Funny true story: My friend bought a fancy new stove. After owning it a couple of weeks his wife commented that the oven didn't work on Thursdays. Odd. So he investigated... and he found that indeed on Thursdays, if he tried to turn the oven on, it reported an error code 5A66.
After a bit of searching in the user's manual, he discovered (a) that the stove had a Sabboth mode (b) the "error code" was actually SAbb rendered on the 7 segment display, and (c) he had not set the day of the week on the stove so it thought Thursday was the Sabboth.
He turned off Sabboth mode and was happy. His wife less so because she no longer had a reason to go out for supper every Thursday.
Our oven has a Sabbath mode. We looked it up online and half the hits were forum threads with people asking "I accidentally turned on Sabbath mode, how do I turn it off?"
Welcome to the world of Jewish law, in which it's considered acceptable to find ways around rules.
For example: Jews aren't allowed to eat leavened food, known as "chamets," (e.g., bread) on Passover. We're also not allowed to own leavened products. What do you do with all of the food that you bought before Passover? In theory, you have to throw it out, which would be a huge waste of money.
The solution is to sell this food to a non-Jew for the duration of the holiday. The contract says that the non-Jew owns these products for seven days (or eight, if you're outside of Israel). At the conclusion of the holiday, the non-Jew sells it back to the Jew, or fails to finalize the sale, or fails to exercise his/her option, etc.
Problem solved: Jews don't own chametz. We don't have to throw it out.
Is this using a legal loophole? Oh, yes. Is it universally accepted? No, but pretty close to 100% of the religious Jews I know do it. Have there been big arguments over this subject over the years? Of course! It's Jewish religious law, in which arguments are a part of the culture...
In my own view, as a reform Jew, many of the Kosher for Passover items that even Orthodox consume are loopholes anyway, like Kosher for Passover cakes.
In the words of my friend - "OK, we eat Matzah because when we left Egypt we didn't have time to let the bread rise. But somehow we had time to beat the egg-whites stiff?"
For those that don't know, during Passover, the spirit of the law is that we don't eat leavened bread. But it's codified such that IIRC there are five restricted grains, with 18 mins to cook after coming in contact with water. Nowadays, companies make rabbi-approved products such as cookies, cakes, and even generic Cheerios, which are for all intents and purposes leavened, but 'within spec'.
* - If you're wondering, IMHO the Kosher for Passover cakes and imitation cheerios are still pretty horrible, more-so the texture than taste. Maybe they're intentionally left this way to remind us they're not the 'real thing'.
How about this: The Egyptians invented yeast and leavened bread, and worshipped sheep. So how did Jews celebrate Passover, and the exodus from Egypt? By sacrificing a sheep, and refraining from eating anything made with yeast.
When the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem, the sacrifice disappeared. Only the eating restrictions (beyond regular holiday restrictions) remained.
Over the years, different communities decided that other foods looked like grains, or acted like grains, or could be confused with grains. So they (e.g., corn, rice, and lentils) were restricted, as well, as part of this "spirit."
In Israel, I'm happy to say that you can get anything you want on Passover, except for things made with the original five grains and allowed to leaven (yes, for 18 minutes). You can have just about anything you want. Which is just fine with me; the point of Passover isn't to suffer, but rather to go without leavened bread for a week.
There's nothing inherently wrong with having kosher for Passover cakes. But once you have one, you'll avoid ever doing so again, I promise. (The kosher-for-Passover "rolls" are even worse!) I don't see having such cakes as a loophole, or even contrary to the spirit of the holiday, because the spirit of the holiday is to avoid leavened and bread products.
>I don't see having such cakes as a loophole, or even contrary to the spirit of the holiday, because the spirit of the holiday is to avoid leavened and bread products.
I don't follow you here.
Cakes are leavened, and the spirit of the holiday is to avoid leavened products. In my view, that makes the Kosher for Passover cakes (which are effectively leavened) a loophole.
Or are you suggesting the Kosher for Passover cakes are not really leavened?
Yes. Kosher-for-Passover cakes don't fall under the rules of leavening (chametz) in Jewish law.
Sometimes they're made with potato flour. (Yuck.)
Sometimes they're made with matza meal, which means very finely ground pieces of matza. The idea is that once flour has been wet and baked into matza, further contact with water won't leaven it. Some Jews don't accept this "wet matza" rule, but the majority do.
If someone made kosher-for-Passover cakes that were hard to distinguish from regular, year-round leavened cakes, then you might have a point, and perhaps they would be forbidden. But I don't think that anyone is ever going to make that claim. So given that they're different from year-round cakes, and given that they're not leavened anyway according to Jewish law, they're considered acceptable.
Pro tip: Ice cream on kosher-for-Passover cakes makes them far more palatable.
Yup, I know the Kosher-for-Passover cakes don't fall under the strictly defined rules of leavening, that's why they're officially Kosher as certified by a Rabbi.
But for all intents and purposes, again in just my common-person's view, they're effectively leavened. Just like normal breads and cakes, they're fluffy and squishy with tons of tiny air pockets created during the baking process. To me that means leavened.
<off-topic> : Another one of my confusions (as a Reform jew) is the Shabbat restriction of not doing work by making a spark. Okay, so one is supposed to avoid work on the Day of Rest by walking a mile to synagogue instead of driving 5 minutes in a car. Or walking up 10 flights of stairs to their apartment instead of getting in an elevator.
To me it would be more consistent to agree to re-interpret instead what it means to 'make a spark' as per the state of technology in the biblical times. Ie doing it with sticks or flint & steel can be considered work, vs the passive closing of an electrical circuit.
Jeff: They might be effectively leavened, but that's the whole point of a legal system, and of scholars to interpret it. What looks to you (or me) as a layperson like the same thing might not be the same at all. In this case, the technical definition trumps what might seem like leavening to you, because of debates and decisions that rabbis had about 2,000 years ago.
