Unpacking the Iggerot: Here Comes the Sun? Hilkhot DST
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Tefillin and Daylight Savings Time / Iggerot Moshe, O.H., vol. 1, #10
Summarizing the Iggerot
The day arrives in various halakhic stages. First, it begins with the crack of dawn or alot ha-shahar. The moment of sufficient light to recognize one’s friend from a few feet away is known as me-sheyakir. Finally, there is neitz ha-hama, when the sun begins to emerge above the horizon. The earliest time for wearing a tallit and tefillin is generally at the me-sheyakir mark, which, during the winter, can occur after 6:30 A.M. in the American Northeast. What happens if someone needs to commute to work prior to the zman, and will not have an opportunity to wear tefillin before nighttime—is there any recourse for fulfilling the mitzva?
R. Moshe Feinstein’s first responsum on the topic was penned back in 1931, when he served as the rabbi of Lyuban (in today’s Belarus) prior to fleeing the Communist regime. While tefillin, similar to tzizit, are reserved for the daytime, he cites the opinion of Rabbenu Peretz, as recorded in the Tur (O.H. #30):
And if one needs to leave early [on a journey], he may don the tefillin prior to the prescribed time without a blessing, and when the prescribed time occurs, he can readjust them and recite the blessing. Rabbenu Peretz wrote that since we hold that it is fundamentally legitimate to wear tefillin at nighttime (we merely do not wear it then out of a concern for the prohibition of falling asleep with them on) one who wishes to depart on a journey may put them on prior to the prescribed time and make a blessing on them immediately.
R. Feinstein argues that if someone will not have the opportunity to wear tefillin later:
He should act in accordance with Rabbenu Peretz. And he is considered an anus—for he is not expected to forfeit his livelihood which would constitute more than the one-fifth that is required to be expended to fulfill a positive mitzva. And certainly in this country [USSR] where it is impossible to attain alternative work, for all is in their hands and they will not grant him [other opportunities].
While it is a simple matter to recite the blessing on one’s tallit katan later, he advises the average man to recite the blessing on his tefillin even prior to the prescribed time lest he come to regard the mitzva in a less serious manner, due to the omission of the blessing. (While the Torah scholar is advised to wait until later to recite the blessing, should he expect the opportunity to become available.) This is quite noteworthy, as a more conservative posek might recommend that since Rabbenu Peretz is a minority opinion it would be better to err on the side of caution and don the tefillin without the blessing, due to the principle of safek berakhot le-hakel (that when there is a doubt about the necessity of reciting a blessing, we omit its recitation). Nonetheless, R. Feinstein raised a countervailing consideration that it is better to risk erroneously invoking God’s Name and reciting the blessing on the tefillin prior to the prescribed time, as maintaining not just the performance, but the dignity of the mitzva was essential.
Connecting the Iggerot
Decades later, in America in 1976, R. Feinstein wrote a responsum (O.H., vol. 4, #7) to his eldest son R. Dovid Feinstein, about a slightly different scenario regarding an early morning service in which the prescribed time for tefillin occurs after the start time for a given minyan, as is common for many commuters during the winter who need to pray prior to rushing off to work. He advised that the attendees should put on their tallit and tefillin prior to me-sheyakir, and make the blessing on them between Yishtabah and the subsequent Kaddish, which is about a third-way through the service. Interestingly, he bucks the conventional wisdom of the earlier literature which recommends readjusting the tallit and tefillin to effectuate an act of donning prior to the blessing, and instead argues that the passive act of wearing them is sufficient, just as it is enough to be culpable for wearing sha’atnez (see Makkot 21a).
In a 1979 responsum (ibid., #6) to his son-in-law, R. Dr. Moshe D. Tendler, we are provided with the historical circumstances that prompted such questions. He makes reference to “Arabs Wars” which refers to OPEC’s oil embargoes in the 1970s. To minimize the economic impact, the United States implemented a long-term daylight saving time nationwide. While sunset would be pushed off an hour at the end of the day, it remained darker for longer in the morning, thereby presenting complications for tallit, tefillin, and prayer. R. Feinstein provides a similar analysis to what he wrote almost a half-century earlier to Russian Jewry. Notably, he once again reinforces his reliance on Rabbenu Peretz to don the tefillin earlier on the basis “that for those who need to go to work—there is certainly no greater exigency than this.”
