3 ms·
Well, maybe. I don't understand the argument that you are "doing work" when a light automatically comes on for you in the first place. I can see arguing that op
by gweinberg 12y ago
Well, maybe. I don't understand the argument that you are "doing work" when a light automatically comes on for you in the first place. I can see arguing that opening a refrigerator is work, or that it isn't, but I can't see coming to a different conclusion if a light comes on when you open it. I would have made a crappy rabbi.
- krebby 12y agoThe act of turning on an oven or opening a refrigerator isn't "doing work", but igniting a fire (and by extension completing a circuit) is.
- ScottBurson 12y ago> I would have made a crappy rabbi. Me too. When someone asked me whether such-and-so was work, I would have just said, "Use your judgment. If it feels like work, it's work."
- ars 12y agoWork is not a correct translation though. You can carry heavy furniture in your house, but not a feather on the street. And the reason for that is that it's not about work, but about creative action.
- reuven 12y agoThe term "work" is a very inaccurate (but popular) translation of the Jewish legal term, "melacha." There are certain categories of said "work," and rabbis throughout the ages have tried to figure out how to apply those terms to new situations and inventions. Whether operating electric lights is work is a new problem, but boiling water and cooking have been forbidden by Jewish law for at least 2,000 years.
- ars 12y ago> that you are "doing work" That's because work is not the correct translation. A better translation is "creative activity", i.e. creating things, like light. God stopped creating the world on the Sabbath, so Jews also stop creating things (and there is a specific list of what is included).