6 ms·

It is something I never understood: why the practice of finding creative ways of getting around laws of the very religion you claim to adhere to is generally ac

It is something I never understood: why the practice of finding creative ways of getting around laws of the very religion you claim to adhere to is generally accepted in Judaism. While undoubtedly charming, by paying someone to speak the Kaddish for one year instead of yourself, or paying a Shabbes Goy to push buttons on your behalf just outsources your religious duties. Having the elevator stop at every floor even the opposite effect achieved than the spirit of the law intends: more energy is consumed on Shabbes than on other days. Why not be honest to yourself and admit that you actually don't care so much about the Laws?

smsm42 5y ago
It's not about consumption of energy. Shabbat in Judaism is not an energy saving measure, it's a religious ceremony. Judaism is big on doing things differently for a reason (one could probably write a PhD thesis on it) and Shabbat is one of those where the different thing is avoiding making changes in the world. Of course, as with many major religions, everybody finds their own meanings within the framework.
- croes 5y ago
  Not making changes in the world? The make a lot of changes before so they don't have to do them on shabbat. They make actually more changes than without shabbat, and in this case even more environmental damage.
  - reissbaker 5y ago
    There is a strict and particular set of rules and while "not making changes on the Sabbath" is a useful metaphor, it doesn't perfectly capture the rules or why specific workarounds are permissible and others aren't. The core set of rules comes from specific actions that were banned in the ancient Tabernacle on the Sabbath. Electricity use is not banned per se on the Sabbath (as electricity was not discovered several thousand years ago); instead, the core law of "do not fix things on the Sabbath" was ruled to ban completing circuits on the Sabbath once electricity became widespread; similarly, "do not break things on the Sabbath" covers breaking a circuit. The rules only cover actions performed by Jews during the Sabbath; they don't cover actions taken on other days even if those actions result in changes on the Sabbath, so for example setting up a timer to turn lights on or off is permissible as long as you set it up prior to the Sabbath. Ditto for these kinds of elevators. The Sabbath rules have pretty much nothing to do with environmentalism or energy use.
    - skytreader 5y ago
      I'm not a religious scholar but these interpretations: - "do not fix things on the Sabbath" ban[s] completing circuits - "do not break things on the Sabbath" covers breaking a circuit sound extremely convoluted to me. A switch's express purpose is to break and complete circuits to direct current. It is part of the object's usage, part of the creator's intent on the object's utility. It has modes of operation where the circuit is broken and complete by design. The saner interpretation of this law IMO would be along the lines of "if a switch got stuck on a Sabbath, good luck on the energy bill, mate". I have one of those trash cans with a pedal that opens the lid. It is a switch but none of it is electronic. Are Jews not allowed to operate these contraptions on a Sabbath too? It arguably introduces a break in the object, namely the opening for the trash can. Heck, does Jewish law even allow opening trash cans on a Sabbath, at all? By such broad applicability, the only difference between any lidded trash can (a closed object most of the time) and an electric circuit is the presence/absence of current. Can a Jew unlock padlocks on a Sabbath? What about opening doors? (FINAL NOTE: HN mostly has charged---pun intended---discussions over things we deem ridiculous. Such discussion is NOT my intent here. I know J. Random Netizen like me isn't going to change Jewish culture in two paragraphs. I just wanted to waste actuations of my mechanical keyboard to register my astonishment and confusion over this interpretation.)
      - TchoBeer 5y ago
        >sound extremely convoluted to me. A switch's express purpose is to break and complete circuits to direct current. It is part of the object's usage, part of the creator's intent on the object's utility. It has modes of operation where the circuit is broken and complete by design. This is an excellent point and is a big reason why a lot of rabbis would not give "building" as an answer. Another answer commonly given is that electricity is like fire (made a lot more sense when "electricity" was 99.9% stuff like starting your car with a spark and incandescent lightbulbs) and lighting a fire is prohibited; this doesn't really hold much water anymore. Another reason given is that there's a rabbinic prohibition on "creating", but that doesn't really work because, like you said, all electric appliances are made to be turned off too. Basically electricity on the sabbath is pretty weak as far as prohibitions go and any explanation you hear for why it's banned will always be post-hoc, and the real reason why it's banned is because rabbis are afraid that letting people use electricity will "destroy the spirit of shabbat" (but they can't actually say that's the only reason because it's not strong enough to prohibit it). In fact, on holidays (like passover and the like) the prohibition becomes much, much weaker (to the point where some poskim say that turning on and off LED lights is permitted, among other things.)
  - smsm42 5y ago
    I'm not sure what is your point. Nobody is trying to convince you to follow Judaism. In fact, it is customary to strongly discourage anybody who wants to convert. If it doesn't make sense to you, it's ok, it's not supposed to. I'm just trying to explain how those who follow it see it. If you're not interested, well, you're welcome to not being educated.
  - sevrinsky 5y ago
    I would phrase the Shabbat prohibitions as "creative work", modeled after the days of creation and the creative labor of building the Tabernacle. The 39 general categories of labor have been documented for millennia, and are applied as the archetypes for technical usage in the modern world.
