Shabbat Shalom From The Southernmost Shabbos On Earth!

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Iceberg in Antarctica. HT: Moishebatchy
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We’re currently cruising around Antarctica and will enter Shabbos somewhere around here.

One of my jobs has been figuring out the zmanim and of course those are incredibly complex in Antarctica.

Luckily, we’re not going to be far enough south to get into the real thorny questions of when to start Shabbos when there is no Shkia Haniris (sunset at the horizon) or Shkia Amitis (sunset below the horizon) as we will have a shkia according to all opinions. Of course had I known that beforehand I could have saved myself from hundreds of emails and calls figuring out exactly how to handle various scenarios based on our coordinates.

Over 50 of us will be spending Shabbos with gefilte fish, matzah ball soup, brisket, cholent, and of course a sefer torah during the Southernmost Shabbos Minyan on Earth.

Every day we set new records for the Southernmost Farbrengen and for the Southernmost Daf Yomi Shiur:

 

Southernmost Hei Teves Farbrengen and crossing the Antarctic 60 degree line:

 

Southernmost Chofetz Chaim shiur for women:

 

Southernmost shiur on the halachos of being south of the Antarctic Circle:

And even the Southernmost friendly poker game played on a deck of Continental Presidential Plus playing cards::

We’ll bring in an “Early” Shabbos at 9:20pm tonight, but it won’t end until 1:01am on Sunday!

On the bridge, plotting shabbos zmanim with the navigation officer:

HT: CHFF

To all of my readers that are north of me (And yes, that means everyone!), Shabbat Shalom!

68 COMMENTS

Older First
  1. Banana

    How awesome. Safe waters and Shabbat Shalom!

  2. Daniel Mammon

    Will you drive an Israeli flag into the ice for eternity or until global warming causes the glaciers to melt.

    • Mark

      That way they can blame the Jews! 🙂

    • Eli

      Fyi, Dan is an American citizen.

  3. ji

    Good Shabbos from Baltimore, stay warm:)

  4. Deal Guy

    Enjoy, and stay safe down there!

  5. Daniel Mammon

    Or possibly leave a copy of Tanya? That’s a real
    עד שיפוצו מעינותך חוצה

    • Yossi Stein

      Or at least print a tanya

      • Aizik Medayek

        Being so organized, Dan’s probably getting that done, too.

        • Shabbos

          Done already. Google it…

      • Jack

        A Tanya was already printed in Antarctica

    • AJ

      More like ופרצת… ונגבה

    • Heshi

      Drake’s Lake… with a tiny hint if how it might have been.

  6. ZCN

    From the picture from the bridge it looks like you got the Drake Lake. Hope it continues for everyone.

  7. Nisht A Magid Shiur

    The first thing you would have learned in the halachah shiur is that Antartica defies the halachic dateline, since the lines (both halachic and civil) hits Antartica at some point it’s not known which side of the dateline it should fall. Therefore you have to hold 48 hours of Shabbos as you would do in Hawaii or Japan, being even more machmir because there is no local minhag to define “Saturday”.

    😉

      • Nisht A Magid Shiur

        Indeed it poses no problem on the water.

        However if one were to dock on Shabbos in Antartica it is a valid question once you were to get off the boat.

        Enjoy Shabbos!

        • Dan

          No, it’s not.
          Please show me one posek who says a landing like Port Lockroy is a question for the dateline.

          • Nisht A Maggid Shiur

            First of all gut voch.

            Please don’t say it’s not a valid question because it is.

            However I do realize/understand it may not be applicable to you because Port Lockroy (I am assuming this is where you are/were and according to maps I’ve looked at) is on an ISLAND off mainland Antarctica. Port Lockroy therefore could not come into doubt under the chazon ish’s opinion for a land mass to not be divided by the dateline . Only the mainland (which touches the dateline as I said in the op) would be questionable (and of course any Antarctic islands that may run through the span of datelines.)

            Safe travels.

          • New Posek Arriving

            Nebuch someone could not get a shteller so is trying to be the next magid shiur/ shiur hacker on dansdeals.com Its like Donald arguing Barack is not a US citizen. Hmmm, this may work lol

          • Nisht A Maggid Shiur

            LOL. Got DT the job, didn’t it!?

          • JD

            Ha Ha. lOve your sense of humor!

          • MR

            Wow! I was just scrolling through the comments and noticed how everyone had something positive to say. I thought to myself mi k’amcha yisrael! Congratulations on being the only negative comment of 43 comments.