Of course, you can decide not to eat such kosher-for-Passover products. I do know some people who refuse to eat things that look like the year-round versions, because they feel like it's too close to the "real" thing."
As for sparks and electricity, the legal reasoning has nothing to do with "work." It has to do with "melacha," which is often poorly translated as "work," but has absolutely nothing to do with physical exertion. Rather, it has to do with creation, destruction, or just changing the nature of the world.
For 2,000 years, Jews have avoided anything having to do with light or fire on Shabbat. Electricity posed a bit of a problem -- here was a way of lighting and heating that was previously unknown, and which didn't fit previous legal categories. Should it be allowed or not? There were debates over this, and many Conservative rabbis argue that it's totally OK to use electricity on Shabbat.
I grew up in a home that used electricity on Shabbat, and I slowly came to the conclusion that even if it's permitted to use electricity, my Shabbat is radically enhanced by not doing so. Not using the computer, not using the phone, not watching TV -- these make my experience better and special, rather than worse.
Is that sometimes a pain? Yes, it is. But I have found that the trade-off is more than worthwhile.
Moreover, as I wrote in a previous comment, much of Jewish law is a forcing function toward community involvement. By forbidding people to drive on Shabbat, you increase the chances of having a culture of home hospitality and spending time with friends -- something is nearly universal among people who don't drive on Shabbat, and something which is almost completely non-existent among those who do.
Even if you could argue that driving a car is OK on Shabbat (and there are very few ways to justify that; remember that it's also forbidden to drive a horse or ride a bicycle), the social ramifications that I've seen are almost entirely detrimental to the community. Non-driving communities tend to be much closer knit than those in which people do drive.
So, why not do these things? Because it changes the way in which the day operates -- for you, for your family, and for your community. This doesn't mean that it's meaningful or appropriate for everyone, I'll admit.
Um, I really know (or at least I think that I know). I don't use a computer on the Sabbath. But I live in Israel, where it ended on Saturday evening, Israel time. And I was foolish/addicted enough to check HN after Shabbat ended.
I did, however, think that it was pretty funny that American Jews who know and can weigh in on the subject were unable to participate in much of the discussion!
> Welcome to the world of Jewish law, in which it's considered acceptable to find ways around rules.
Welcome to every religion.
As a Catholic, I order pizza at 11:30pm on Good Friday and having probably wolfed down 2 slices by 12:01am after a day of fasting. I have Muslim friends who shift their hours around during Ramadan to sleep during more of the day.
That said, I think the fundamental question here is whether such rule-breaking is endorsed by centuries of priests, or if it's just something people do.
In Judaism, the rabbis have codified such rule-bending for at least 2,000 years. And we have also been debating whether it's acceptable for as long. :-)_
I think that the difference is in the eye of the beholder.
Case in point: When the Conservative movement announced a few years ago that homosexuality is OK, and that it's even fine to have same-sex weddings, they needed to confront the fact that Leviticus explicitly outlaws homosexual relations.
The Conservative movement gave all sorts of explanations, and basically said they were bending the rules. Their rabbinical schools currently accept gay and lesbian students.
The Orthodox (stricter) world largely said that they had broken the law beyond all recognition, and that this demonstrated that the Conservative movement doesn't take Jewish law seriously.
Many rule-bending aspects of Jewish law, even when approved by top rabbis, have been called rule-breaking by opponents.
Everything is in the eyes of the beholder — at least, in law (any kind). That's why opponents are called opponents, because they don't see things as you do.
This reminds me, when I was thirteen, we visited some friends of my parents, in Pennsylvania, who were Mennonites, but there was an Amish community near by and we would see people in the typical garb as well as horse and carts.
Once story our friends told us, is that Amish are not allowed to own a house with electricity connected to it. So they never make the final payment on their bank loans, so they never technically own the building.
I'm sure this annoys the more devout in their community. Just goes to show that no matter what belief or religion you observe, be it Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Atheist, there will always be those that follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law when it suits their own interests.
> no matter what belief or religion you observe, be it Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Atheist, there will always be those that follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law when it suits their own interests.
I object to you including "atheist" in this list, as atheism is exactly the opposite of that, it's not like an organized religion where you can follow the spirit of the law or not. It just means you believe that no god exists. Either you believe (or know, if you're atheist) that, or you don't, it's not at all comparable to religions.
It's funny. I knew someone was going to have _exactly_ that objection, which is why I purposely why I wrote, "BELIEF or religion" in order to try and be inclusive and not get sidetracked from the main point.
Take a large enough group of people in any category, and you're going to find the artists, the lawyers, the zealots, the leaders, the followers, the selfish, the altruistic, the devout, the sticklers, the lackadaisical and everything else.
Well, my objection was not on the "belief" part, it was on the "letter of the law" part.
Atheism is just not something that has laws that can be interpreted or not. You can't be a "devout atheist" or a "non-practicing atheist", or practice parts of atheism but not others, it makes absolutely no sense. Atheism is by definition a binary property.
If you wanted to list different categories including non-religious ones, talking about national laws or vegetarianism would have been pertinent in a way that atheism was not.
Respectfully, I disagree that you cannot be a devout atheist, but I think we are digressing.
Certainly national or government laws are applicable to my point of people who will follow the letter of the law, but find every little loophole they can if it benefits them, even if it harms others, and those that follow the spirit or principle in-which the law was enacted, sans loopholes.
> You can't be a "devout atheist" or a "non-practicing atheist", or practice parts of atheism but not others, it makes absolutely no sense.
