4 ms·

I don't think one can talk about Shabbas and elevators without mentioning Feynman's take[1]. [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ev3gy/excerpt_from_

by nanis 5y ago

I don't think one can talk about Shabbas and elevators without mentioning Feynman's take[1]. [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ev3gy/excerpt_from_richard_feynman_is_electricity_fire/ https://old.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ev3gy/excerpt_from... PS: I am linking to where I easily found a good quotation with enough context. It is not an argument for atheism.

TchoBeer 5y ago
Lol the Jewish Theological Seminary is definitely not Orthodox. I'm surprised they even know enough halacha to know how to explain it; maybe it's gotten less orthodox over time.
- jsmith99 5y ago
  Which is why they did not know the actual answer to his question! The answer is that God is universal but the commandment to rest on shabbos was addressed only to Jews. https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/13447/is-it-a-discouraged-or-an-unacceptable-practice-for-a-gentile-to-keep-the-sabbat https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/13447/is-it-a-di...
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    It's funny how that's not even close to a difficult question. Feynman is so impressed with their logic when a teenager could answer that question in one sentence.
vxNsr 5y ago
> While I was at the conference, I stayed at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where young rabbis--I think they were Orthodox--were studying. Since I have a Jewish background, I knew of some of the things they told me about the Talmud, but I had never seen the Talmud. It was very interesting. It's got big pages, and in a little square in the corner of the page is the original Talmud, and then in a sort of L-shaped margin, all around this square, are commentaries written by different people. The Talmud has evolved, and everything has been discussed again and again, all very carefully, in a medieval kind of reasoning. I think the commentaries were shut down around the thirteen- or fourteen- or fifteen-hundreds--there hasn't been any modern commentary. This is mostly wrong as other have pointed out. JTS is not by any estimation orthodox. At most it would be considered Jewish-conservative. I’m surprised to learn they are concerned with not pushing elevator buttons, if that was true then it’s certainly not true today. Additionally, the Talmud absolutely has commentaries from the modern era, you can find commentaries from even the 1950s. Though it does take a few years for those to make it into the book. Maybe not directly in the margin but likely sub-noted to the back of the book. I also find it hilarious that he calls it medieval logic and then admits they out foxed him at every turn in any logical debate he tried. Not to mention I could likely take down the arguments he proposes without much trouble and I’m no rabbi.
cheese_van 5y ago
Of course a professor would be pleased by a culture that valued teachers. I hope anyone would. I did some mentoring for an Asian student once. I was embarrassed by how much deference I was shown, and tried to dissuade it. "But you are my teacher!" I was a little humbled by it, and pleased, to be honest. There's an obvious downside to elevating academics to too high a moral perch, but there's a positive element that you can't discount.
- jandrese 5y ago
  It’s certainly better than denigrating them as out of touch ivory tower types.
null_deref 5y ago
It doesn't really matter whether electricity is fire or not, many of the Jewish religious rules (Halacha), are there to keep the cultural and the day to day life in a certain way (like any other religion). Allowing electricity in Shabbat will completely change the Jewish life, and the amount of impact the community has on the individual. There's another rule in the Halacha that says you must keep Shabbat different from any other day, that rule for example is one of the reasons you can't turn on your TV prior to Shabbat, and watch it without pressing buttons.
- iso1631 5y ago
  > Allowing electricity in Shabbat will completely change the Jewish life, and the amount of impact the community has on the individual. That's fine, I can respect that. Jewish life 1000 years ago did not have people getting in elevators, so with this "hack" Jewish life has changed. I find working around the spirit of the law to keep within the letter hilarious.
  - null_deref 5y ago
    https://oukosher.org/passover/articles/selling-leaven/ https://oukosher.org/passover/articles/selling-leaven/ In Passover you aren't allowed to own certain foods, you arrange a sale to a non-jewish person, you may still keep the foods locked in your house, at the end of Passover you purchase them back (You both know the sell was fictive). Jewish traditions have fascinating ideas and principals, but also those ridiculous hacks.
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  >Allowing electricity in Shabbat will completely change the Jewish life, and the amount of impact the community has on the individual. you only think this because electricity was _already_ prohibited. Imagine a world where electricity was not prohibited on shabbat (as could very well be our world if the rabbis decide it so). We would not say "electricity destroys the spirit of shabbat" because not using electricity on shabbat is only part of the spirit after it's prohibited. The reason why it was banned in the first place, as far as I could tell, was that when electricity was new incandescent lightbulbs were basically its only common application (and those are obviously ma'avir [lighting a fire]), so the rabbis of the time gave a very generalized ban on electricity which stuck.