shimfish 5y ago
Where do you get the idea that the spirit of the law is not to consume more energy? Is this something you've studied? Why not be honest to yourself and admit you've literally no idea what the laws are?
slg 5y ago
>Why not be honest to yourself and admit that you actually don't care so much about the Laws? The the following obviously isn't universal since people have different approaches to their faith, but I would argue the exact opposite. Many people don't do this because they are dishonest or because they don't care about these laws. They do this because they are honest with themselves and they do care about these laws. Modern society is now setup in such a way as to often give people a choice between living a modern lifestyle or living strictly by laws written thousands of years ago before this life was possible. If presented with the choice between breaking these law and having that lifestyle, people chose to be honest with themselves and adopt that modern lifestyle. However the laws are so important that they must be maintained even if that maintenance now only exists in a symbolic way. That is how you might get people that maintain these seemingly bizarre workarounds. They are able to live a more normal life while constantly reinforcing and reminding themselves of the importance of their religion. Some believe that this dedication in pleasing God might be just as if not even more important than following some law written thousands of years ago as strictly as possible.
orisho 5y ago
I'm from Israel, and while I don't personally abide by any religious rules, I do come into contact with people who do and have an idea: it is important to understand that most people do not follow these rules as a functional method to achieve some goal. For example, it's not like they're actively thinking "oh if I press this button on Sabbath then I'll go to hell, and I wanna go to heaven so I won't". Instead, they're following these rules as a social decree. In their circles, it is the obvious and accepted thing to do to follow these rules, which the community's leading Rabbi sets (or well, gives guidelines which are socially considered binding). If you don't follow the rules, then you're a weird one, and religious communities tend not to be accepting of the different, so they will shun you for turning on the light on Sabbath (if you keep doing it..) So for one born into a religious community, you're taught to do so and there is a strong social incentive to do so: if you don't, you're first branded an odd one, and in some cases shunned, depending on how severe your straying off the path is. If you were told that were you to use the elevator normally, your parents would be very upset with you and may stop talking to you altogether, you'd think about it twice, even if you don't personally feel that you want to follow Judaism. Finally, the religious authorities have a power incentive to do this: by setting rules and maintaining their position as the authorities who set rules, they keep a lot of power over a large number of people. Often this even manifests financially, as a respected religious authority can give Kosher certificates (and many products which are not food, like phones, can also be Kosher) - of course, the certification costs money, just like a SOC2 audit. Same goes for Sabbath certified electric devices - someone gave their stamp of approval, and the developer paid for it. So to summarize - religious authorities enjoy power and money by being those who set the rules, everyday people have a strong social incentive to follow the rules as breaking them is taboo. I think about it like following requirements set by certain certifications. Not all requirements make sense in every context - sometimes you may feel silly complying, knowing you're doing it just to check a box, even though there's no practical value to it. But there is a value to passing the audit and getting the certificate saying you comply from EY or whoever, so you abide by the requirements, even when they don't make sense, so you can show your ~Kosher~ ISO certificate when you need to. I'd like to point out that this isn't all there is to it - there are very obviously other incentives to do things this way (e.g. personal belief), but I'm just trying to make an analogy with terms from the HNer's day to day to show why you might follow religious rules even if you're (say) a teenager who doesn't care one bit.
adrianN 5y ago
If you believe that the laws are the literal word of God, it doesn't seem to be much of a stretch to argue that God would've worded it differently if the loopholes weren't meant to be there.
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  The laws aren't the literal word of God though, because a lot of them come from the rabbis. The problem is that we don't have the rabbinic authority to overturn laws that don't apply anymore, so we're stuck with what we have a little bit.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    we don't have the rabbinic authority As a former LDS/Mormon (now effectively humanist/atheist), this concept of authority is pretty interesting. One of our core lessons when I was a missionary was that God's authority was lost from the Earth, and had to be restored by a new line of prophets. Some of my fellow missionaries enjoyed discussing this with messianic Jews in the area, sharing interpretations back and forth. So in Judaism, are there tiers of rulemaking authority? Could a rabbi override a previous rabbi, but not a prophet?
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      The important bit is that an individual rabbi cannot overturn anything; the power comes from a legislative entity called "The Sanhedrin". However, in order to be part of the sanhedrin you need to be ordained by another member of the sanhedrin and at some point (unknown exactly when, possibly around the year 400) this lineage was lost. The idea of overturning a prophet doesn't really matter though, because as far as I know we don't get laws from the prophets (except Moses obviously).
TchoBeer 5y ago
You're not "getting around the laws" you're following the laws.

