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more from Thursday's meeting
He recommended that I become familiar with the works of Leopold Zunz, a 19th-century scholar, though I failed to note why. (Presumably related to the whole question of reforms/innovations in halacha, as that was the main topic of conversation.) One of these days I'll get myself a copy of Encyclopedia Judaica so I can look up the bare-bones info on pointers like this.
We talked about how reforms to halacha go all the way back. He believes that the Reform movement follows the process, though because its interpretations are different, when you build on those things can seem to get kind of far afield. An example from me (that we didn't discuss): if you have made a case for egalitarian reforms in most things, as Reform and some Conservative have done, then I have to grant that you can make a case for patrilineal descent. (I still think this is a bad idea, however, as it really divides the Jewish people on the question of who is a Jew, and it's not like children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers can't convert fairly trivially if they're raised in the religion.) We didn't go very far down this path; I think I disagree with his claim, because at least historically there have been cases where Reform just plain threw out halacha, but maybe he's talking current practice and not history.
Remember, though, that Reform does not believe that the oral law (or, necessarily, the written law, i.e. Torah) came directly from God at Sinai, so this is presumably more about respecting the tradition than anything else. It seems obvious to me that my rabbi respects the halachic tradition far more than average in Reform (probably a lot of why we click so well), but one rabbi does not a movement make.
We drifted into the question of just how a modern Reform Jew goes about making decisions, and we kept ending up on Shabbat topics. We talked about electricity; I said I use timers for lights and the crock pot and am fairly rigid there and more lenient elsewhere (though I try to avoid issues rather than making explicit decisions; I'm a wuss). He asked detailed questions about the crock pot; not sure why. Somewhere in there I said that I don't unscrew the fridge light, though as a practical matter I know where in the fridge the things I'm going to need on Shabbat are, and occasionally (read: at night when the room is otherwise dark) I've been known to close my eyes and just grab the Coke anyway. He thought this was excessive, and this led to a discussion of intent vs. side-effect. He's right; I already believe that side-effects are not transgressions if I didn't want the results anyway. (We also talked about motion-sensor lights in this context. Summary: the (now-hypothetical) neighbor's lights are not my problem. Putting one in myself would be.)
We talked some about the get issue, and the Orthodox solution of editing history and how offensive I found that idea. I've mentioned this before.
We didn't really talk about what I describe as "rules hacks" in the halachic system. Another time. (I still have stuff I want to say about this, but haven't gotten it written down yet.)
At the end of the hour he asked whether I wanted to keep studying philosophy or instead begin to tackle talmud, and I opted for the latter. During the Shabbat discussion we had already started into that, so we're going to just start with the 39 melachot (forbidden categories of work) and go from there. Just as soon as the book I ordered comes in and I make a first pass through the first bit on my own to acclimate. Yay! I can't wait!
The light is always on
The light is always on. No, really. I don't mean that I do anything as crude as tape the light on all the time; that would go against eco-kashrut. (Also why I don't leave major lights on all the time; my nightlights are 4W or less, so those don't count.)
But the fridge light is always on. Proof: go on, open up your fridge. Is the light on? Yep. QED. Every time I test the hypothesis, the light is on. Unless the light burns out, of course. Since the light is always on, I'm not turning it on when I open the door, just like I'm not turning on the nightlight in the bathroom when I open the door.
This follows a little-known rabbinic principle of "if you can't see it, it doesn't exist." An example: You're not supposed to separate the bad from the good on shabbat. But you can use a brita water filter, which does just that. Why? Because you can't see the stuff the brita takes out, so it doesn't exist. I can't see the fridge light being off when the door is closed, so it doesn't turn off. (What, you say, about that little switch thingy in the door which seems to turn on and off the light, and ough to, mechanically, turn off the light when you close the door? Er, I don't believe it actually works that way when you close the door.)