[Avodah] zman hadloko erev Shabbos and motzoei Shabbos

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 12:00:42PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> : They might have thought that perhaps all of those stars were "kochavim
> : gedolim", and not the three "kochavim beinunim" that are required.
> 
> Define "gadol" and "beinoni" such that "beinoni" refers to the larger
> of the 3% (or 5% or 10%) smallest stars. It's weird to have "beinoni"
> not mean middling (near the mean or median) size...

Well, yes, that's why the shita of 3/4 mil makes more sense.  After
3/4 of a mil (in EY, at the equinox), the stars that are visible can
easily be called "beinonim", while the ones that were visible earlier
can be called "gedolim" and those not yet visible can be called "ketanim".

But saying exactly which stars are "gedolim", "beinonim", and "ketanim"
is a job for experts, which is why Chazal gave the shiurim in millin,
which were intended to be easy for people of their day.  All someone had
to do was to go out one evening around the equinox, and, as he saw the
sun set, start walking.  Once he'd covered the specified distance, he
could see how dark it was, and perhaps pick out some stars that he would
later recognise, and he could know that *those* were the stars Chazal
were talking about.

So it remains theoretically *possible* that the stars visible before
4 millin are all what Chazal called "gedolim", and only the ones that
become visible then are "beinonim", and perhaps the "kochavim ketanim"
are ones that are too small or distant for us *ever* to see with the
naked eye (Chazal knew that there were such stars - see Pesachim 2a);
and therefore the fact that the sky is full of stars long before the
shiur of 4 millin doesn't *prove* RT's shita wrong.  It merely makes
it less likely than that of the "geonim", which is why the GRA and AR
championed that shita, and why nowadays most people follow some variant
of it.

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