Sure you can. You can believe God exists, but decide, like an atheist, not to follow any rules because you don't think God cares. You can believe God exists and cares, but did not actually make any rules. You can Believe God is actually the laws of nature and is omni-everything, but not intelligent. You can believe God made the big bang but otherwise left the world alone (so there are no laws to follow).
Even "devout" atheists still have to believe in something that made the big bang. Some just ignore the topic, others think "we'll figure it out", others feel "whatever made it is outside the universe and thus of no concern to me", other feel "I only care about proven things, unproven things I ignore".
> Atheism is by definition a binary property.
As you can see from my list there are a tremendous number of shades of gray here. Like any religion there are multiple branches of atheism.
I don't want to get dragged in an argument about what atheism is, but the commonly accepted definition is that it is nothing more or less than the belief that no god exists.
The big bang has exactly nothing to do with atheism (why bring it up at all ? it's just a science topic) and "believing that a god exists but deciding, like an atheist, not to follow any rules" is not being an atheist. It is being a believer in some god (so, a theist) as well as an anarchist.
ALL your examples were people that are very clearly not atheists, since all of these examples involved believing in one god. They are only various examples of monotheist practices.
There can not be branches of atheism - and I know I'm exposing myself to a misguided answer making reference to the no true Scotsman fallacy, but it would be wrong. The very etymology of "atheism" leaves no place to branches: if you believe that a god exists, good, even if you think there is only one this still leaves many ways to believe in it... however, if you believe that no god exists, which is what atheism is, there is only one way for something not to exist at all.
There is a fundamental difference between believing something exists and believing something does not exist. Believing that it does not exist is a very simple belief, with no possible nuances while believing in the existence of something does leave place to interpretation.
The "supernatural", "being" and "superior powers" parts are very clear. If you can accept that a supernatural being with superior powers created existence, then you cannot be atheist.
If you believe that what you call "God", with a typically monotheist stance, is whatever created "existence" whatever that means, and whether or not it was a natural process or a supernatural being, then your personal definition of "God" is not the common one, and you should have given it earlier.
Also, I do not ignore the topic of where existence comes from (although that formulation sounds quite weird to me) but I leave it to science, and I am not an atheist either. I do have difficulty following the reasoning of occidental monotheists though, who seem to try very hard to spin their definition of a single "God" in order to claim that atheists are just believers like any other theist.
Whatever created existence (or the big bang) is by definition supernatural (which means outside nature). So my definition is not different, just differently formulated.
> If you can accept that a supernatural being with superior powers created existence, then you cannot be atheist.
Using your definition no atheists even exist, or at least they are illogical because clearly existence exists. It was created somehow. Or are we going to argue about the word "being" in that sentence?
Because if you are, know that I use that definition because any other is not sufficient to describe the full range of human beliefs. So yes, there is a range in atheism, it is not binary.
>Whatever created existence (or the big bang) is by definition supernatural (which means outside nature).
Unless nothing created existence, and the big bang was a natural event unrelated to the existence of existence.
>are we going to argue about the word "being"
Maybe. "being" is pretty clear and necessary to have a God. Wind comes from outside the ocean to make waves, but it is in no way a being or a God. No matter how 'supernatural' it would be from the perspective of ocean=nature.
No binary decision is ever truly perfect, but the yes/no of atheism is pretty damn close.
This, by the way, is a huge problem for a German expat in IL (back in DE now) during Passover.
Not only do they hide bread, there's a certain golden drink that is just as off limits in all the 'following' supermarkets and that's quite interesting.
(I kid. Yes, you don't get bread and beer, in theory. Tel Aviv has lots of shops that aren't Jewish or don't care or .. so it's mostly a sight to be seen and a way to explore the city, looking for more accommodating places..)
I'm kind of curious why it makes sense to get a US number to accommodate clients who can't (?!) make international calls, but not to get a mail forwarding service with a US address.
I receive, at absolute most, 2-3 US checks in the mail each month. It's not worth paying for such a mail-forwarding service, when I can just tell people, "Go to the post office, ask for a stamp to Israel, and hand it to the postal clerk."
Plus, the US number comes with free unlimited calling to the US, so I can call my clients (and family, to be honest) as much as I want.
I'm a non-observant Jew and have several observant friends. I always joke with them that Jews are the first hackers, finding ways to circumvent their own religious laws.
Some other clever hacks "exploited" by Jews over the years:
* Say a door needs to be opened by a button. For some reason which I can't quite remember right now, you can't just press the button to open the door, but say that after you press the button there is a random wait befroe the door is opened, then it's OK.
* You can't light fire on shabbat and, by some logic, that also means you can't close an electrical circuit. But say you have a door that requires a keycard to open. You can't put the keycard next to the reader because that will cause a circuit to close but if you were to press a button that turns off the card reader for some random amount of time (which is OK) and then just happen to put your card in range, when the reader turns itself back on it will recognize your card and open the door.
* You can't create permanent things on shabbat and that includes writing. But, say you have to write for some reason - you use a shbbat pan with ink that evaporates after several days (hence, is non-permanent).
There are lots of theese hacks, and even a whole R&D center dedicated to them[1] in Israel. Funny stuff.
My favorite is Eruv[1], which in my neighborhood and others in NYC is tiny thin wires strung between streetlights to "enclose" a neighborhood.
In some of our big storms recently many of the wires have come down, limiting people's mobility.
To call all this hackery "circumvention" is not accurate ... one way or another, in building & using tricks to live with them, you are being "observant," by remembering and practicing the rules. Remembrance being a key part of faith.
My take on eruv is that it's one of several elements in Jewish law designed to create and foster communities. Community is crucial to Jewish survival. So among other things:
- You need 10 adults to have many important prayer services
- You need to eat kosher food -- which is only feasible when there's a critical mass of other Jews around
- Women need to go to a ritual bath once a month; it's only feasible to have such a ritual bath if you live near other Jews who help to fund it
- You can't carry on the Sabbath unless you have an eruv around your community, in which case you can carry within the community.
