cellio | electricity

Entry tags:

halacha,
shabbat

electricity

There are halachic issues with using electricity on Shabbat, but some Conservative authorities permit it. I have sometimes wondered about the reasoning to determine what is and is not permittted; is the Conservative rabbi who turns lights on and off on Shabbat acting within that halacha? Here's another small bit to add to the data pile.

From Rabbi Simcha Roth, Rabbincal Assembly in Israel (Masorti):

"... However, those Conservative authorities that permit the making and breaking of an electric circuit on Shabbat and YomTov did not and do not intend to permit the use of electricity for any purpose which is directly prohibited by Torah. Thus, accepting that halakhah follows Tanna Kamma, while they permit the making and breaking of a circuit they would not permit the electricity thus released from being used, say, to cook food on Shabbat."

(From RMSG April 22nd 2002 / Iyyar 10th 5762 [Pesachim 82])

I'll read the discussion of this mishna more thoroughly later; I was just skimming email and saw this go by. There doesn't seem to be more discussion of this particular point, but I could have missed it. (The mishna is nomially about how to cook the Pesach lamb, but as with all talmudic discussion, tangents abound.)

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One possibility is to use fluorescent lights, but not incandescent. My rabbi was actually talking about this a while back during his class, where he spoke about the fact that heating metal until it glows is actually spoken about as a forbidden activity in the talmud, while the excitation of gas molecules to a higher energy level from which they fluorese (please excuse my spelling, I don't have time to look it up, sigh) is, strangely enough, not mentioned anywhere in the talmud.

Not that this is exactly what I do, but like you said: another data point.

but does using flourescent vs. incandescent negate the argument that you are creating and destroying a circuit when you flip the switch? I mean, it's all splitting hairs when you come down to it, and I really think it's a matter of personal choice, I'm just curious whether the flourescent light really solves the problem.

Though now I'm beginning to wonder if I'm screwing things up with my timers on my lights. I imagine the timers on the halogen lights are okay then, but the timers on the lamps with incandescent bulbs would then not be okay because the filament is being heated until it glows, which is an entirely different issue from the circuit issue. On the other hand, though I set that in motion prior to Shabbat, I still didn't cause it to happen DURING Shabbat, so maybe....

See, this is why I just ought to sit in the dark on Shabbat. I'm fine until I start thinking about it.

The reasoning about timers is precisely what you said: you did not take action on Shabbat to set them in motion. If you have a power outage for 6 hours and your timers are screwed up, you cope rather than resetting them, even if the light is off at the time you do the reset.

So lights, crock pots, coffee pots, ovens, etc on timers are just fine. (There are some other issues with how you use the cooking devices.)

For me, I seem to draw a distinction between using electricity for otherwise-permitted activities and using electricity to do things that directly violate Shabbat. So I won't turn on a light (any sort, though I utterly ignore the fridge issue), but I will answer the phone. The purpose of turning on the light is to create light (= fire, this being a key purpose of fire); the purpose of answering the phone is to talk to someone, and the fact that the mechanism is electricity is secondary. (And yes, if it's not a social call I tell 'em to go away; I don't do business on Shabbat.)

the fridge issue

I may have said this before, but I get around the fridge issue (there's a light in the fridge) by the following logic: the light on the fridge is on all the time.

Not that I use tape or anything, just that I refuse to believe that it's not on when the door is closed. I mean, whenever I open the fridge door, the light's on. Saying that it's off when the door is closed is mere supposition. Next thing ya know, you're going to tell me the sun stops shining after it passes below the horizon...

You make other interesting points, which I shall comment on (or not) later. Too much LJ for me today...

the light on the fridge is on all the time.

Since I use duct tape every Friday I'm home, I can assure you that my fridge light isn't always on. *giggle*

shhhh.... what he doesn't know can't hurt him. :-)

Since I use duct tape every Friday I'm home, I can assure you that my fridge light isn't always on. *giggle*

I really don't think that duct taping your fridge door shut is a good way of dealing with the problem. :-)

I personally refuse to let a little thing like the facts stand in the way of a good paradoxical theory... although I probably shouldn't say that if I want to get picked for a Jury tomorrow...

I've kind of wondered about the crock pot/coffee pot timer thing. I've never put my crock pot on a timer largely because I never thought of it until I went to your house, but we've sure put our coffee pot on the timer.

But here's my question with the crock pot... I leave my oven on all through shabbat and I have a blech for the stove. This is basically so that I can keep things warm for Shabbat dinner and so that we can have lukewarm bagels for shabbat lunch. However, my understanding is that we have to be cautious not to leave the oven on too high a setting lest the food inadvertently cook while it's "warming" in the oven.

So if you put something in a crock pot on the timer, and the timer sets everything in action, the food is still cooking on shabbat, even though you didn't cause that to happen during shabbat, is it still an issue that the food was cooked on Shabbat?

I'm not sure that it would ever be an issue for me, as I don't really know that I personally have a problem with it. I'm just curious what the halakkic ruling would be on this one.

My understanding of the halacha is that the food has to already be cooked, and given that, using a crock pot or oven to warm it (or keep it warm) is ok. You can't put the food in the pot while the unit is on (and thus, can't put food into the oven once shabbat starts). When I asked Yaakov about using a crock pot (putting one on a timer hadn't occurred to me), he explained that what he does is to cook the food beforehand and then put the cold pot into the cold heating unit before leaving for services in the morning. Sometime later, the timer comes on and he comes home to a hot lunch. If something goes wrong, he comes home to a cold lunch. :-) (e.g. if he forgets to put it in before leaving, he doesn't put it into the hot unit when he comes home.)

