[Avodah] Davening direction

[Micha Berger]

And now to comment ON topic...

On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 04:41:28PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
>> Didn't understand the logic of the rhumb line for davening
>> Gut feeling is that south east is reasonable even that is based on a
>> flat earth

> That *is* the rhumb line, and I don't understand the logic either; it seems
> based entirely on people sharing the above-cited "instinct", which is based
> entirely on a lifetime of looking at Mercator maps....

The Mercator Projection became popular because it helps sailors navigate.
RET finds following rhumb lines more intuitive for the same reason sailors
preferred following rhumb lines. The popularity of Mercator Projection
disn't cause the intuition. The intuition is more innate than that,
and it caused the popularity of a rhumb line preserving projection.

It takes immersion in the right math, like RAM's suggestion to take a
globe in hand, to overcome instinct and develop a new intuition.

Which is why I gave the wishy-washy answer -- which way is more correct
depends on the intutions of the one davening. After all, if you can't
face the right way, yekhavein es libo. Seems whichever the individual's heart
feels is the "true" definition of direction is the one to go with.

(And in any case, since we are really only make a point of facing the
quarter of a circle that Israel is in, one has to be at least as far as
Miami before either could possibly be "wrong".)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
Author: Widen Your Tent      and it flies away.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                          - Rav Yisrael Salanter