          • Nisht A Maggid Shiur

            I took it as tongue in cheek not negative. The OP was mostly tongue in cheek too as was indicated by the 😉 but sarcasm doesn’t carry well here and someone got carried away and chose to somewhat insult the post. That comment was since deleted by the powers that be.

  8. Pad18

    מי כעמך ישראל !
    שבת שלום

  9. Yitz Weiss

    I’d say this is cool, but that probably isn’t cold enough to describe
    This is totally AWESOME!

  10. Zac

    Ahah! You forgot the poker chips. Chess pieces for poker chips. Very innovative. What did you use for Dreidel games? 😉 Enjoy. Awesome updates.

  11. runnergirl

    wow! Didn’t expect to see ladies on the trip! I’m jealous now!

  12. Shoshana

    Absolutely amazing
    Good shabbos!

  13. Mark

    Everything looks absolutely beautiful. Shabbat Shalom!

  14. Beirish

    Nu, so what time is Shkiah?
    Shabbat Shalom. Relax

  15. Brian C

    Animal life Dan? Penguins? Orca? See that once on land?

  16. Yman

    dan, looks like you guys are having a blast, but i’m confused by why you had to bring a caterer if you brought all the food with you. didn’t you say the boat was loaded with things during the summer time in canada? you mentioned you brought all the food in suitcases. please clarify.

    • Guest

      They only brought the food for the shabbos before the trip

  17. DZ the Telzer

    Dan you should reach out to the person running this website ( or you can still if you have any questions)
    https://kosherjava.com/
    He is one of the biggest experts on Zmanim and international dateline.
    He is also computer programmer so he created a program that you can get all the Zmanim. He has many very interesting posts related to Zmanim, international dateline and many similar issues.

  18. Jack

    Love the hay races farbrengen

  19. Confused

    Confused about the headline, are you on earth or ocean?

    • JJ

      So funny story actually, and this may blow some people minds.

      ALL oceans on planet earth are actually located on earth!

      Go figure.

      • Nisht A Maggid Shiur

        LOL

        Indeed all oceans are on Earth. Not sure they are all on earth though.

      • Yoely

        He meant to ask. Are you on land or on water

  20. Jack out of the Box

    I’m really impressed at how you’ve gotten all those complex details worked out conclusively. But I’m not surprised. It’s how you always do it.

    Enjoy!

  21. Klotskop

    How many miles did you move over shabos?

  22. Moty

    Still waiting for updates about the fueling issue!

    • New Posek Arriving

      Obviously they filled in falkland islands

  23. Jack

    So, at 6 foot 8 inches, can Morris Hersko get the Guinness World Record for tallest person to ever visit Antarctica?

  24. Chany

    Is there anything to DO there besides, learn?! I mean no shopping…

  25. Jeff B

    Dan please take a picture of the end of the world so that we can prove to all that flat Earth is true! I am sure you can sneak past the NSA and CIA dressed as penguins and snap a picture of the cliff at and of Earth

    • Nisht A Maggid Shiur

      Of course flat Earth is true. If it wasn’t, all the water near Antarctica would simply fall into space. 😉

  26. Eli

    “and crossing the Antarctic 60 degree line:”
    The Antarctic circle as well as the Arctic circle are actually at 66 degree, otherwise big cities such as Oslo, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Reykjavik and Anchorage, which are at 60 or beyond, would be in the Arctic circle.

    • Nisht A Maggid Shiur

      Antarctic Treaty is at 60°. At that latitude you are in Antarctic territorial waters.

  27. A

    First ever and southern most BMG fundraiser

  28. Moshe

    Wow! Every Beracha, every mitzvah, every word of Torah picks up Nitzotzot from places that were likely never before visited by Mitzvot! What a zechut!

  29. Ar

    I seemed to have missed the conclusion to where you were going to refuel. Did you write about that?

    • Heshi

      The ship refueled in the Falkland Islands while went to visit with penguins and got some shopping done…

  30. Helen

    I a waiting ever so patiently for the next installment, but my patience is wearing thin! Maybe tomorrow during the never before 24 hour asarah b’teves fast?? I really hope so!

  31. Meir

    Hope everything is ok in Antarctica, it’s a long time didn’t see any update… or they have to of a blast they don’t have time to think of us

  32. Steve

    I literally check back daily…..we NEED another update. I think I even saw a childhood friend’s Mom in a picture. D.S.? Enjoy

  33. Murray

    Today’s WSJ had article about scientific expeditions under the ice in Antartica. Last week, two separate people completed unassisted treks across Antartica for the first time ever.

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