I am not as strict. I tend to partially cook the meat anyway (especially if it's chicken, which it usually is) because I'm paranoid about letting raw meat sit out, but it might or might not be "fully cooked" when I put it into the heating unit Saturday morning. And the veggies almost certainly are not.

This raises a side issue, though: I'm not certain whether the issue is really "fully cooked" or if it's "edible". If meat is fully cooked and the veggies are not, but veggies are edible when uncooked (unlike meat) but they then get cooked anyway, I don't know if that's actually a violation of halacha. CYLHA and all that. (Hey Goljerp, got an opinion on this one?)

Hm. My friends are Chabad-influenced, and they cook everything before Shabbat starts, then leave anything they want to keep warm on the blech or in the oven at 200 degrees until it's time to eat. This means that they generally put lots of water in things that're going to be eaten Saturday. But they specifically *don't* put anything back into the oven or on the stovetop after it's been on the table long enough to cool down significantly.

Then again, these are the friends who have to take the crock pot off the warmer before opening the cover to serve the food, because their rabbi says that letting steam out of the crock pot while it's on the heat causes the air going in (replacing the outgoing steam) to be heated by the heater, whereas opening it off the heat causes the air going in to be heated by the food's ambient temperature. Your Mileage May Vary.

Personally, I try to make sure that cooking is done by the time Shabbat starts, and I turn off the stove right before lighting candles. Then I eat cold foods on Saturdays -- cereal and salads and stuff, mostly

But they specifically *don't* put anything back into the oven or on the stovetop after it's been on the table long enough to cool down significantly.

Because putting the food on the flame is a problem. I wonder how they would react to a heat source that is on a timer and that is cold when they put the food on it. Is programming a crock pot to turn on later fundamentally different than programming a light? If so, how?

Personally, I try to make sure that cooking is done by the time Shabbat starts, and I turn off the stove right before lighting candles.

I try to make sure that food is well on the way to being fully cooked when Shabbat hits, but, particularly in the winter, the food in the oven might still be cooking, technically. (I leave the oven on for Shabbat at low temperature, so Friday dinner might sit there for a while before we eat it. I don't put anything into the oven once Shabbat starts, and of course I don't change its temperature setting.) Sometimes we eat cold stuff for lunch, but usually I use the crock pot.

but does using flourescent vs. incandescent negate the argument that you are creating and destroying a circuit when you flip the switch?

Further investigation -- completing the circuit isn't seen as "completing the final hammer blow" (completing a work) by these authorities. They liken the switch to your water faucet and wiring to your pipes: the flow (of water or current) is already there, and all you're doing is opening up a channel. Turning on a faucet to get water is permitted, and by analogy so is turning on a switch to get electricity.

However, as I posted before, these authorities hold that it is not permitted to use that electricity for something that would otherwise be a shabbat violation, like cooking or (I would say) turning on lights. So the non-hypothetical Conservative rabbi who turns on lights on shabbat is still a mystery to me, but I don't know how to ask him about it without appearing to challenge his observance (which I do not intend to do).

I can ask my rabbi. I know that the minority Conservative opinion is that electricity is okay. My rabbi (to my chagrin) uses lights on Shabbat. He and his wife decided when they had kids that it was the easiest (?!) thing to do and apparently within halachic boundaries. My real problem is that by extension they've also decided that using the TV is okay and other things. But that's beside the point.

At any rate, I'm not sure that he would think I was challenging his observance. I think that I could ask him in such a way as to be asking him how to properly observe myself.

I'm actually somewhat bothered by his choice, but again, it's his choice, and he's surely found his own reasons for his family. It's possible that by talking to him, I would find that I was more comfortable with his decision. Everything I know is by talking to other congregants who know him more closely than I.

At any rate, I'm not sure that he would think I was challenging his observance.

I don't think he would. He's your rabbi; you're supposed to ask him these kinds of questions.

The person I'm talking about is not my rabbi (just someone I know), so we both know that I should not go to him with questions about my own practice. That's why I feel awkward about asking him why he does this.

Thanks for asking yours!

I knew several Orthodox Jews who kept the bulb in the fridge unscrewed for that reason. They also had their lights and even the TV on timers. You can even go so far as to set up your TV to change channels for you using a VCR or a TiVo unit (the latter works best).

Of course, if you're Reform or most varieties of Conservative it's moot because you don't have to follow those rules.

Well, if you're Conservative, you do have to follow those rules, though many (I hate to think, most?) don't. The rabbinical assembly's majority opinion is that electricity is verboten on Shabbat. Of course there's a minority opinion...but we won't go down that road.

And my understanding of Reform suggests that although observing those laws is not mandatory, study and understanding of the laws is mandatory. Whether or not you choose to follow the law after you've made an informed decision for yourself is an entirely different matter.

I would have serious issues putting my TV on a timer. I think it is in absolute opposition to ruach shabbat ("spirit of the sabbath").

A friend of mine had a grandfather (orthodox) who used to say "no, it's okay, I don't watch T.V., but I don't want to stop you boys from enjoying your Saturday morning cartoons. And if you happen to flip by the game, I won't complain...I don't want to ruin your fun." So he was essentially a Jewish Shabbos Goy for his "Orthodox" Grandfather.

I'm with Karen on the TV. Even with a mechanism that has no inherent problems, watching TV is inherently not Shabbosdik. I have been in situations where a TV is on and I've watched it, but I would not pre-meditate it.

The Conservative movement is halachic; they just interpret some halacha differently from the Orthodox (who sometimes interpret it differently from each other). Reform does not require observance of halacha but does require that you make informed choices. Sadly, most Reform and many Conservative Jews don't live up to the standards of their movements. (For all I know there's a sizable Orthodox contingent for which that's true, too -- I'm just not in a good position to observe them as much.)

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electricity

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crock pots

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circuits

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