[Avodah] chumrah leading to a kulah

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

R' Marty Bluke wrote:

> ... You cannot be mekabel shabbos before plag hamincha and many
> of the rishonim (Ramban, Rashba) who hold like R' Tam say that
> plag hamincha is 1/6 of a mil before shkia (they are assuming
> that the day goes from alos until tzeis). Therefore according to
> these rishonim you can't be mekabel shabbos 1 mil before sunset
> it is too early so you do have a chumra becoming a kula.

I want to underscore what he wrote, and I'd like to rephrase it for
emphasis:

Today (Dec 9) in New York City, sunrise was at 7:07 AM, and sunset at 4:29
PM, and so Plag Hamincha - according to the Gra's calculation - was at 3:30
PM.

But suppose one were to be machmir like Rabenu Tam, and suppose he chose
(among the many varied understandings of R' Tam) to calculate Plag Hamincha
based on the day beginning 72 minutes before sunrise, and ending 72 minutes
after sunset. He would find that his Plag Hamincha is at 4:27 -- only 2
minutes before sunset!

Such a person would be in a very uncomfortable on Erev Shabbos: If he
lights candles before 4:27, will the bracha be l'vatala? And if he lights
after 4:29, will it already be Shabbos? He has a window of less than two
minutes, and that presumes his clock and calculations to be accurate! I
believe that this is an example of what RMBluke meant: One's attempt to be
machmir like Rabenu Tam ends up being a kula for the Gra.

But one should not think that this problem is a rare one, confined to
specific dates or locations, or to specific ways of calculating Rabenu Tam.
For example, the example above used 72 fixed minutes; the problem is even
worse for those who would use 90 fixed minutes.

The "degrees below horizon" camp has this problem too. I've seen many
calendars use a relatively shallow 8.5 degrees below the horizon for
calculating Motzaei Shabbos. Today in NYC, the sun reached that point at
6:23 AM and 5:13 PM, yielding a MA Plag at 4:05 PM. That gives us about 6
minutes until the published Candle Lighting Time of 4:11, but areas further
north aren't so lucky. In Paris (48.85 degrees north) the MA Plag is only
ten minutes before sunset (read: 8 minutes after Candle Lighting).

Even further north? In Gateshead, if you use "72 equal minutes", then the
MA Plag is 11 minutes AFTER sunset. And even the "8.5 degrees" puts it six
minutes after.

Think it is better in the south? Consider this: Sunset in Yerushalayim
today was at 4:35 PM. If you calculate MA Plag using 72 equal minutes, it
will be at 4:29, which one might think is difficult but possible. Using 8.5
degrees, it will be at 4:03, which one might think is even more possible,
But then one remembers that the minhag in Yerushalayim is to light 40
minutes before sunset -- at 3:55 PM, and then he realizes how impossible it
is to really do ALL the chumros!

Akiva Miller
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