dinner last night

[cellio]

We ended up with a small group for the NetBill dinner last night. (NetBill was a past job, and most of us were/are friends.) One person ended up not being able to come at the last minute, and all the SOs turned out to be unavailable, so it was just four of us. It was a fun gathering, though, and people stayed until sometime after 1am.

Because the dinner started before Shabbat ended, I did a combination of pre-cooking and using the crock pot on a timer. Since Dani was away at a convention, I didn't need to use the crock pot for lunch. (I just ate cold foods instead.) I adapted a recipe I've previously made in the oven for the crock pot and it came out well.

What I did:

Brown chicken breasts in a skillet in hot oil. Put them in the crock pot, and in the same oil cook chopped onions for a couple minutes (cooked but not thoroughly limp). Throw those into the crock pot, along with diced apples, raisins that have been soaked in water, curry powder, a little honey, and white wine. Cook.

(I did all of this Thursday night, including cooking the pot for a couple hours on high to make sure the meat wasn't raw. Friday I set the crock pot on a timer on low and put the pot back in on Saturday around noon for a 7:30 dinner.)

Proportions: 8 chicken breasts, 4 small white onions, 4 small apples, about 0.5C raisins, about 2T honey, about 1T curry, about 2C wine. This was more liquid than was actually necessary, but that's hard to judge with crock pots sometimes, especially when they're full as this one was. I think I would have preferred a little more of both apples and onions, but the pot was full. If I made this with 4-6 pieces of chicken I'd probably keep the amounts of everything else (except wine) the same. I deliberately kept the curry level mild; this was not hot and zippy but was quite tasty. (I also didn't use one of the hotter curries.)

Comments

[cellio]

But wouldn't putting the pot back on at noon on Saturday be the same as flipping a switch for it? Maybe I've misunderstood your procedure.

I put the cold pot into the cold heating unit. Sometime later the timer turns the heating unit on. The food is previously cooked (to "edible").

On microaves... that's a very interesting idea. It bothers me, though. Even with a work-around for the electricity problem, actively cooking (as opposed to passive cooking, leaving the food out in the sun as discussed in the talmud) on Shabbat seems wrong to me. It just seems to fly in the face of the clear intent of the original law. (No, of course we can't say with certainty what God's original intent is, but there seems to be strong evidence for problems with heat and light, the two primary reasons one kindles a fire.)

Perhaps more significantly with the microwave, this just seems to be too ordinary a thing for Shabbat. We are to make this day different; when we need to do something halachically questionable we are to do it in an unusual way as a reminder. Popping the chicken into the microwave to heat up for lunch just seems too... I dunno, "chol"... to me. Maybe I worry too much about stuff like this.

I'm personally ambivalent about electricity. I'm strict about some uses, less concerned with others -- though given a reasonable choice, I will opt for the non-electric option (e.g. stairs over an elevator, but if it's 20 floors I'm not that altruistic). I have some sympathy for the "faucet" analogy (current is like water behind the faucet, not like fire that you kindle anew), but I can't quite convince myself that it's ok to turn on the TV and watch a movie.

Maybe, in some sense, the whole electricity thing is just a gezeira around many other categories of forbidden or questionable work? That is, maybe there's nothing inherently wrong with electricity, but so many things that are powered by electricity are wrong for other reasons (e.g. computer, writing) that it's easier to just avoid all of them? I'm speculating openly here, not advancing a position, and would like to hear feedback.

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

On the microwave, it does feel chol to me, and I do tend not to do it. But the teshuva made an interesting point, though I don't remember its exact reasoning, I believe -- that the manna was cooked in this way on shabbat, deliberately. Well, it struck me as logically sound at the time.

As far as electricity in general, that would be a real quantum leap for me, observance-wise, and I don't really accept the logic behind prohibiting it. The Conservative teshuva on it years ago seemed pretty compelling to me -- that eish is a very specific thing, and electricity doesn't fit that bill. In fact orthodoxy doesn't use that logic anymore; they say it is something being "completed," like a circuit. I don't understand that logic (is a wall "completed" when you close a door?); moreover, as Richard Feynman (not a posek, but surely an authority) put it, if you eliminate electricity on those grounds, you wouldn't be able to move, since it is the same form of your electricity that your body creates.