by nanis 5y ago

TchoBeer 5y ago

Lol the Jewish Theological Seminary is definitely not Orthodox. I'm surprised they even know enough halacha to know how to explain it; maybe it's gotten less orthodox over time.

jsmith99 5y ago
Which is why they did not know the actual answer to his question! The answer is that God is universal but the commandment to rest on shabbos was addressed only to Jews. https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/13447/is-it-a-discouraged-or-an-unacceptable-practice-for-a-gentile-to-keep-the-sabbat https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/13447/is-it-a-di...
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  It's funny how that's not even close to a difficult question. Feynman is so impressed with their logic when a teenager could answer that question in one sentence.

vxNsr 5y ago

> While I was at the conference, I stayed at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where young rabbis--I think they were Orthodox--were studying. Since I have a Jewish background, I knew of some of the things they told me about the Talmud, but I had never seen the Talmud. It was very interesting. It's got big pages, and in a little square in the corner of the page is the original Talmud, and then in a sort of L-shaped margin, all around this square, are commentaries written by different people. The Talmud has evolved, and everything has been discussed again and again, all very carefully, in a medieval kind of reasoning. I think the commentaries were shut down around the thirteen- or fourteen- or fifteen-hundreds--there hasn't been any modern commentary. This is mostly wrong as other have pointed out. JTS is not by any estimation orthodox. At most it would be considered Jewish-conservative. I’m surprised to learn they are concerned with not pushing elevator buttons, if that was true then it’s certainly not true today. Additionally, the Talmud absolutely has commentaries from the modern era, you can find commentaries from even the 1950s. Though it does take a few years for those to make it into the book. Maybe not directly in the margin but likely sub-noted to the back of the book. I also find it hilarious that he calls it medieval logic and then admits they out foxed him at every turn in any logical debate he tried. Not to mention I could likely take down the arguments he proposes without much trouble and I’m no rabbi.

cheese_van 5y ago

Of course a professor would be pleased by a culture that valued teachers. I hope anyone would. I did some mentoring for an Asian student once. I was embarrassed by how much deference I was shown, and tried to dissuade it. "But you are my teacher!" I was a little humbled by it, and pleased, to be honest. There's an obvious downside to elevating academics to too high a moral perch, but there's a positive element that you can't discount.

jandrese 5y ago
It’s certainly better than denigrating them as out of touch ivory tower types.

null_deref 5y ago

It doesn't really matter whether electricity is fire or not, many of the Jewish religious rules (Halacha), are there to keep the cultural and the day to day life in a certain way (like any other religion). Allowing electricity in Shabbat will completely change the Jewish life, and the amount of impact the community has on the individual. There's another rule in the Halacha that says you must keep Shabbat different from any other day, that rule for example is one of the reasons you can't turn on your TV prior to Shabbat, and watch it without pressing buttons.

iso1631 5y ago
> Allowing electricity in Shabbat will completely change the Jewish life, and the amount of impact the community has on the individual. That's fine, I can respect that. Jewish life 1000 years ago did not have people getting in elevators, so with this "hack" Jewish life has changed. I find working around the spirit of the law to keep within the letter hilarious.
- null_deref 5y ago
  https://oukosher.org/passover/articles/selling-leaven/ https://oukosher.org/passover/articles/selling-leaven/ In Passover you aren't allowed to own certain foods, you arrange a sale to a non-jewish person, you may still keep the foods locked in your house, at the end of Passover you purchase them back (You both know the sell was fictive). Jewish traditions have fascinating ideas and principals, but also those ridiculous hacks.
TchoBeer 5y ago
>Allowing electricity in Shabbat will completely change the Jewish life, and the amount of impact the community has on the individual. you only think this because electricity was _already_ prohibited. Imagine a world where electricity was not prohibited on shabbat (as could very well be our world if the rabbis decide it so). We would not say "electricity destroys the spirit of shabbat" because not using electricity on shabbat is only part of the spirit after it's prohibited. The reason why it was banned in the first place, as far as I could tell, was that when electricity was new incandescent lightbulbs were basically its only common application (and those are obviously ma'avir [lighting a fire]), so the rabbis of the time gave a very generalized ban on electricity which stuck.