These, together with other rules, have the effect of encouraging Jews to live near other Jews, which helps to strengthen the community more and perpetuate the tradition. I think that much of Jewish law is aimed at this underlying goal. When a rule conflicts with this goal, it's considered desirable to find a way around the rule, such that the community's centrality and strength win out.
It's not really a circumvention, but I'd call it a hack indeed (i.e. an ingenious solution[1]). It works by modifying the subject of the law. I.e. Jewish law forbids carrying objects between public and private ___domain on Shabbos. What is considered private and public ___domain has quite clear definitions. So using that method (of connecting areas with some wires or ropes) one changes the status of the area in light of the law from public to private ___domain. I.e. the law applies all the same, but its subject is different, so carrying becomes permitted.
This also leads to incredibly interesting (or funny) situations. A coworker of mine uses a simple/trivial timer, plugs it in the power outlet and therefor predetermines some things that Should Happen on Shabbat.
Now, if there's a brown-out for say 3h and you're not allowed to interact with that thing until Shabbat is over, you .. get interesting side effects and have to reschedule the daily life.
Consider the Odyssey, a classic example of a Greek text.
The Odyssey was codified and passed down through generations in Greece. People write about the Odyssey, but almost no one has writted linear commentaries for it.
Lets compare that to the Talmud. The Mishnah is the core of the Talmud, and it is a collection of oral law written down (in about 200 C.E.) by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. Like the Odyssey, it is unchanged and has been transmitted through the generations.
However, its story does not end there. The next generation of Rabbis writes the Gemara. The Gemara is a collections of more oral law from the generation of the Mishnaic Rabbis, along with debate about the laws in the Mishnah, trying to find proofs for laws, trying to deal with problematic laws, clarify vague laws, and so on. The Mishnah and the Gemara make up the Talmud. (Note that there are actually two versions of the Talmud, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. They have the same Mishnah but the Gemara is different. The Babylonian Talmud is more complete and therefore more widely studied).
Skipping forward a few years, the Rabbis of the middle ages start to comment on the Talmud. Rashi commented on the entire (Babylonian) Talmud, and so did the Rabbis of his grandchildrens' generation. Meanwhile, other Rabbis, such as Maimonadies (I'm sure I spelled that wrong), were trying to extract the laws from the Talmud (a daunting task because not all discussions were resolved). Even very recently, Rabbi Steinsaltz wrote his commentary on the entire Talmud. The cycle of commentary never ends.
Are you really saying that the Talmud is comparable to the Odyssey, but not to Plato? I'd expect, since you're talking about a philosophical tradition, that the reverse would be more accurate. Philosophical commentary abounds in the Greek tradition:
Commentaries were also written on Homer, but as the Iliad and the Odyssey are literary rather than philosophical works the commentary takes a different form. Here are a few selections from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeric_scholarship#Classical_... :
> Homer does not play a role in any censorial evaluation of Aristotle as a critic, but appears in a professional study of poetry, the "Poetics", with regard to the difficulty with some of his language. Aristotle’s main study of Homer did not survive. It is listed in Diogenes Laertius' "Life of Aristotle" as "Six books of Homeric problems."
> Many ancient Greek writers discussed topics and problems in the Homeric epics, but the development of scholarship per se revolved around three goals: (1) Analyzing internal inconsistencies within the epics; (2) Producing editions of the epics' authentic text, free of interpolations and errors; [and] (3) Interpretation: both explaining archaic words, and exegetical interpretation of the epics as literature.
> there was also a fashion for allegory, especially among the Stoics. The most notable passage is a scholion on Iliad 20.67, which gives an extended allegorical interpretation of the battle of the gods, explaining each god as symbolic of various elements and principles in conflict with one another, e.g., Apollo is opposed to Poseidon because fire is opposed to water.
The difference is that with the Odyssey and Plato, commentaries on the work are not considered part of the work. The commentaries on the Talmud are considered part of the Talmud, including inheriting the Talmud's status as law -- making the Talmud very much a living document.
We make a device, and have a Shabbat version. It is operated normally by a switch, and when you set it to Shabbat mode the switch stays open and just lets a trickle of current through, not enough to move the device but since the circuit never closes you aren't doing any work when you then operate the switch.
Disclaimer: I'm Jewish and religious, but not Orthodox; I don't worry about sabbath mode as I have no problem turning on an oven during shabbat; it's not work.
That said, if you ask Orthodox Jews, they will say it's not circumventing the laws about shabbat. Rather, it's keeping the laws of shabbat -- avoiding all forms of work -- while still living in the modern world. To circumvent the law would be to find a way that allows us to work on shabbat. Shabbat mode doesn't do that.
To extend on parent comment: What you call "circumvent your religion's practices", ie building complicated logical arguments or creating new categories and distinctions to re-interpret existing law is considered as a significant part of Jewish religion:
Well (and I hate reply spamming here but I keep thinking of new things) The Talmud and Mishnah were written hundreds of years after the birth of Jesus. And in the first century, the Pharisees (or proto-Rabbinics, or whatever) were only one sect amongst many. So yes, Christianity followed on a different path than Judaism.
The Jerusalem church, maybe, which didn't survive 70 CE. Modern Christianity descends from Paul and was pretty much made up in a very significant break from Jewish tradition.
True, that makes (most forms) of Christianity today cousins to Rabbinic Judaism, as opposed to siblings (like early Judeo-Christianity and its extinct descendants-Ebionites, Nazarenes, etc).
Well, maybe. I don't understand the argument that you are "doing work" when a light automatically comes on for you in the first place. I can see arguing that opening a refrigerator is work, or that it isn't, but I can't see coming to a different conclusion if a light comes on when you open it. I would have made a crappy rabbi.