smsm42 5y ago

It's not about consumption of energy. Shabbat in Judaism is not an energy saving measure, it's a religious ceremony. Judaism is big on doing things differently for a reason (one could probably write a PhD thesis on it) and Shabbat is one of those where the different thing is avoiding making changes in the world. Of course, as with many major religions, everybody finds their own meanings within the framework.

croes 5y ago
Not making changes in the world? The make a lot of changes before so they don't have to do them on shabbat. They make actually more changes than without shabbat, and in this case even more environmental damage.
- reissbaker 5y ago
  There is a strict and particular set of rules and while "not making changes on the Sabbath" is a useful metaphor, it doesn't perfectly capture the rules or why specific workarounds are permissible and others aren't. The core set of rules comes from specific actions that were banned in the ancient Tabernacle on the Sabbath. Electricity use is not banned per se on the Sabbath (as electricity was not discovered several thousand years ago); instead, the core law of "do not fix things on the Sabbath" was ruled to ban completing circuits on the Sabbath once electricity became widespread; similarly, "do not break things on the Sabbath" covers breaking a circuit. The rules only cover actions performed by Jews during the Sabbath; they don't cover actions taken on other days even if those actions result in changes on the Sabbath, so for example setting up a timer to turn lights on or off is permissible as long as you set it up prior to the Sabbath. Ditto for these kinds of elevators. The Sabbath rules have pretty much nothing to do with environmentalism or energy use.
  - skytreader 5y ago
    I'm not a religious scholar but these interpretations: - "do not fix things on the Sabbath" ban[s] completing circuits - "do not break things on the Sabbath" covers breaking a circuit sound extremely convoluted to me. A switch's express purpose is to break and complete circuits to direct current. It is part of the object's usage, part of the creator's intent on the object's utility. It has modes of operation where the circuit is broken and complete by design. The saner interpretation of this law IMO would be along the lines of "if a switch got stuck on a Sabbath, good luck on the energy bill, mate". I have one of those trash cans with a pedal that opens the lid. It is a switch but none of it is electronic. Are Jews not allowed to operate these contraptions on a Sabbath too? It arguably introduces a break in the object, namely the opening for the trash can. Heck, does Jewish law even allow opening trash cans on a Sabbath, at all? By such broad applicability, the only difference between any lidded trash can (a closed object most of the time) and an electric circuit is the presence/absence of current. Can a Jew unlock padlocks on a Sabbath? What about opening doors? (FINAL NOTE: HN mostly has charged---pun intended---discussions over things we deem ridiculous. Such discussion is NOT my intent here. I know J. Random Netizen like me isn't going to change Jewish culture in two paragraphs. I just wanted to waste actuations of my mechanical keyboard to register my astonishment and confusion over this interpretation.)
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      >sound extremely convoluted to me. A switch's express purpose is to break and complete circuits to direct current. It is part of the object's usage, part of the creator's intent on the object's utility. It has modes of operation where the circuit is broken and complete by design. This is an excellent point and is a big reason why a lot of rabbis would not give "building" as an answer. Another answer commonly given is that electricity is like fire (made a lot more sense when "electricity" was 99.9% stuff like starting your car with a spark and incandescent lightbulbs) and lighting a fire is prohibited; this doesn't really hold much water anymore. Another reason given is that there's a rabbinic prohibition on "creating", but that doesn't really work because, like you said, all electric appliances are made to be turned off too. Basically electricity on the sabbath is pretty weak as far as prohibitions go and any explanation you hear for why it's banned will always be post-hoc, and the real reason why it's banned is because rabbis are afraid that letting people use electricity will "destroy the spirit of shabbat" (but they can't actually say that's the only reason because it's not strong enough to prohibit it). In fact, on holidays (like passover and the like) the prohibition becomes much, much weaker (to the point where some poskim say that turning on and off LED lights is permitted, among other things.)
- smsm42 5y ago
  I'm not sure what is your point. Nobody is trying to convince you to follow Judaism. In fact, it is customary to strongly discourage anybody who wants to convert. If it doesn't make sense to you, it's ok, it's not supposed to. I'm just trying to explain how those who follow it see it. If you're not interested, well, you're welcome to not being educated.
- sevrinsky 5y ago
  I would phrase the Shabbat prohibitions as "creative work", modeled after the days of creation and the creative labor of building the Tabernacle. The 39 general categories of labor have been documented for millennia, and are applied as the archetypes for technical usage in the modern world.

