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I grew up with Orthodox Judaism and wrote my Bar Mitzva speech on Jewish law governing the usage of electricity on Shabbat. It was a surprising endeavor through
by solatic 3y ago
I grew up with Orthodox Judaism and wrote my Bar Mitzva speech on Jewish law governing the usage of electricity on Shabbat. It was a surprising endeavor through "well this was only valid back when vacuum tubes were used" and turned into "the rabbis who wrote the original responsa wrote absolute responsa, and now we respect their decisions". Now, the Orthodox community makes it a point of pride that they "disconnect" on Shabbat, in spite of the fact that it is not part of the list of the 39 Labors that are forbidden on Shabbat, and in spite of other parts of Jewish law about not introducing new restrictions over time.
When discussing religious matters - even when there's supposed to be some kind of logic involved, really, underneath, these are emotional decisions. Today it is simply a part of how a community defines itself. A local community makes these decisions together, or not at all, or individual members leave. I imagine Amish communities are similar.
- sircastor 3y agoAs a tangent, I learned a few years ago that my oven has a Sabbath mode, intended to help observant folks keep the sabbath. It’s an interesting feature and I wonder how it started being implemented in appliances.
- 082349872349872 3y agoMany elevators also have sabbath mode. (my understanding is that the intersection of the companies that (a) are hardcore orthodox, and (b) want to run servers, simply hire muslim or other sysops, so they can deal with a machine going down on the sabbath)
- rightbyte 3y agoWhat exactly does the Sabbath mode do? Run the whole day?
- kjellsbells 3y agoBroadly, yes. You program it beforehand to come on and stay on all thru the day (think of it like a slow cooker), and, ancillary functions, like the light coming on if you open the door, are disabled.
- reissbaker 3y agoIt prevents the light from going on or off when you open the door; allows you to keep it set without auto-shutoff; and doesn't immediately respond to temperature change button presses, and only checks them on a set schedule (this last feature is generally accepted amongst Orthodox Jews as allowed for holidays — "Chag" — but not for Shabbat).
- usrusr 3y agoQuestion is how will it go when someone does decide to say goodbye to the community rules. Will family be under peer pressure to try keeping them aligned and break off all contact if they fail? Those "community made decisions" can be seriously one way street affairs... I wonder if the following pattern can be observed: assuming that decisions are effectively not made by the community, but by some high status heads (whose decisionmaking privilege can be formal or not formal at all), then in a community with very fluid status, you'd see a self-radicalizing effect of status candidates trying to outdo each other one zealotry. Whereas in a community where status is not fluid at all (aristocracy in everything but name, or some formal education) decisionmakers would be much more at liberty to go soft. Is there a name for this?
- wkat4242 3y agoYeah even in Holland that's a problem. We have some calvinist villages where it's really not done to wash your car on Sunday "because god rested on Sunday" even if you don't subscribe to their harsh religion :( Also I've heard some terrible things from jehova witnesses who got shunned by their entire family after speaking up against the group of elders called the "lighthouse" or something. One of my friends got really screwed up by that. These communities are not at all healthy IMO and they force things that are supposed to be left to the democratic government.
- aebtebeten 3y agoMy understanding is that amish „Gelassenheit“ and the orthodox melakhah of בורר are similar (as are both to taoistic 非常道) in that one should take things as they come.