As you say, I think that for the most part people who are prohibiting electricity don't like the directions it can possibly go. (Surely a lot of halachic psychology is based on the idea that if it isn't incredibly difficult, it's not shabbos!) I have been trying not to use my computer on shabbos lately, but when I did, I didn't save files, etc. It's all very murky and fences around fences is what comes to mind.

For TV, of course the real thing is that it doesn't feel very shabbosdig. However, young people living alone, outside the eruv, without friends to come over and share the time, need to find something to do. I kind of imagine God saying to the Jewish people, "OK, since it's hard to keep shabbos, I'm going to invent this thing for you. You don't have to pay for it, you don't have to carry it anywhere, you don't have to light a fire to make it. Now you don't have any reason to get into your car." I mean, it is hard to read and nap until 9:30 at night, and now with the baby, going outside anywhere with her is technically breaking shabbos... so, nu, what is one to do? I feel good when I can resist TV all shabbos, but it is very, very hard. Lesser of two evils.

The bottom line always has to be that if you will go crazy keeping shabbos, you will end up giving up on it. So that's one way to justify all the hair splitting.

[cellio]

Thank you for your comments!

You are causing me to rethink electricity. Are these teshuvot available online?

something being "completed," like a circuit. I don't understand that logic (is a wall "completed" when you close a door?);

There's an important difference, though: the wall is still a functional wall with the door open, while the circuit is non-functional until you throw the switch. Turning on the TV causes a state change that isn't analogous to closing a door. I'd say that closing the door is akin to changing the volume on that TV. So I (currently) buy the argument that throwing the switch violates "striking the final hammer blow" (I've forgotten the much-more-concise Hebrew term for this melacha). I'm kind of iffy on the "fire" argument for electricity in general -- though I do think it applies to lights, the oven, and the furnace. Even if your light bulb is flourescent rather than incandescent, and so technically does not involve a spark in the bulb, I still think intentionally turning on the light is a violation of the spirit of that melacha and thus forbidden.

(I said intentional. I don't worry about side-effect lights; for me that includes the fridge light. For a while I would close my eyes when opening the fridge on Shabbat, to reinforce my claim that I don't need the light to retrieve the Diet Coke, but eventually my rabbi convinced me that this was silly.)

if you eliminate electricity on those grounds, you wouldn't be able to move, since it is the same form of your electricity that your body creates.

But we don't make the impractical the enemy of the practical. If electricity in the body behaves like that (I'm not qualified to say) then it would still be impractical to not move, and it would surely interfere with "oneg", so if this were a problem we would find a work-around for it anyway. But as I understand the halachic system, and please correct me if I'm wrong, we couldn't then use that case to say "well, in that case it's ok to use all electricity". For example, I think I've heard that the original intent of tefillin was to wear them all day, but due to practical matters this was reduced to wearing them during morning services. But they didn't say "ok, you don't have to wear tefillin at all".

Though, to go down what will seem a tangent, we can break a minor fast for a simcha (like a siyyum), and then are permitted to eat the rest of the day -- while if siyyum trumps fast you would expect the rule to be "eat that meal and then resume the fast for the rest of the day". So maybe a concession in one area does invalidate a larger body of law? I've long been confused by the morning-siyyum hack and have never gotten a proper explanation of why it's ok (for the entire day, I mean).

Surely a lot of halachic psychology is based on the idea that if it isn't incredibly difficult, it's not shabbos!

There is that, yes. :-)

On the computer, I have sometimes caved in, and when that has happened I've limited myself to reading only (not writing, not saving, not bookmarking).

For TV, of course the real thing is that it doesn't feel very shabbosdig.

I think I don't have a good handle on "shabbosdig". I mean, to be properly shabbosdik we wouldn't touch secular matters at all -- we'd pray, eat, study torah, sing (Jewish) songs, perhaps hap, but we wouldn't read a novel, play games, ask the kids what they've learned in (secular) school, etc. Clearly we're all going to go down this path at least a little, but I don't really grok why watching a movie on TV is more or less shabbosdik than reading Harry Potter or the newspaper, for example. I guess this is the sort of instinct one normally learns from one's family while growing up, but I didn't get that and no one teaches it.

But yes, I definitely sympathize with the problem, and I find the summer shabbatot challenging too. Our services always start at 8, so at times that means Shabbat is more than 26 hours for me. (I leave the house around 7:30 to walk to shul, and light candles before I go. Our latest sunset is around 9:00.) I'd love to be able to use the computer or watch TV for some of that time, rather than spending it all reading.