Reception of the Iggerot
If we were to limit ourselves to the printed volumes of Iggerot Moshe, we would miss an unpublished 1971 responsum, in which R. Feinstein addressed an earlier implementation of daylight saving time. Often, I highlight those who disagreed with his rulings. Though it is useful to remind ourselves how at this stage in his life, he had assumed the role of chief religious authority for much of the American Torah world, particularly for the Agudath Israel of America. In an article entitled “Agudath Israel Helps Stop Permanent ‘Daylight Saving’ Bill, Exceedingly Disruptive to Orthodox Jewish Life,” the organization describes its advocacy in accordance with the unpublished responsum on permanent DST:
The effort in the 117th Congress to permanently extend “daylight saving time” (DST) came to a sputtering end, as the House of Representatives refused to act on the measure…. Two primary concerns were brought to the legislators’ attention. The first related to an unintended consequence the change in DST would have on a fundamental aspect of Jewish religious life—morning davening. Under halacha, tefillas shacharis, and the mitzvos associated with it, are regulated according to solar positioning in the sky and are to be performed no earlier (or later) than at certain specified times. Shul schedules are set up in line with those times. With a change in DST, and the subsequent later sunrise, the times for davening and its accompanying mitzvos will be altered –which, in turn, will undermine their proper observance, discourage shul attendance, and result in late arrival for work….
Agudath Israel was also contacted by many Orthodox Jewish employees, who would be forced to forgo delayed tefilla be-tzibbur and, because of later times even for private davening, were still not certain that they could both pray and arrive at their workplaces on time. The prospect of asking their employers to arrive late (or allow them to pray in the workplace in tallit and tefillin), was one they feared would create a tense and tenuous employment relationship. Observance and accommodation of Shabbat and Yom Tov have become familiar in the workplace in our day; time off for davening, perhaps over a course of weeks each winter, was then unimaginable.
As a representative of the spectrum of yeshivot and Jewish day schools, Agudath Israel’s other primary concern centered around children walking, carpooling, or taking the bus to school in the pre-sunrise darkness and the increased risk of accidents and injuries that could result. Indeed, during the Arab oil embargo in early 1970s, when a two-year-long DST was attempted, the experiment was cut short due to the public outcry over these very concerns for schoolchildren’s safety. The alternative would be for these Jewish schools—which typically include morning davening–to begin the school day at a much later hour, a detrimental change decried by many yeshiva principals and educators, as well as parents.
Agudath Israel’s advocacy on the issue was consistent with a 1971 teshuva to then-Agudath Israel President Rabbi Moshe Sherer penned by tR. Feinstein, which addressed the issue during an earlier legislative attempt to make DST permanent. Pointing out the difficulties regarding proper davening facing those who go to work, R. Feinstein wrote that it is clear that we must fight against such a bill with every means of advocacy.
Ultimately, the multi-pronged effort by Agudath Israel, along with opposition by others, was successful in slowing down and eventually ending further action in Congress. Representative Frank Pallone, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, stated that the legislation would not proceed without a full airing of the various issues. And, as the months passed, Pallone and others on the committee continued to hear from Agudath Israel and its allies, leading the Chairman to conclude that there was no consensus in the House as to whether to keep the status quo or to go to either permanent standard or daylight saving time.
This issue hearkens back to other times that the Agudah has fought against such legislation. Aside from the 1970s, in 2005, as part of the Energy Policy Act, DST would have been extended by two months. Agudah and allies were successful in paring that down to a four-week extension, which, based on the calendar, would have had a minimal effect on Orthodox Jewish life.
The unpublished responsum, referenced above, serves as more of a letter of encouragement than an exhaustive legal discourse. To R. Feinstein, and many Orthodox Jews, the benefits of defeating daylight saving time was obvious, both for religious as well as personal safety purposes.
Reflecting on the Iggerot
A recurring theme in R. Feinstein’s jurisprudence is the economic plight of the rank and file Jew. He not only expresses concern but confers halakhic dispensations on this basis. Earlier we observed that he permitted relying on Rabbenu Peretz to don and recite a blessing on tefillin prior to the prescribed time. This was predicated on the Talmudic principle that one does not expend more than a fifth of his finances on the fulfillment of a positive mitzva (see, for example, Ketubot 50a). He employs the same concept to excuse a widow from covering her hair in the workplace, as a headcovering might compromise her employment status (E.H., vol. 1, #57). This is similar to his ruling permitting a man to remove his kippa for employment purposes (see our column Kippa on the Job). While the technicalities of the halakhic analysis are not identical, in both instances he issues a dispensation in light of economic hardship.
