line are comical. Couldn’t God have mentioned? Did he intend for people never to stray more than a few arc seconds of longitude away from Jerusalem ? That would keep everyone synchronized, but it would be kinda crowded. The short answer is that G-d did mention, he just didn’t mention it as explicitly as you might like. Many points of Jewish law are known from oral tradition with mere allusion in the scriptural text, and the existence of a Halachic “international date line” no less so. It was long known that the line was somewhere far east of Jerusalem, but there was no practical need for an actual ruling on its exact location until the last century or so, as there were no known population of Jews that lived or traveled in any area where the subject is in question. However, when the Mirrer Yeshiva escaped the Holocaust to Japan during World War II, this became a practical question, and several prominent Rabbis issued rulings on the subject based on what they could derive from scripture and Talmudic tradition. A full exploration of the subject can be found [here](http://www.star-k.org/articles/kashrus-kurrents/493/a-travelers-guide-to-the-international-dateline/). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/36 "2016-02-28T14:54:36Z")
In brief, OP, the questions raised were already dealt with, to the satisfaction or at least reasonably tolerable acceptance _of those who cared about it_, well before our lifetimes. And _they don’t have_ to explain it to _your_ satisfaction. Your take on it is not particularly new or clever. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/37 "2016-02-29T00:54:55Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Another one; what is the qibla at the antipodes of Mecca? Given that the spot in question is smack in the middle of one of the emptiest parts of the South Pacific Ocean, it’s not a matter of much practical concern. But I believe the technically correct answer is that at that antipodal point any direction would be equally correct for the prayers, since all great-circle arcs through that point and through Mecca are equal. Honestly, although I’m a lifelong atheist myself, I don’t understand why so many other atheists seem to imagine that thinking up these junior-high-style “gotchas” actually makes any significant point about religious doctrine. Yeah, I get it, it’s funny to you that some people believe that certain arbitrary rules are important to their deity, even though it’s easy to think up potential situations where the rules would be hard to apply consistently. That’s not exactly my idea of trenchant comedy, but whatever floats your boat. But it’s not really a comment on the concept of deities so much as a comment on the concept of rules. ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/38 "2016-02-29T22:32:04Z")
It is Feb. 29, so I will make my concluding post in this thread. It was directed at the pious, and I don’t think anyone can accuse me of false advertising given the title. If the pious think that issues are divided into those that are too important to question and those that are too trivial to make you question your faith, well then, nice defense. Well Played, Sir. Being called trite is one thing; incoherent another. Here is Monty, for the third time. > [@Monty](#): > > your posts in this thread, generally, do not make sense… I opened with > [@](#): > > …what do you say to the fact that two travelers , one going East and one West around the earth will meet again with different opinions on what day [of the week, clear from **“Saturday”** in the title] it is? His response was > [@](#): > > What? Then I reference the experience of [Magellan](http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/idl/idl_discovery.htm). After that a third post. > [@Monty](#): > > … slew of nonsense… After two times, I thought this was just laziness from someone who is listed as being on the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board. After 3, I am starting to think he genuinely did understand the need to change a local calendar after crossing a Date Line. And if he did not, what are the odds I could find a Sunday School teacher in rural America, or an imam in rural Afghanistan that thinks it is Sunday (Friday) simultaneously everywhere in the Universe, that it is impossible for 2 honest observers to separate and reunite and differ about what day of the week it is ? I think they are good. And if after being educated, they have a complicated explanation for why it does not bother them, or a simple one that they don’t care at all? You can lead a horse to water … ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/39 "2016-03-01T05:56:09Z")
The newspaper I buy on Friday has a small box in teh corner noting the Sabbath start and end times in various cities. Every week, without exception, the times listed for Tel Aviv are a few minutes behind the times listed for Jerusalem, due to the fact that the former lies to he west of the latter. In other words, we all know that Shabbat is a fluid concept. And we’re all cool with it. Look, I get that you’re a _DATLASH_, and that’s cool - IMHO, better an atheist than a _dos_. But if you think your middle-school \*pilpulim \*are truly challenging my moderate, Conservative beliefs, think again. ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128/40 "2017-01-02T17:40:36Z")
Because this topic is a pet of mine, I will take the liberty of reviving the thread to add this reference which I just saw. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International\_date\_line\_in\_Judaism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_date_line_in_Judaism) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leap-year-day-saturday-the-frum-the-pious-and-the-al-muttaqin/747128.md?page=3)