Jewish Law in The Polar Regions - Pre-modern Background

Pre-modern Background

The Bible, Talmud, and individual pre-modern Jewish writers do not address this issue because Jews did not visit the polar regions and were not aware of its distinctive nature before modern times. However, the section in Talmud regarding the "desert wanderer" has been used by modern authorities to analyze this issue. The Talmud contains the following discourse:

Rav Huna says, if a man is wandering in the desert and he does not know when is the Sabbath, he should count six days and keep one day as the Sabbath. Hiyya bar Rav says he should keep one day as Sabbath, then count six days . ...

Rava says, on each day he may do whatever he needs in order to survive, except for his Sabbath. But should he die on the Sabbath? He could prepare extra food the day before his Sabbath, but that might be the real Sabbath. So every day he may do whatever he needs in order to survive, even on the Sabbath. How is the Sabbath recognizable to him? By kiddush and havdalah .

Rava says, if he knows which day he departed on the journey, he may do work on the same day of the week .

The law is in accordance with the first opinion, that a confused desert wanderer keeps six "weekdays" followed by one "Shabbat", but he may not perform activities forbidden on Shabbat on any day except to aid his own survival. The law is based on a principle that a person who is unaware of reality should create his own Sabbath while acting out of concern that the real Sabbath may be on a different day.