[Avodah] zman hadloko erev Shabbos and motzoei Shabbos

[Zev Sero]

Dov Kay wrote:
> RMF's position is also very 
> difficult for the same reason.  He argues that 72 minutes fits the reality 
> in eastern Europe, but not in NYC, so that m'ikar hadin one can take out 
> Shabbos earlier than 72 minutes after sh'kiah in NYC.  Apart from the fact 
> that R"T, the Ramban and other rishonim did not live in White Russia, they 
> were giving the z'man for Eretz Yisrael/Bavel, which Rabbi Yehudah in the 
> Gemara was no doubt discussing.

AIUI, he is in fact explicitly *rejecting* RT's shita, and saying that
even in White Russia they did not pasken like RT but like the geonim.
Had they paskened like RT, they would have waited far longer than 72
minutes on the clock.  Since their minhag was to wait exactly 72 clock
minutes, it must have had nothing to do with RT.  Rather, RMF says,
it just happened that in those places the BHShM of the geonim, at the
solstices (i.e. the longest BHShM of the year) came to approximately
72 minutes or a bit less, so in the absence of calculated charts they
kept that shiur a whole year.  The coincidence of 72 minutes being
the longest BHShM of the geonim in those parts, and RT using the term
"72 minutes", led to people incorrectly and confusingly referring to
their practise as "RT".  Since in our latitudes the longest BHShM of
the year is much shorter than 72 minutes, we have no need to wait that
long.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas