The Universe is expanding. So two thousand years ago stars were closer to Earth. So three medium stars would have been able to be seen sooner than they are nowadays. (Nowadays three medium stars come out at 45 minutes in Israel.)
This might explain why the Gra holds the night begins 13.5 minutes after sunset instead of  72 minutes.
We find in the Gemara Pesachim that there is a four mile walk from sunset until the night. But the Gra says that refers to when all the stars come out and does not refer to the halachic beginning of night.
Most Rishonim hold by Rabbainu Tam that the night starts after 72 minutes and that is what I have been accustomed\ to do for years. But at least we can understand the Gra.

The medium three stars thing is given in Shabat along with an argument about 2/3 or 3/4 of a mile from sunset until night. The thing that makes the Gra convincing is that the Gemara in Pesachim is not dealing with when the Halachic night begins.



Here is the basic idea here in Hebrew but with a little more detail.



 בעניין שקיעה של רבינו תם. רוב ראשונים פוסקים כמו ר''ת. אני מתקשה להבין את הגר''א. השתדלתי למצוא אופן שהגר''א יכול להיות בהתאם עם הגמרא בשבת, ועדיין לא מצאתי אופן כזה. אם הגר''א היה צודק, היה בהכרח לראות  כוכב בינוני אחד בשקיעה הראשונה, ואחר כך עוד אחד בתוך כמה דקות.
  זה כדי ששקיעה תיחשב להיות בין השמשות. וזה רק אחרי שכבר קודם השקיעה, היינו צריכים לראות שלשה כוכבים גדולים. ואי אפשר לדעת את הממוצע של קבוצה מסוימת אלא אם כן יודעים את כל הדברים שיש בקבוצה, ואי אפשר לדעת מה זה כוכב בינוני אלא אם כן קודם זה רואים את כל הכוכבים (שאפשר לראות אותם בלי משקפת), ואז אפשר לדעת מה זה "בינוני". ואז צריכים לבחור כמה כוכבים בינוניים, ולראות מתי הם יוצאים בליל המחרת. אני עשיתי את זה, ולפי מה שראיתי, לא יוצאים כוכבים בינוניים עד בערך ארבעים וחמש דקות אחר השקיעה בארץ ישראל.
תוספות רי''ד בשבת מפרש רבינו תם גם לשיטת חכמי יוון  (שחכמי ישראל הסכימו אתם בגמרא בפסחים)- והם אמרו שאין מסדרון (פרוזדור) שהשמש נכנס בו בשקיעה.  רב נטרונאי גאון אוחז בשיטת הגר''א. אבל רב סעדיה גאון אוחז בשיטת רבינו תם (מצוטט באבן עזרא שמות י''ב פסוק ד').
החלל מתרחב. ולכן לפני אלפיים שנה הכוכבים היו קרובים יותר  לארץ.ולכן היתה אפשרות לראות שלשה כוכבים בינוניים קודם הזמן שהם נראים היום. היום שלשה כוכבים נראים אחרי ארבעים וחמש דקות אחרי השקיעה. וזה עוזר לנו להבין את הגר''א שאוחז בשיטה שהלילה מתחיל אחרי שלש עשרה וחצי דקות. אנחנו מוצאים בגמרא פסחים שיש מהלך ארבע מילים מן השקיעה עד הלילה, אבל הגר''א אומר שזה מדבר על הזמן שרוב הכוכבים יוצאים, ולא על התחלת הלילה על פי הלכה. ויש סיועה לזה בגלל שהגמרא הפסחים אינה מדברת על התחלת הלילה לפי הדין. והגמרא נתנה שיעור שלשה כוכבים בינונים רק לסימן, לא מה שקובע את  הלילה.

 So what i am saying here is that I think if you look at the issue in Shabat that you will see the Gemara holds the time after sunset is what determines the night and that the stars are given as a sign.
Now I do admit this is not like 99% of the rishonim and it is not like Saadia Geon. But there are people that depend on the Gra and from what I can see in the Talmud itself it looks like the Gra was right.
Anyway people have heard of the idea of majority opinion when it comes to Rishonim but that would be against all the rishonim to decide any halacha like that. The idea comes from the beit Yoseph when he could not find a majority between the Rif, Rambam, and Rosh  and he presented it as a way to decide which way the halacha probably would be, not as his own decision and not as the ipso facto Halacha.