The term "work" is a very inaccurate (but popular) translation of the Jewish legal term, "melacha." There are certain categories of said "work," and rabbis throughout the ages have tried to figure out how to apply those terms to new situations and inventions.
Whether operating electric lights is work is a new problem, but boiling water and cooking have been forbidden by Jewish law for at least 2,000 years.
I'm not religious, much less Jewish, but I'd say it depends on the intention behind the practice. If it was intended to encourage the abnegation of luxuries, I think the hacks would miss the point, but since the intention seems to be, as I understand it, to remember and celebrate the Biblical creation, I think it could be argued that the hacks actually help to reinforce that.
(Like I said, this is my interpretation and opinion as someone from outside. I make no claim to know or understand Jewish law and traditions.)
The same can be applied to everything, so God wants there to be sin. If God wanting sin to exist means that sin is fine, why are the loopholes necessary? Just sin. If God wanting sin to exist doesn't mean that sin is fine, then loopholes may also not be fine, even though they exist.
God allows sin to exist so that you the person don't do it, as commanded. If God made sin impossible then how can you reward people for following the commandments?
The loopholes are different - God did not say "don't try to find loopholes, God instead made very specific commandments, with clear holes in them".
You are mixing physical impossibility with carefully studying and following the commands.
> A footnote: While I was at the conference, I stayed at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where young rabbis—I think they were Orthodox—were studying. Since I have a Jewish background, I knew of some of the things they told me about the Talmud, but I had never seen the Talmud. It was very interesting. It’s got big pages, and in a little square in the corner of the page is the original Talmud, and then in a sort of L-shaped margin, all around this square, are commentaries written by different people. The Talmud has evolved, and everything has been discussed again and again, all very carefully, in a medieval kind of reasoning. I think the commentaries were shut down around the thirteen– or fourteen– or fifteen-hundreds—there hasn’t been any modern commentary. The Talmud is a wonderful book, a great, big potpourri of things: trivial questions, and difficult questions—for example, problems of teachers, and how to teach—and then some trivia again, and so on. The students told me that the Talmud was never translated, something I thought was curious, since the book is so valuable,
> One day, two or three of the young rabbis came to me and said, “We realize that we can’t study to be rabbis in the modern world without knowing something about science, so we’d like to ask you some questions.”
> Of course there are thousands of places to find out about science, and Columbia University was right near there, but I wanted to know what kinds of questions they were interested in.
> They said, “Well, for instance, is electricity fire?”
“No,” I said, “but… what is the problem?”
> They said, “In the Talmud it says you’re not supposed to make fire on a Saturday, so our question is, can we use electrical things on Saturdays?”
> I was shocked. They weren’t interested in science at all! The only way science was influencing their lives was so they might be able to interpret better the Talmud! They weren’t interested in the world outside, in natural phenomena; they were only interested in resolving some question brought up in the Talmud.
Actually, there's a famous story in the Talmud of a rabbinical debate in which the rabbis argue about whether a certain oven is kosher or not. At the end of the story, one of the rabbis is told that God's reaction to this debate is, "My children have defeated me."
The Jewish attitude is that God wants us to debate these laws, and that if we come up with interpretations that seem counter to the literal verses in the Bible, then that's totally OK. The rules were given to people to interpret, and now it's up to us to do that as accurately as possible.
Ya know, we were always taught about Karaites in school, but I didn't realize that they still existed until about 20 years ago, when a friend mentioned that he knew one.
There is a Karaite community in Israel, and I've read some fascinating newspaper articles about them. Claiming that they only accept the literal word of the Bible, without any interpretation, is a bit far-fetched, given that the Bible is so ambiguous and self-contradictory. But some of their interpretations, such as the date of the Shavuot holiday, are pretty reasonable -- except that Jews have basically voted with their feet to reject those interpretations.
I think that Karaites are pretty cool, even if (or perhaps because) they're not mainstream. And they demonstrate, I think, Judaism's penchant for pluralism.
I've found the people on http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions respond well to polite questions. I've learnt a lot - mostly when I'm planning something to not worry about the rules and to just ask the person involved.
This (among a few other reasons) is why Jesus went on a rant against the religious leaders of the day in Matthew chapter 23.
One of the practices at the time was for Pharisees to give all their possessions to the temple (of which they were members), therefore effectively being so poor that they could tell their elderly parents: "I have nothing to give you", this practice was known as Corban. Jesus condemned the people of the day for that in Mark 7.
In short, as Jesus said: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves"
That's not how it works in Judaism. The full set of laws were given to Moses.
In the Torah is only a hint to the laws, that's why the line looks so unspecific to you. It's just a reminder to check the oral tradition for the details.
Do you have something I can read with more information on this? I've searched in the past and only found arguments based on the line, not saying it actually existed in oral tradition.
Let me be more clear with my question, since that's just information on the oral tradition in general.
I am looking for a source that the specific rule against putting meat and milk together was given to Moses, or that it's a direct implication of the written Torah.
As far as I have understood it, it's a ruling that the rabbis made once upon a time, and it has since become part of the oral tradition, but it was not originally a rule. This would imply that it is not unimpeachable. For example, you could argue against the two hour buffer zone in your link with modern omnipresent accurate clocks[0].
[0] Yes, time zones, I know, let's not actually argue that point.
In reply to your question as to whether a rabbinic decree could be revoked, there is a concept in Jewish law that prescribes that once a rabbinic decree is accepted by the Jewish nation (I.e. Widely practiced) it becomes law. So even if you would maintain the two hour buffer is no longer necessary, it would remain as law in order to uphold tradition.
