cellio | yes we talk like this

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yes we talk like this

At the Giant Eagle pharmacy:

Me: Here's a prescription, and a gift card from Big Pharma that will pay for three months' worth. If I mail-order it I can get three months' worth at once; can you do that for me?

Her: I don't know; I'm just the front-desk flunky. Do you want to leave it and we'll give you as much as we're allowed to?

Me: Sure.

After I did my grocery shopping I returned.

Her: Sorry, we're only allowed to do one fill-up at a time.

Me: I understand. Have we completed this transaction, then?

Her: Um, yes?

Me: Will you take as given that I walked out through that exit and then came back in, or do I need to actually do it?

Her: Nice try, but you have to wait a month.

Oh well. I have until the end of the year to use the gift card.

Dani: So you can read on Shabbat; can you use a Kindle?

Me: No, because you have to manipulate the controls. It's like changing the channels on TV; technically you can watch it if it's on but you can't change the channel or volume. (Pause.) I suppose if, before Shabbat, you set in motion a smooth scroll at a readable pace, that would be like programming the lights. But it seems unworkable.

Dani: What about software that tracks your eye movements and turns the page at the right time?

Me: Seems like manipulation to me. Next you'll be bringing up sentient lightbulbs again.

Dani: How good does the programming have to be before your software qualifies as a servant?

I have no answer to that. Halacha geeks?

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It all depends on how many layers of fences you want to build.

The mitzvah is to not work.

The 39 categories of melacha are all "creative activities that exercise control over one's environment".

But all of them except kindling and extinguishing are things that we now consider as work-of-livelihood. You allow automatic thermostats to continue to keep houses warm or cool, but to observe Shabbat, you don't change the setpoints.

So a mechanism which continually does something, should neither be started nor stopped. If there was a light dimmer rigged to a light sensor, such that it tried to always keep the brightness in an area constant, that should be permissible.

Now, a non-sentient device that responded to your natural actions without being asked -- that would be interesting. (A sentient device would be a servant or a friend; that would also be interesting, but already covered.) So a book which when you picked it up turned itself on, and when you had read the page, flipped itself without being signaled or asked... there's room for debate there. I think.

It's not at all clear to me that an e-book reader should be asur on Shabbat. I don't think the display qualifies as ktivah, I don't think manipulating the controls is boneh nor makeh bepatish (if they use capacitive switches rather than physical complete-the-circuit switches), and the display isn't incandescing nor is the battery relying on combustion, so there's no be'irah.

Culturally, we've become averse to manipulating anything electronic on Shabbat, but I doubt that this will remain an absolute over the next half-century.

Out of curiosity: would a wind-up Victrola (mechanical reproduction of sound, needle-to-horn) be asur? Presuming one winds it before the sun sets, and have some sort of timing mechanism to start it up.

I don't know about that last bit. From my outside view, it sounds a bit like splitting hairs between the verbage and the meaning of stuff. Is it a common type of question? Maybe the whole idea will become the start of somebody's theological thesis. But then the most I think usually about Jewish customs is, 'Challah is super yummy!'
:)

If you know ahead of time that it will turn itself on when you pick it up, doesn't picking it up itself constitute a signal?

I mean, otherwise I'm going to make a similarly-formed argument about light switches--the light isn't turned on by your flipping the switch, it's only responding to noticing you've flipped it by turning itself on.

Sorry -- I mispoke. Such a book would not turn itself on when it is picked up, because it was not off before.

Part of the problem with light switches is that the old ones might emit a spark when you flipped it, making it more like you were kindling a fire.

I'm reading a book about traffic and it mentioned that in parts of LA, pedestrian-detecting traffic signals were removed in favor of automatic ones after consulting with the orthodox rabbis. Once people figured out that their mere presence tripped the sensor, they avoided it. So presumably the act of picking up the book starts a process, and that has to be avoided.

(Keeping in mind that I'm not Jewish...)

I'm assuming that there's some sort of "turning pages isn't work" or "turning pages is work, but study is such a worthwhile goal that it doesn't count" rule.

The capacitive versus complete-the-circuit argument is interesting to me.

Pressing the button a Kindle or other e-reader might well involve less physical effort than turning a page. I'd assume that a Kindle would be more in keeping with the "no work" mitzvah than physically turning the pages of a book.

Has anyone considered a mechanical page-turner that turns book pages with the press of a button? That seems like a similar problem that might have already been debated.

When we were Robots in Egypt

Physical work and halachic (Jewish law) work are related, yet different, concepts. Turning the page of a paper book is not work, because it does not fall into any of the 39 categories of work. Using electricity is a more gray area, because when electricity began to be used, the rabbis of the time put it in the category of lighting or extinguishing a fire (both of which are forbidden) when one completes a circuit.

