[Avodah] Which way to Jerusalem?

[Zev Sero]

On 8/09/2010 9:58 PM, Simon Montagu wrote:
> article here at aishdas: http://www.aishdas.org/articles/mizrach.htm.
>Apparently it's a mahloket aharonim whether we use rhumb lines or great
> circles.

The article claims that the Levush appears to support a rhumb line;
Over yomtov I learned through this Levush, and I can't see how this
conclusion was reached.  He doesn't address the issue; all he says is
that the correct direction "in these countries" is SE rather than E.
The Levush lived in Prague, where the difference between a great circle
and a rhumb line is a mere 7.8 degrees, and in Posen, where it's even
less, so the issue was irrelevant to him.


> I'm still curious to know what Jews in Alaska do lema'ase.

They probably do just like Jews elsewhere; build the shul in the most
convenient way and then rationalise why that direction is more-or-less
correct.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher