ב"ה
January 9, 2000 When Rabbi Yosef Greenberg's father found out, back in 1991, that he would be the Lubavitch emissary to Anchorage, he joked "Chabad sent me to Siberia, now they're sending you to Alaska." Rabbi Greenberg and his wife, Esther, have since been braving temperatures of 25 degrees below zero and winters that last for seven months of the year. Their reward is the opportunity to enhance Jewish life in this community of more than 3000 Jews, even if it means constantly needing to shovel snow, leaving the car running all winter and sending the children off to school each morning in pitch darkness. Living just 600 miles from the North Pole presents some unique dilemmas for Jews. During the summer months, known for the fabled "midnight sun," Shabbat does not come in until 9:40 in the evening and stars do not appear in the sky on Saturday night until about 11:45 P.M. Young children must be prodded to stay awake past bedtime to hear Kiddush, and families must wait until Sunday morning to recite Havdalah prayers together. Conversely, during Alaska's winter months its extreme northern latitude wreaks a different sort of havoc on the Jewish clock. In Anchorage, sunrise does not commence until late in the morning on Shabbat and darkness begins to set in by mid-afternoon, offering only sparse hours of sunlight. Accordingly, on a Shabbat with additional Torah readings, the morning prayers have barely ended before the Torah is again taken out, to begin the afternoon service. A nap is strictly out of the question. In other Alaskan towns further north, there are times when daylight lasts just an hour and then the night is almost 23 hours long. On Shabbat days trying to pray, read the Parshah and eat the third meal become a rigorous challenge indeed. |
