How often do you find yourself in the situation where you are on a flight across timezones and you just don’t know exactly when to daven. Sure you could fudge it by calculating the approximate time, but what if you miss the zman by 30 seconds? The consequences are significant actually. God could miss your prayers, and if He gets angry with you, He could crash the plane. My advice: better get the time right if you want to walk on the ground before you are resting 6 feet in it.
Thanks to the clever ingenuity and dedication on the part of people who really care about zmanim, there is a solution. You can join the Mile Chai club by downloading the Chai tables for your next flight. I suggest getting the Pro version, since it’s more frum and it supports the GPS tracking device that allows you to be even more accurate than anyone else on the flight who might be davening one or two minutes before shkiah based on where your plane is, exactly.
It is important to note that sometimes airplanes deviate slightly from the most efficient path between two airports. So you cannot rely upon your own calculations, lest your airplane is slightly off course, and your tefilot will be delivered just a few moments off of the exact time. Don’t take a chance. You need accuracy. God needs accuracy. Your fellow passengers are counting on it.
You might ask — how could frum people have created this program? it obviously requires some math skills? Wonder no more, no bucherim had to learn math at all (B”H), instead the algorithms were calculated by Professor John K. Hall — a goy. Thankfully we find that non-Jews save the day, yet again. Thank you Professor Hall for ensuring that we don’t need to understand math, but could use the detailed calculations based on chazal (many of whom thought the world was flat) to figure out how to daven at 35,000 ft in the air, like Hashem intended.
You might ask — how could a frum person put up a website to sell anything in the first place? Wonder no more as “special permission from a high rabbinical authority (who requested anonymity) was given to the author” allowing him to create a website — but don’t worry he disclaims that “My use of the Internet does not imply any consent of that media by rabbinical authorities.” We have to love the transparency and honesty that the gedolim are instilling in our enterprising youth.
Next time you are traveling, and you don’t want to get lost for 40 years, or miss davening k’vasikin by 40 minutes, or even 40 miles from the lat/long coordinates, take the Chai Tables with you. Because you can never be too anal-retentive when it comes to zmanim.
Photo Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-consortium/7238818732/
Editor’s note: There are way too many men out there who post pictures of their “time-piece” being used as a natural sundial on the beach. Shame on you.
Find other way-too-frum-for-me software on 4Torah.com