Reply To: 7th Hour Kiddush During Permanent DST

“Neville, the problem with “secular” midnight is not that it is goyish, but it is not based on any physical event.”
I wasn’t replying to you. That was in response to square root’s Santa-tirade.

“So, you are trying to be traditional and follow a minhag and then tie it to a totally artificial convention.”
Did you think this was my chiddush? There are people who keep the minhag as such. I was just commenting on it, not inventing it.

“As to the main sugya, it may be that both following and ignoring mazalos have respectable traditions.”
100% We aren’t handling is which minhag is superior here. Well, one person is trying to, but that wasn’t the point of this thread. Also, holding that we aren’t controlled by mazalos does not immediately mean that one should be mevatel the minhag. Anyone who has it should keep doing it regardless of hashkafic reservations. I would say the same to people who have the minhag of adjusting for DST, but not for longitude, which I’m not zocheh to understand, but that doesn’t mean I think they should abandon it.

“I think he is also on firm ground if he follow Rambam on this.”
No. Saying that we aren’t controlled by mazalos and therefore shouldn’t keep this minhag is not denying chazal (albeit it’s disrespectful the way he worded it). However, saying that mazalos are a goyish concept that have no basis in Torah and don’t exist at all is absolutely denying explicit gemaras. There’s no rishon to bail him out of that.

“There are no winners in this debate. Either you can hold that it does not matter what the center is, or if you think there is a center, you should go to the center of the galactic or to from the place all galactics are moving away from.”
Agreed. I also see no evidence in that gemara that it matters what revolves around what. As far as modern scientific knowledge goes, neither of the two options is correct, so there’s no real reason to posken like Copernicus.