"Dani: How good does the programming have to be before your software qualifies as a servant?"

It is quotes like these from Dani that continue to make me miss living in Pittsburgh.

Can a Golem work on the Sabbath.

I don't know the Halachic answer, but according to Terry Pratchett, the answer is no (see Feet of Clay).

Golems, according to legend, are clay animated with special combinations of numbers.

Clay is Silicon.

And Silicon, etched with numeric representations, are computer chips.

I love Aggadah because what was fantastic for the Rabbis, has practical application for us.

If a Golem has to rest on Shabbat, so would an AI.

I should have thought of this earlier: motion-sensor lights. My understanding is that halacha is opposed; the practice I've observed is that if you know they're there you avoid them but if you accidentally trigger one you didn't know about you just move on. (Certainly installing one at your house, assuming you planned to walk through that space on Shabbat, would be problematic.)

Everything you've said about e-book readers would seem to apply to computers with LCD screens too. Are there problems with reading email or blogs on Shabbat, assuming everything was turned on in advance? (Is it ok to read if you don't answer/post?)

magid said, the definition of "work" is a little more complex. The rabbis derive 39 categories -- things like writing, kindling fire, sowing, baking, etc. They are mostly about "creative" work, meaning not "imaginative" but "changing the state of the world". While this overlaps with "things that make you sweat", for instance, it's a different principle.

One of those 39 categories is "striking the final hammer blow", meaning completing a work that was mostly done in advance. This is one of the arguments against electricity in the case where you use a switch to complete a circuit. Incandescent lightbulbs have the "fire" problem because of the spark, and I have heard (minority?) opinions that other kinds of lightbulbs are ok.

(Gotta run; more later.)

A friend of mine has a coffee maker much like mine, which will grind the beans and brew the coffee for you on a programmable timer. He pointed out that it does no less than 3 of the Torah's classes of work: grinding, cooking, and sorting. In the course of this discussion, a rabbi said that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein was opposed to programming timers for things other than lights and AC/heaters. The fear was that one will come to "the George Jetson Shabbat'. In theory, there's no reason you couldn't have machines which without human interaction of any kind did things for you, but it would create problems with the 'spirit of Shabbat'.

Sorry, I keep forgetting this is more complex than "Electricity is a subtype of fire."

From my outside view, it sounds a bit like splitting hairs between the verbage and the meaning of stuff.

Yes, that's the whole fun of it! Well, usually. I seem to recall a story in the Talmud about how if you shoot a bird and it falls on your neighbor's property, your neighbor can keep it; if it falls on your property, you can. One wise-a** rabbi asks what happens if it falls evenly on the property line; I think the response was to punish the wise-a** rabbi. :-)

Is it a common type of question?

Sure. And, what's even more fun is that there are multiple answers, and they're all correct. (Or incorrect.) (Although some would disagree with that statement.)

*laugh* Thanks!

Whoa. You can't manipulate controls or use things involving fire or electricity? So if I broke into your house and one second before the Shabbat cranked your heat to the maximum setting, you're just stuck suffering? I mean, you can't drive anywhere either. Even worse, if you have an alarm system I could arm it before dashing out. And then kick your car, setting off its alarm and waking everyone up.

*sigh* Now you'll never invite me over, for fear that my dark side will prevail. ;-)

*sigh* Now you'll never invite me over, for fear that my dark side will prevail. ;-)

Well, no later than Tuesday or Wednesday, anyway. :-)

There are exemptions for health, and I know people who would sanction turning the heat down in that case. Liberal Jews would likely consider the waste of energy even if you weren't otherwise making an economic argument.

(BTW, while you can't drive anywhere, you can certainly walk. There's a reason that observant Jews tend to cluster together in cities; it's easier to visit each other on Shabbat. Hospitality, particularly for Shabbat meals, is an important part of the culture. So if you made my house seriously unpleasant to be in and I didn't think I could respond to your mischief, I could go ask a neighbor for crash space for the night.)

See, the problem I have with this -- and I know that this may offend my coreligionists who are more *frum* than I, but that's not my intent -- is that it assumes that G-d really wants us to get so persnickety that we figure we can look at a Kindle but can't manipulate it (presumably we could hire a non-Jew to do that for us, Idunno). It strikes me as rather silly, and I can't think of my G-d as silly. This is a form of the problem in which we are not allowed to use an elevator (because to do so is "lighting a fire" and that's work), so we have to climb all the stairs to that 60th-floor office because that's *not* work. Am I missing something here? 'Cause I can't imagine G-d really wants that.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

yes we talk like this

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what is "work", anyway?

Not exactly an answer

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Re: Not exactly an answer

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