“I’m sorry. I’ll do better.” Yom Kippur, 5783.
A Calendrics Blog Post.
A 2022 Anniversaries in Canadian Science and Technology Blog Post.
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 / Erev Yom Kippur 5783, Yom rishon, 9 Tishrei, 5783.
David Orenstein, Emeritus, Danforth CTI,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
david.orenstein@alumni.utoronto.ca
This evening, after sunset (6:35 pm EDT in Toronto), I’ll be walking to my neighbourhood synagogue. It will be for an in-person, but masked, Kol Nidrei, 5783. That’s the evening service of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It’s also the beginning of a 24 hour fast that lasts the entire Jewish day of 10 Tishrei, that is from sunset on October 4 to sunset on October 5.
[The “Candle-Lighting Times” can be found in my The Jewish Museum 2023 Calendar which runs from Elul 5782, up to and including Tevet 5784; that is, from September 2022 to December 2023. You can find the same information in any other Jewish calendar.
[You can find sunset for your town in Canada by consulting the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Observer’s Handbook 2022. It’s the section “Times of Sunrise and Sunset”, p 201 – 203.
[Using these tables, it’s a simple calculation. But that’s another story.]
We will confess our sins, both individual and collective, pray for forgiveness, and resolve to do better (teshuvah) in 5783. The Shofar will be blown, as it was on Rosh ha-Shonah.
Come the morning of Yom Kippur, we will return to synagogue for the full Service of Atonement, which includes Yizkor, when we remember departed loved ones.
I’ll be honouring family members, but also University of Toronto (U of T) mathematician Chandler Davis, who died just before Rosh Ha-Shonah, at age 96. See the University’s “In Memoriam” web-page in the Links section below.
Both before and after our morning Yom Kippur service, I’ll be enjoying the wonders of Creation, especially the incipient fall colours from three of our neighbourhood’s may fine parks: Riverdale Park, Withrow Park, and the Chester Hill Lookout.
From the Lookout, you can see the Don Valley Brickworks, where U of T’s A.P. Coleman did his ground-breaking work on the Pleistocene Glaciations, establishing a Type Section at the Brickworks.
Coleman was one of the leading organisers of the 12th International Geological Congress (IGC) that was hosted by U of T in August 1913. That Congress basked in the glow of a warm scientific internationalism, with delegates welcomed from such countries as the United Kingdom, the German Reich, Tsarist Russia, the polyglot Austria-Hungary, IIIrd Republic France, the multi-religious Ottoman Empire, etc.
By August 1914, these countries were at each other’s throats on the battlefields of World War I.
But that, too, is another story.
Shortly after Yom Kippur we’ll be celebrating Simchat Torah (“Rejoicing with the Torah”) on Yom shlishi, 23 Tishrei, 5783, i.e. Monday – Tuesday, October 17 – 18, 2022. That’s when, once more, we begin the yearly cycle of Torah readings.
As I said in my previous post:
“The first Parshah (weekly reading) is Bereshit (“In the Beginning”): Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 1; to Chapter 6, Verse 8.”
The Parshah begins with the Creation, upon which the entire science of Geology is a commentary. I’m very happy that my first post-Yom Kippur scholarly appearance will be in the online roundtable, “History of all the International Geological Congresses”.
There’ll be two talks from the time of the warm scientific internationalism before World War I:
1888, 4th IGC, London, the imperial capital of the world-embracing British Empire.
1903, 9th IGC, Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire.
One from the inter-war period:
1922, 13th IGC, Brussels, Belgium, newly liberated by the Allies from the wartime occupation by the armies of the German Reich.
Two from the Cold War period:
1968, 23rd IGC, Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the Warsaw Pact invasion.
1972, 24th IGC, Montréal, Québec, Canada. Montréal sessions immediately prior to the 1972 USSR-Canada Hockey Series.
And finally, two from the Post-Soviet period:
1992, 29th IGC, Kyoto, Japan.
1996, 30th IGC, Beijing, China.
Of course, I’ll be delivering the paper on the 1972 Montréal IGC.
The panel will be on Saturday, October 8, (Shabbat, 13 Tishrei) at 1:30 pm. But that’s 1:30 pm Central European Daylight Time. They’re six hours ahead of us, so the start time in Toronto will be 7:30 am EDT.
That’s 9:00 am NDT, in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador; in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 8:30 am ADT; Rimouski, Québec, also on EDT, 7:30 am, just like me, as it is in Thunder Bay, on the west side of the Eastern Time Zone.
Out to the West Cost, live viewing becomes even more difficult:
6:30 am in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CDT.
5:30 am in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CST.
5:30 am in Edmonton, Alberta, MDT.
5:30 am in Calgary, Alberta, MDT, and also the launch pad for the 1972 IGC Excursion C-03.
4:30 am in Vancouver, British Columbia, PDT.
4:30 am in Victoria, British Columbia, PDT, the final stop on the itinerary of C-03 in 1972.
Because of time zone differences, the speakers from Japan and China will be delivering their talks after 9:30 pm and 8:30 pm, respectively.
But that’s another story!
Links
1. The University of Toronto’s October 3, 2022, “In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus H. Chandler Davis (1926-2022)”.
https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/memoriam-professor-emeritus-h-chandler-davis-1926-2022
2. Chester Hill Lookout. Photos #8 – #11, #11 is the view of the Don Valley Brickworks
https://www.torontourbangems.com/post/an-off-the-beaten-track-neighbourhood-with-a-view
3. Saturday, October 8, 2022, Roundtable: “Histories of the International Geological Congresses”.
https://iugs60.org/history-of-geological-sciences/
4. INHIGEO.
5. More IUGS 60th anniversary celebrations.
Bibliography
James S. Edgar (ed.), 2021, Observer’s Handbook 2022, The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto. iii + 352 pp.