yes we talk like this

[cellio]

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?

Comments

[dsrtao]

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.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

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.

[frrom.livejournal.com]

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!'
:)

Not exactly an answer

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

When we were Robots in Egypt

[thecommanderdia.livejournal.com]

"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.

[richardf8]

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.

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

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'.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

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. ;-)

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

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.