As an example, the rabbis decreed that Jewish holidays outside the land of Israel should be celebrated for a second day. The reason being that the court which established the new month (based on witnesses who had seen the new moon) was based in Jerusalem, and the Jews outside the land of Israel would not know when to celebrate the holiday, so out of doubt they celebrated the day after as well (in case the month was a day longer)[0]. When the time came that the court foresaw that they would soon no longer be able to establish the new month (due to the exile of the Jews from the land of Israel) they established a calendar by which the new month was to be determined. At this point, the Jews in the land of Israel and outside had the same calendar, and knew exactly when to celebrate the holidays. Nevertheless, the rabbs maintained a distinction between inside the land of Israel, and outside, where holidays are celebrated for a second day until this day.
> As far as I have understood it, it's a ruling that the rabbis made once upon a time, and it has since become part of the oral tradition, but it was not originally a rule.
No, that is definitely not correct. The Talmud is very clear about Biblical vs Rabbinical rules and Meat and Milk is unquestionably Biblical.
But Fowl (chicken) and Milk is Rabbinical. So perhaps that's what you were thinking of.
No, I wasn't confusing those. Let me put this way. Unless what I'm reading is blatantly wrong, the claims of rabbis about what is "biblically" prohibited have been under dispute and changed over the centuries. So it may not be a "rabbinical" rule but it came from rabbis and didn't directly follow from the bible and the rules for interpreting the words of the bible. (Unless a huge series of rabbis were just flat-out wrong.)
There are indeed things that are disputed if they are biblically prohibited or rabbinically. Usually it's not the nature of the item that is disputed but the degree.
But not meat and milk. That has not changed. So if what you are reading is saying that, then yes, it's blatantly wrong.
For example the time delay in between eating meat and milk: That's in dispute. It's a multi level dispute, of: what delay is biblically required (if any), and what how much of a delay is rabbinically required (the two numbers are not the same), and how large a delay is required depending on which food was eaten first, and the type of food (aged cheese, young cheese, or milk).
But eating them together? Absolutely no dispute.
Just as a side note, there is a tendency to say "Rabbinically required, oh that's not as important." But the requirement to obey rabbinical prohibitions is itself biblical. So once a rabbinical edict is accepted it has total and complete force of law with virtually no distinctions between it and biblical edicts.
Well, not very. The usual agricultural practice for dairy cows is to take the calves away so that they're not consuming the mother's milk (because you want the milk; that's why you're keeping them in the first place). Female calves become more dairy cows, but male calves are pretty much useless, so you eat them.
So chances are you'll have prepared veal from the male calf at the same time as its mother is producing milk.
I've never been certain what this law was for. Most religious food practices stem from food hygiene laws; unclean animals are usually riddled with parasites, kosher and halal killing practices codify particular (safe) ways of slaughtering animals because otherwise people wouldn't do it properly --- but this one? Dunno.
Just as a sidenote, the Rabbis determine that a fetal calf does not count as meat, so one could actually cook a calf in its mother's milk, according to Jewish law.
A fetal calf is meat. But it does not require ritual slaughter - the slaughter of the mother is considered sufficient. (This rule actually has implications for the abortion debate.)
You have it reversed.
If you find milk inside the udder of the cow after slaughter that milk is considered meat, not milk. However it's prohibited rabbinically because it looks like milk and can lead to confusion.
My entirely useless and anecdotal meeting with Jewish people lead me to believe that this is really mostly a 'pick your parts'.. :)
Like, 'Seafood is really okay, I eat that. Pork? No way'. Or 'I don't care about Shabbat all that much, but try to avoid grain based stuff during Passover' etc. etc.
The situation is more complicated off course, because I still haven't figured out if I read 'Jewish' as a nation, religion, culture, mixture of two or three? Being raised in a somewhat Christian (sort of - my parents don't care about religion) environment I never felt confused about that one ("Religion", in my book) and I tend to lump everyone Muslim into that same category. Different religion, but .. religion. Jews? No Jew was able to explain to me how it all fits together.
So .. I'd bet that there are quite a number of people following (a hand-picked number of) Jewish traditions who wouldn't count as religious if you talk to them about God (or if one exists) and attending services or somesuch things.
Judaism is a throwback to ancient times, in which there was no distinction between your nation and your religion. Joining a nation meant joining the religion; moving elsewhere meant (often) adopting another religion.
Jews, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, found ways to keep the religion going even in the absence of national sovereignty or a centralized religious authority. But the notion of a "people of Israel" kept going, such that anyone who converts to Judaism is considered a 100 percent member of the people, not just a convert.
Jews who meet up with other Jews around the world have long seen one another as long-lost members of a large family, with a common language (Hebrew), history, and tradition. Even when you meet up with Jews whose practices are different from yours, the feeling is one of mutual respect and excitement at meeting another member of the tribe, so to speak.
I understand of course why Hebrew (the language) plays such an important role for Jewish people, but as non-believer d
from Eastern Europe I'm also kind of sad at the conttinuous fall in usage of Yiddish. Some of the most beautiful songs I've heard were sung in Yiddish (of which I don't understand a word), plus, as far as I've read, there was all this fantastic Yiddish literature that developed in the late 1800s-early 1900s. Yes, I of course know of the tragic events that had a significant impact on the existance of the Jewish culture in Eastern Europe (including its language), I just wished the state of Israel had more actively supported this language.
The same can be said of the Ladino language and of the all Sephardic culture in general, which from quite far away it seems like it is slowly disappearing (which would be a real shame, because I find the Sephardic culture one of the most interesting ones and in a way one that defines the history of Europe of the last 500 years)
Spent a year living and working in TLV [1], my employer has its corporate headquarter in that area (excuse me trying to avoid naming something specific in public).
