Fwd: How Daylight Saving Time Affects You as an Orthodox Jew

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: The Agudah <news@agudah.org>
Date: Sat, Nov 1, 2025, 7:10 PM
Subject: How Daylight Saving Time Affects You as an Orthodox Jew
To: <agentemes4@gmail.com>

Do you like changing the clock?

How Daylight Saving Time Affects You as an Orthodox Jew  Imagine if sunrise was at 8 or 9 AM? How would that affect the daily minyanim in your shul? And how would it affect the ability of Orthodox Jews to get to work or school on time when davening times are so late? If Daylight Saving Time (DST) were made permanent that would be the case for many Jewish communities across the United States.   As we "fall back" tonight it is important to know the implications of permanent DST.   Perhaps the biggest problem for the Jewish community if DST were made permanent would be the effect on tefillah. Sunrise in some places in the US would be after 9 am for weeks during the winter and after 8 am for much longer (click here to view chart). Some shuls and cities would struggle to get a morning minyan and many people would struggle to be able to daven with a minyan or even daven at all for those needing to arrive to work early. Another problem with permanent DST is that it would cause many children to have to travel to school in the dark. In fact, in the 1970's Congress repealed a law that had made DST permanent due to numerous reported incidents of children being injured as they traveled to school in the pitch-black streets.   In 1971 Harav Hagaon R' Moshe Feinstein, zt'l, sent a teshuva to then-Agudath Israel President Rabbi Moshe Sherer, addressing the issue during an earlier legislative attempt to make DST permanent. Pointing out the difficulties regarding proper davening facing those who go to work, Rabbi Feinstein wrote that it is clear that we must fight against such a bill with every means of advocacy – and that it constitutes a "gezeirah mamash al hatefila lirai Hashem Yisborach." "A real decree on prayer for those who fear G-d.""  Click here to view. In recent years there has been a push to make DST permanent and as in the past, Agudath Israel played a leading role in making known the unique and disruptive challenges permanent DST would present to the Orthodox Jewish community, thereby stunting its progress on Capitol Hill. This past week US Senator Tom Cotton (AR) blocked an attempt to advance the Sunshine Protection Act that would have allowed states to make DST permanent. A number of years ago Senator Cotton told a group of Agudah leaders that he promised to block any such effort as long as he was in the US Senate and we thanked him this week for keeping his word.

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