[goljerp]

This is a very interesting conversation. (Thanks for pointing it out to me, Monica!)

I've been working out how I observe Shabbat for the last 11 or so years. My current practice is not to use Electricity, unless I really, really want to. Basically I think that it's halachically permissable, but I try not to use it if at all possible as a personal stringency.

I think I don't have a good handle on "shabbosdig". I mean, to be properly shabbosdik we wouldn't touch secular matters at all -- we'd pray, eat, study torah, sing (Jewish) songs, perhaps nap, but we wouldn't read a novel, play games, ask the kids what they've learned in (secular) school, etc.

You forgot sex. That's a traditional shabbat activity. :-) I enjoy taking relaxed walks on Shabbat -- It's been a few weeks since Joy and I have gone to Central Park (we almost did last weekend, but napping won out), but that's a really nice thing to do on Shabbat.

But I have no problem reading novels or reading the newspaper on Shabbat. I try not to obsess about work on Shabbat, but I might talk a bit about it...

At one point, I had an exception for Star Trek: not only would I watch it on Shabbat, but I'd even turn it on. Of course, with the current Trek series, I wouldn't even dream of it. :-)

It's also a lot easier dealing with the long summer shabbatot when you've got friends who you can go and visit with until 5, leaving a mere 4 hours for napping and other activities.

[cellio]

You forgot sex.

Omitted, rather than forgot. :-)

But I have no problem reading novels or reading the newspaper on Shabbat. I try not to obsess about work on Shabbat, but I might talk a bit about it...

Same here -- but if reading a novel is considered shabbosdik and watching a movie on TV is not, then I do not grasp the difference. So, in a halachic system that permits electricity, either "not shabbosdik" isn't the argument against the movie, or there's a subtlety that's beyond me. If the latter, I am forced to wonder what other activities that I think are ok aren't by this logic.

I got a giggle out of your Star Trek exemption. Did it apply to Babylon 5? New episodes but not reruns? :-)

[goljerp]

but if reading a novel is considered shabbosdik and watching a movie on TV is not, then I do not grasp the difference.

Well, I didn't grow up in this tradition either, so I'm not sure. Maybe because TV is more public, or less quiet? Maybe it's an analogy to movies? I remember some people in college who wouldn't go to movies on Friday night, even though it was possible to pre-pay, on the theory that if the projector broke they might be tempted to fix it. (I responded to this by thinking that since I normally don't do that, it wouldn't be an issue, but I ended up not seeing movies on Friday night more because I never remembered to pre-pay and had other things to do.)

I got a giggle out of your Star Trek exemption.
good!

Did it apply to Babylon 5? New episodes but not reruns? :-)

Hmm... I don't remember what day of the week B5 was on. I started watching B5 in '96, by which point I was a bit stricter... I think that new episodes of B5 are definitely in a different category than reruns, or even tapes/DVDs.

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I don't have the responsum about electricity in front of me, so I can't respond to all of your thoughts. I will say that it seemed pretty thorough to me -- for example, as I mention, eish has certain characteristics, like creating ash, but a light bulb doesn't do that. It did deal with the "completing" issue, but in a less comprehensive way (I think because it was not the main objection in the orthodox community at the time.) As for "striking the last hammer blow," as I mentioned, I don't see that a "state change" is the same as completing something, but I am relying on lay reasoning here -- I don't really know what "striking the last hammer blow" means in practice -- that is, how completing something is different than constructive work in general. (A "state change" is not by itself melacha, either -- you can freeze or thaw water, for example -- so again, I don't know how to puzzle out the concept.)

An oven or a furnace would be forbidden for the other things they did -- cooking, or igniting fuel. It's certainly true that there are Conservative authorities who do not buy the teshuva. But as I mentioned, for me this would be a "quantum leap" in my observance.

As far as what is or isn't shabbosdig, I didn't learn that at home either -- other than services, and meals, we didn't do shabbat. There are those who would consider reading a secular newspaper to be not in keeping with shabbat, because it deals with business and wars and so on (Harry Potter isn't great but is less bad because it's fiction). Once you get into the realm of people who care about this sort of thing, you're obviously dealing with people who take a largely dim view of godless secular entertainment in general. So it's hard to know where a less extreme version of this would draw a line! I suppose it's easier because if you have had a good shabbat with friends and services and whatnot, you don't miss TV, at least in my experience. So it's more an ideal than something that can easily be stated as a principle.