In fact this might be a good place to bring what Reb  Chaim from Voloshin writes about about halacha.
Many have stumbled and thrown off from themselves the labor of learning the Talmud in order to derive halacha. For they say learning to do is only learning the Shulchan Aruch. And even those that learn Gemara do it only to make themselves smart....
and that is not the straight path...The main halachic decision always has to be from the Talmud itself and the learning of the Shulchan Aruch is only as a reminder

The problem here might be the rate of expansion. 2000 years might be simply too short a time for the expansion to make any difference.

Here is a short introduction.
On the Sabbath Day, Jews are not allowed to work. If a Jew works on the Sabbath, he must bring a sin offering. But let us say he knew today is the Sabbath but he forgot about two different kinds of work. Does he bring one sin offering or two? This is no mystery. WE know already that he brings two.
[These sin offerings are stated in the Holy Bible in Leviticus chapter 4.]
Now there are lots of kinds of sins for which a Jew has to bring a sin offering. Another example is eating blood or forbidden fat. So lets say he forgot about the prohibition to eat blood and also forbidden fat. The we also know he brings two sacrifices. [This can get to be expensive. Each sacrifice has to be a sheep or  goat. You can't bring turtledoves or pigeons except for specific sins.]

We know what kind of work a Jews can't do on Sabbath because the Bible tells Jews not to build the Tabernacle on the Sabbath. So we know what ever type of work was needed for building the Tabernacle, we can't do on the Sabbath.



Rabbi Zachai said Shabat is more strict than other commandments in the Torah because if one does two acts of work by one "forgetting" on Shabat he brings two sin offerings (Leviticus 4), while for other commandments he brings only one

The Talmud [Gemara in Sanhedrin 62]   for some reason does not like this. But what Rabbi Zachai says makes plenty of sense. If one knows today is Shabat but forgot about two kinds of work he does bring two sacrifices. This is called חילוק מלאכות division of labor.
What it seems the Gemara is trying to ask is that Shabat has divisions in side of it while other rmitzvot do not. But if that is what it is trying to ask then why does it not ask it? Instead it goes into the problem in an elliptical way. It asks: What two works are we talking about here? If harvesting and grinding then but other mitzvot we are talking about forbidden fat and blood. But there two there are two sacrifices.
If on Shabat we are talking about two acts of the same kind of work like harvesting the also by blood there would be only one sacrifice.

I have heard it often enough for it to seem to be a pattern. I think some people don't feel the holiness in the Talmud.
At first I did not think anything of it.


But then I noticed even sincere people that long for God's holiness sometimes do not feel what is happening inside the Talmud.
Sometimes people close to me  would see me learning Talmud and  did not feel what or why I was doing so.
Sometimes you hear from a Breslov person that he walked into a Litvak (Lithuanian )Yeshiva and all he saw was people talking about some subject in the Talmud and they were not talking about God. And this was always presented as a proof to me that in Lithuanian yeshivas people don't think of God.
[Of course that is silly because we really don't have a lot of information about God. We know he is the First Cause who made everything something from nothing. And that is about it.]
In any case I have realized that there are people who don't feel what is going on in Talmud learning. So I would like to tell people what it is. It is numinosity. It is not that it makes devekut (attachment with God) possible but rather it is a level of devekut in itself.

And it simply is not that case that people don't think about God. From the day I left the world of Lithuanian yeshivas until today I have not seen one single prayer with the fervor and intention I saw at the Mir. At the Mir you could feel the Divine presence [Shechina] descend into the building during the morning prayers.

The Rambam (Maimonides) says prophets and the later scribes [sofrim] were allowed to add mitzvot but they could not say that God revealed the mitzvah to them. And if they would they would be stoned as a false prophet because God has already told us that the Torah he gave us is permanent  and that he will never add any mitzvah nor subtract any mitzvah.

And that was only until the end of the time of the Talmud. After the Talmud, no one has permission to add or subtract even a mitzvah derabanan [rabbinical decree].

