I've been riveted by the thousands of beautiful images being transmitted to Earth from the Cassini space craft orbiting Saturn, each resembling a masterful abstract painting.
Many of you know that Cassini launched a smaller minicraft (known as Huygens) at Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Titan is a complex world in its own right, similar in many ways to primordial earth as it existed (with apologies to devout readers) billions of years ago. Huygens snapped many photos as it parachuted down to Titan's surface.
You'd see something like this if you were gazing out an airplane window over the lake regions of Minnesota, southern Finland or northern Quebec. In fact the lakes in this picture are filled with liquid methane and dot Titan's northern latitudes.
Titan is just one of several moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter which may be home to primitive alien life forms. And we haven't mentioned Mars. Astronauts will visit these places one day.
There are many Jewish laws which will face challenges if and when religious Jews ever leave the orbit of planet earth.
But I'd like to focus on the question of Shabbat. How does a devout Jew observe Shabbat, or daven in space? Let's assume a devout Jew in the year 2037 moves permanently to a base on the moon, which doesn't spin. How would one daven three times a day in an environment where day and night don't alternate? And what if our little frum astronaut friend gets transferred to a space station orbiting Saturn, which revolves around the sun once in almost 30 years. What would that do to our (24 x 7 x 365 earth schdule) weekly parsha reading?
On this day in the life of the Jewish people in 1784: the poll tax was abolished in France by Louis XVI. Until then, Jews living in the eastern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine (just an FYI -these regions are a mix of German and French cultures) were required to pay a special road toll upon entry or departure from all cities. Known as Impot de Pied Forchu (poll of the cloven foot) this tax was identical to one imposed on every animal going to market. It's worth noting that despite the delay to full emancipation for the Jews of England, degradation was always much worse in most countries on the Continent, as late the French Revolution.