There is actually a very important assertion that R. Feinstein made in his unpublished responsum to the Agudah. Some might claim that there is a religious imperative to embrace daylight saving time, as the extended daytime would ensure that many Jews would make it home from work on Friday, prior to the onset of Shabbat. Daylight saving would, in effect, save countless Jewish laborers from compromises that were all too common in those decades, and certainly alleviate stress and pressure on those who were able to arrive home for candle-lighting with only minutes to spare on “short” Shabbatot. Certainly that should outweigh the benefit of wearing tefillin at its prescribed time (when a less-than ideal timing for tefillin was at least possible). R. Feinstein, however, vehemently pushed back that “we are not obligated, and it is even forbidden, to perform a one-time, minor transgression to save those who wantonly violate [the Torah]. Even if they do so out of financial hardship. For we do not instruct an individual to sin so that their friend may [spiritually] benefit” (see Shabbat 4a).
While he already established that there is room to rely on for donning tefillin before the prescribed time, he asserted that observant Jews should not have to put themselves in an unideal halakhic position for the sake of those who are, at best, ambivalent toward its observance. We should note, however, that he did recommend helping others minimize the degree of their sins, such as conveying to a non-Orthodox synagogue that it is less problematic to have separate seating without a mehitza than actual mixed seating (O.H., vol. 1, #44; cf. Reshumei Aharon, vol. 2, p. 31, #6). At the same time he also opposed making flawed eruvin to supposedly help the Jews who wantonly carried on Shabbat (O.H., vol. 5, #28). So did he care about saving the non-observant from sin or not? It would seem to be that he was certainly in favor of decreasing the degree of transgressions committed by the non-observant Jewish community. But only so long as it in no way compromised the integrity of those already observing halakha. If he could get a Conservative congregation to retain separate seating, that would be preferable, as it has no bearing on the practice of the Orthodox synagogue down the block. But to create a problematic eruv or force thousands of Jewish men to wear their tefillin at an unideal time could not be waived to achieve such ends.
R. Feinstein stretched far to help the commonfolk, but as Tevya the milkman expressed, “If I bend too far, I will break.” R. Feinstein had no intention of breaking. He maintained his fierce integrity for halakha and uncompromising care for its adherents simultaneously. R. Aharon Lichtenstein reflected in his eulogy for him:
There are poskim who are willing to slay every Jew for the sake of the law, while others are willing to slay every law for the sake of a Jew.” A great posek has to know the proper balance between concern for the truth of Torah and concern for the human dimension of the ruling. This balance was the secret of R. Moshe’s greatness.
Endnote: For more on the principle of not expending more than a fifth of one’s assets on a mitzva, see Iggerot Moshe (O.H., vol. 1, #172) in which he exempts an individual from leaving a medical institution to attend shofar blowing. See also Dibberot Moshe (Bava Kamma, vol. 2, he’ara #21), Iggerot Moshe Y.D., vol. 1, #123; #145, and O.H., vol. 5, #41; #43:10, and Masoret Moshe (vol. 5, p. 225).
R. Feinstein notably identifies two principles: First, that people are not expected to pay an exorbitant amount of money to perform a mitzva, lest they will swiftly deplete their resources and be unable to fulfill future mitzvot. The second, that was decreed at a later point, forbade spending more than a fifth of one’s assets on a single mitzva. He actually writes that halakha does not demand that a person spend up to a fifth of his assets to perform a mitzva, the threshold of a fifth actually serves as a cap intended to save Jews from zealous overspending.
I wish to thank my congregant, Mr. Mayer Rubin, who provided me with a copy of Michael Downing’s Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, which chronicles the historical circumstances and multi-faceted controversies over its adoption. Notably, he makes reference to the battle between the secular and religious camps regarding the implementation of longer daylight saving time in Israel (pp. 155–156).
Moshe Kurtz is the rabbi of Cong. Sons of Israel in Allentown, PA, the author of Challenging Assumptions, and hosts the Shu”T First, Ask Questions Later podcast.