shimfish 5y ago

Where do you get the idea that the spirit of the law is not to consume more energy? Is this something you've studied? Why not be honest to yourself and admit you've literally no idea what the laws are?

slg 5y ago

>Why not be honest to yourself and admit that you actually don't care so much about the Laws? The the following obviously isn't universal since people have different approaches to their faith, but I would argue the exact opposite. Many people don't do this because they are dishonest or because they don't care about these laws. They do this because they are honest with themselves and they do care about these laws. Modern society is now setup in such a way as to often give people a choice between living a modern lifestyle or living strictly by laws written thousands of years ago before this life was possible. If presented with the choice between breaking these law and having that lifestyle, people chose to be honest with themselves and adopt that modern lifestyle. However the laws are so important that they must be maintained even if that maintenance now only exists in a symbolic way. That is how you might get people that maintain these seemingly bizarre workarounds. They are able to live a more normal life while constantly reinforcing and reminding themselves of the importance of their religion. Some believe that this dedication in pleasing God might be just as if not even more important than following some law written thousands of years ago as strictly as possible.

orisho 5y ago

I'm from Israel, and while I don't personally abide by any religious rules, I do come into contact with people who do and have an idea: it is important to understand that most people do not follow these rules as a functional method to achieve some goal. For example, it's not like they're actively thinking "oh if I press this button on Sabbath then I'll go to hell, and I wanna go to heaven so I won't". Instead, they're following these rules as a social decree. In their circles, it is the obvious and accepted thing to do to follow these rules, which the community's leading Rabbi sets (or well, gives guidelines which are socially considered binding). If you don't follow the rules, then you're a weird one, and religious communities tend not to be accepting of the different, so they will shun you for turning on the light on Sabbath (if you keep doing it..) So for one born into a religious community, you're taught to do so and there is a strong social incentive to do so: if you don't, you're first branded an odd one, and in some cases shunned, depending on how severe your straying off the path is. If you were told that were you to use the elevator normally, your parents would be very upset with you and may stop talking to you altogether, you'd think about it twice, even if you don't personally feel that you want to follow Judaism. Finally, the religious authorities have a power incentive to do this: by setting rules and maintaining their position as the authorities who set rules, they keep a lot of power over a large number of people. Often this even manifests financially, as a respected religious authority can give Kosher certificates (and many products which are not food, like phones, can also be Kosher) - of course, the certification costs money, just like a SOC2 audit. Same goes for Sabbath certified electric devices - someone gave their stamp of approval, and the developer paid for it. So to summarize - religious authorities enjoy power and money by being those who set the rules, everyday people have a strong social incentive to follow the rules as breaking them is taboo. I think about it like following requirements set by certain certifications. Not all requirements make sense in every context - sometimes you may feel silly complying, knowing you're doing it just to check a box, even though there's no practical value to it. But there is a value to passing the audit and getting the certificate saying you comply from EY or whoever, so you abide by the requirements, even when they don't make sense, so you can show your ~Kosher~ ISO certificate when you need to. I'd like to point out that this isn't all there is to it - there are very obviously other incentives to do things this way (e.g. personal belief), but I'm just trying to make an analogy with terms from the HNer's day to day to show why you might follow religious rules even if you're (say) a teenager who doesn't care one bit.

adrianN 5y ago

If you believe that the laws are the literal word of God, it doesn't seem to be much of a stretch to argue that God would've worded it differently if the loopholes weren't meant to be there.

TchoBeer 5y ago
The laws aren't the literal word of God though, because a lot of them come from the rabbis. The problem is that we don't have the rabbinic authority to overturn laws that don't apply anymore, so we're stuck with what we have a little bit.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  we don't have the rabbinic authority As a former LDS/Mormon (now effectively humanist/atheist), this concept of authority is pretty interesting. One of our core lessons when I was a missionary was that God's authority was lost from the Earth, and had to be restored by a new line of prophets. Some of my fellow missionaries enjoyed discussing this with messianic Jews in the area, sharing interpretations back and forth. So in Judaism, are there tiers of rulemaking authority? Could a rabbi override a previous rabbi, but not a prophet?
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    The important bit is that an individual rabbi cannot overturn anything; the power comes from a legislative entity called "The Sanhedrin". However, in order to be part of the sanhedrin you need to be ordained by another member of the sanhedrin and at some point (unknown exactly when, possibly around the year 400) this lineage was lost. The idea of overturning a prophet doesn't really matter though, because as far as I know we don't get laws from the prophets (except Moses obviously).

TchoBeer 5y ago

You're not "getting around the laws" you're following the laws.