While I often heard variations of your explanation that still doesn't help me, to be honest. I have trouble understanding the mixture of 'tribal' traditions (and the notion of tribes, as far as I understand the matter of 'how to be Jewish') and believing in God with a rather strict list of rules.
> Even when you meet up with Jews whose practices are different from yours, the feeling is one of mutual respect
That .. is a bit over the top, no? I mean, no group works like that and my experience of the people in Israel is no difference. This breaks down rather quickly, if I think of coworkers and friends telling me that they don't "get" orthodox Jews and even - that was a big one - often ask airlines to make sure not to sit next to one during a flight. That's Jew vs Jew in the same country here. I mean.. I guess I just want to express my doubts at your happy "one family" explanation here, without bashing anyone.
The anecdotes above just cement my point: Is it a religion? Doesn't seem that way, but most rules and traditions are based on what I'd consider a religious base. A nation? Hard, because there wasn't a united nation for quite a long time. Tribe? Well, ignoring the problem w/ believing that the tribes described in some book are real and somehow continue to exist until today, how do you cope with people that convert to Judaism? People abandoning the faith and becoming - for example - Christians? How do you rationalize the matriarchal way of automatically 'being' part of the team? And if you look into the biggest country of Jews today, could you stuff a young gay boy from Tel Aviv in a room with a representative of Bnei Brak's population and get a consensus on what it means to be Jewish?
No bashing intended. Seriously. I'd love to move back or return for lots and lots of trips. The language is awesome, I fell in love with the country. But .. the identity is a mystery to me and sometimes it seems that the internal view isn't thaaat much clearer (as above: Just pick a number of people from the quite diverse pool of people).
1: And I miss it. Last trip to TLV was a couple month ago, hope to be there soon again.
First and foremost: I'm glad that you enjoyed your time in Israel. Look me up on your next trip!
Again, I think that the easiest way to think about Judaism is as a mix of nation and religion. You can't have one without the other, although for as long as Jews have been around (including Biblical times), people were pushing the limits on both fronts.
There have always been non-Jews living among Jews, who are sorta kinda included in the Jewish people but not completely. And then you have Jews who don't observe the religion, who are only really considered kicked out if they actively practice another religion. And even then, if they renounce the new religion and return to Judaism, they're welcomed back.
Why is Judaism based on the mother, rather than the father? Because 2,000 years ago, that was an easy way to establish whether you belonged. If the rules were being made today, perhaps DNA testing would be the rule, but we're dealing with an ancient culture here that's trying to mix old rules with new realities.
Would a gay teen from Tel Aviv have anything in common with the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) from Bnai Brak? They might not agree on the interpretation of what it means to be Jewish, but I think that they would (perhaps reluctantly) see themselves as part of the same family. Just because your weird uncle is weird doesn't mean you disown him or stop talking to him; he's still part of your family.
Indeed, I stand by my assertion that Jews, wherever they live, feel like a part of a big family. But part of the family culture involves argument and debate, including over what is legitimately considered Jewish. Throughout Jewish history, there has been major, multi-lateral push-pull dynamic among different groups, as well as among different rabbis. And between popular sentiment and what rabbis allowed (or forbade). People are supposed to listen to rabbis, but they often don't. And of course, it's also common to say that you don't like a particular rabbi's ruling, but you have found a rabbi whose ruling is more to your liking.
Which is why you're not supposed to go rabbi shopping in Judaism. Which is why there's the famous saying, "If you don't ask the rabbi, then the chicken is kosher." (Meaning: Don't ask a question if you don't want to hear the answer.)
So Judaism is neither 100% people nor 100% religion. It's a mix of both, and you cannot separate them.
What has happened in Israel (where I live) is, I believe, a sad perversion of much of Jewish observance, in that you now have religious law handed political power -- a mix that's toxic to both. I'm convinced that one major reason why Israelis are so turned off to Judaism is that the people in charge have been so deaf to public interest and demands that people have turned off, or turned elsewhere. It's very sad for me to see so many Jewish Israelis think that Judaism is a primitive and stupid religion, when its very pluralistic nature means that people can and should find their own interpretations.
It's true that Jews have always been fiercely argumentative and divided, while simultaneously remaining loosely united. Much of the Jew-vs-Jew hatred that happens in Israel is an outgrowth of each group trying to impose its will, politically and legally, on the other. Suddenly, whether you drive on the Sabbath is no longer a personal decision, but a national one, which inherently leads to debate.
And the imposition of people's seating choices on airlines, and such? I believe that this is a similar outgrowth of political and religious power, which has convinced some that absolute adherence to their legal interpretation takes priority over being a decent person. Decency is supposed to be the #1 priority to someone who accepts Jewish law, and I see far too many examples of that not happening in Israel, I'm afraid.
The Quran actually contains a story about a Jewish coastal town that would put their nets out to catch fish before the Sabbath and collect them after the Sabbath. The story is meant to be a warning against going by the letter of the law and ignoring the spirit of it. See [7:163 to 7:170].
What laws are being circumvented? Observant Jews could always re-heat food on the Sabbath, this just lets them do it with modern ovens. The Sabbath mode lets them set how long the oven stays on over Sabbath.
Somewhat related: B&H, an electronics store in New York owned by Hasidic Jews not only closes its brick & mortar store on Saturdays, but its website as well: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
Their main competitor, Adorama, is also owned by Hasidic Jews, but lets people file web orders, considering it sufficient to not processes those orders until later.
Actually, the modern interpretation is that it's ok to take an order and store it in an in-memory database, but you can't commit a transaction to disk or even write it to logs. This functionality is built into ShabbatDB (shabbatdb.io).
It's clear you are not allowed to transact business on the Shabbat. But is your computer allowed to? Not so clear.
Different Rabbi's have ruled differently, that's why they are different. Some say don't take any transactions at all, other say it's fine to collect the info, but don't actually bill.