OK. That is the introduction.  Now the question is about the blessing we say of lighting the Hanukkah lights. We say "who commanded us to light .." Would it not make more sense to say "Who commanded us to listen to the Sages?" After that is how the Rambam tries to get out if this problem. He says we are commanded to listen to the sages and they told us to light the Hanuka lights.  (There is also the issue about the main idea of לא תסור don't turn aside from what they say refers to the Sanhedrin.)



I remember sitting by Reb Shmuel Berenbaum with my wife one Yom Tov and he talked at the festival meal about this or something related. Later I noticed a similar discussion in a commentary of the Rambam. But it was a long time ago. It might have been related to the idea of the second day of the festivals in which the regular blessing are said. (The second day of the festival is not a law but a custom based on where the witnesses can arrive.)

Now all this is just common sense. We have Jewish communities in the Middle Ages and every community was able to make laws for its own members.  Just the laws would not have the force of a rabbinical law.
The problem is nowadays when all kinds of people claim to have divine revelation about some new mitzvah. This to me seems to be a problem.
You can even see this in Breslov which is generally just people sincerely looking to keep Torah.
But the leaders often claim Divine revelation. Just today I asked some fellow from Israel if he ever tried to be in a yeshiva. And he said he sold everything and came to Jerusalem  and found a job  and then walked into one Breslov yeshiva. It happened the minute he walked in the Rav was giving a lecture and was discussing the fact that he had critics. And he asked, "How can they criticize me when I have these amazing revelations from Heaven?" So Breslov does not seem to be immune from the general kinds of delusions which haunt the world of hasidim.

At any rate I do not mean to leave this hanging. My learning partner brought this up, and I do hope to recheck the Mishna LaMelech and Lechem Mishna  and (Ramban) Nachmanides about the issue of how there can be any such thing as a rabbinical mitzvah in the first place? [Since we are not allowed to add or subtract from the Torah. If anything comes up I hope to post it here.]
[I mean that the Ramban wrote a critique on the Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot where he goes into this. I know he goes into this issue over there.]



I only mean for this blog entry to be an introduction to this problem.

I have mentioned learning fast a few times. . But the first time I saw this concept was from a book Biyan Olam בנין עולם which was from some Litvak in Israel. And in fact the Gra mentions this concept himself. And it is brought in the Talmud itself. [Avoda Zara 19:a] What slows people down is the Magen Avraham who people will always quote to you [not in his name] who held if you don't understand, it is not called learning. But it looks like the Gra did not hold from that particular Magen Avraham. [Orach Chaim 50 paragraph 2]
See the new edition of אבן שלמה from Israel where the editor brings proof of this in the Appendix

The Gemara says:
Rava said one should always say the words and go on even though he forgets and even though he does not know what he is saying.

I found this approach encouraging while I was in yeshiva because  the yeshiva I was in was into learning in real immense depth. That is a good thing. But I also needed this counter weight to get a general idea of what was going on.
And I should mention that at the Mir in NY, it was a given that in the afternoon one was supposed to be learning fast.

The Geon from Villna says two things stop a person's prayer from being accepted. One if he has sins.
The other is not relevant right now.

 But if you want your prayer to be answered and you know you have done some sin , it makes a lot of sense to go to someone who in your best judgment is righteous. The problem is deciphering who is a tzadik.
being a tzadik after the time of the Baal Shem Tov became big business.

If what Putin is doing is escalation, then I would say now not to escalate. The worst thing would be war. So if Putin wants Donetsk and Lugansk, then let him have them. What is the big deal anyway?
What exactly is in Donetsk that makes it worth a world war? Some coal?
Now normally speaking I would not say this, because it is not nice to just walk in and take over. But most of what good there is in the Ukraine comes from Russia anyway. The buildings and the infrastructure, schools, doctors, etc. all come from when the Ukraine was part of the  USSR.

As it is it is hard to do any kind of business in the Ukraine because business agreements are worthless. You can buy a apartment from someone you think is the owner and the next day the real owner shows up and asks what are you doing in my apartment? In Russia at least business is possible.


But this is all not really relevant to the main point. What seems to be happening is that Putin seems intent on matching whatever the Ukraine does. If the Ukraine sends in more troops then Donesk makes a draft and the Russians send in hardware and military advisers. There is not end to this scenario except not to escalate in the first place.
Don't send in more troops and then Russia will not send in more troops. And the young soldiers on both sides get to live out their normal lives instead of dying over a border which has always been fluid.