Letting the computer serve web pages is fine though, computers don't have to keep the Shabbat. The issue of business is that it's really you collecting the money, not the computer.
I'm _I_ collecting the money when a third party (or automated process) deposits it on my bank account?
It would be the equivalent of delegating that responsibility to a non-jew. I don't know how would that be ruled, but I remember reading that it's allowed to let non-jew servants perform tasks on the sabbath, though I have no idea if it's accepted by the Hasidics.
> I'm _I_ collecting the money when a third party (or automated process) deposits it on my bank account?
Yes. You don't have to physically touch it to own it. There is a concept of "clearing", once the money clears it's yours. The dispute is if it's enough to avoid clearing payments, or if you should avoid taking any orders altogether.
> It would be the equivalent of delegating that responsibility to a non-jew. I don't know how would that be ruled, but I remember reading that it's allowed to let non-jew servants perform tasks on the sabbath, though I have no idea if it's accepted by the Hasidics.
The rule there is not in dispute, Hasidics are the same as any other observant Jews.
The rule is you can not pay a non-Jews to work specifically on Sabbath. However you can pay him to work, and let him decide when to do it, as long as you give enough time to complete the work not on the Sabbath, if he decides to work on the Sabbath that's none of your concern, he's not Jewish as is not required to keep the Sabbath. You can also pay by the week and then the payment is not for the Sabbath.
Incidentally a slave (even a non-Jewish slave) is not allowed to work for you on Sabbath, also animals are not allowed to work for you. Computers however are not alive - automatic processes are unquestionably permitted. AI (if it's possible, which I don't think it is) will be very interesting.
Easy solution to the last problem - create all AI to be Jewish, presumably by having a Jewish woman program it. Then it has to observe shabbos in its own right without you worrying about comparing it to a servant or an animal.
There is discussion in the Talmud on if a Golem can be counted for a quorum, i.e. can be considered Jewish, and the answer is no because like an animal, or an angel, a Golem does not have free will.
Here's a theory. If the site had an issue, they would be unable to do anything about it that day. Could be too much of a liability, so they shut it down.
I wonder how that would work, though. In general the accepted work week is Monday through Friday, so even if you did hire/pay the person on a weekly/yearly basis, you'd still have to specifically say to them that they're required to work on the weekend, and thus the Sabbath. I wonder if that's ok or not...
They shouldn't need to. The issue is them accepting your order during their observance of the Sabbath. If you're in a different timezone and are still supposed to be observing the Sabbath (while the website's owners are no longer in their Sabbath window), they'll accept your order; you've violated the Sabbath, not them.
(At least that'd be my interpretation based on my often-limited understanding; I'm not Jewish, so I'm hardly an authority.)
I'm not sure if their automatic system accepting the order is a problem. It shouldn't be (no people are involved in any of it from their side). However they serving someone who is violating Shabbos at the same time is a problem (for both them enabling the violation, and the violator). And that's timezone dependent.
It is dependent, but it's easier to prevent all transactions in such case than trying to ask the user about it and rely on honest answer. Plus it would probably make it "moris ayin", i.e. the likelihood of violation to the observer which is a whole long subject on its own. I'm not an expert in the law however, so those who implement such systems would have to ask about it anyway.
In Israel they are advertised specifically for that purpose. I'm not religious, but I suspect that this is exactly the case. However, since this user case is non-orthodox for heating surfaces, I think that they need special testing and quality control for hot plates sold for this.
My mom just told me about that story, and when I came to HN I thought it had to be related that this made front page on HN exactly when this tragedy happened.
Your body regenerates new cells all the time; that is creative work (certainly, if closing a switch counts as such). I think what you need is a Sabbath cryogenic chamber, so that you don't commit such transgressions as growing stubble.
Jewish law states that "six days you shall work, on on the seventh day you shall rest". The Talmud explains that this "rest" (while including) does not specifically refer to manual labor, rather the act of creation, embodied in the 39 "categories" of work which were performed in, and when building, the Tabernacle (the predecessor to the Temple, originally built after Sinai, which accompanied the Jews throughout their travels in the desert). The Talmud discusses at length what is included in these categories, what is considered similar enough to be forbidden as well, etc.
Essentially, these aren't loopholes, but ways of getting the same results without performing any forbidden acts. Of course, there are things which are frowned upon as not within the "spirit" of the Sabbath, e.g. leaving a television on.
In addition, I noticed some people mentioned the "eruv", a string around a neighborhood which allows the residents to carry within it on the Sabbath. This too is not really a loophole, as the biblical prohibition of carrying on the Sabbath was only to and from or inside a public thoroughfare (at least 24-36 feet wide, with at least 600,000 people passing through each day), which is relatively uncommon. The Rabbis of the Talmud (in accordance with the teaching "make boundaries around the Torah"in order to prevent people from accidentally transgressing the Torah) further added the prohibition to carry to and from or inside "semi-public" areas or, to put it another way, non-private areas, or from one area (private or otherwise) to another. With this added prohibition, however, they included an exception. That is, if one puts a fence or string around the entire area (again, this excludes "true" public thoroughfares), thereby symbolically making it one area, one is permitted to carry within it. This is not technically a "loophole", but a solution that ensures that one remembers not to carry in a public area on the Sabbath.
Jewish law is much more complex, logically built, and developed than one might think, and I encourage you not to dismiss most observant Jews' practice of it as "cheating", or "hypocritical".
This is of course a very limited discussion of the topics involved, as most observant Jews spend years (!) studying the laws and their implications. For further reference I would recommend you visit http://www.chabad.org/search/keyword_cdo/kid/6967/.
Half of these seem quite reasonable—prepare things ahead of time so you don’t need to work on the Sabbath. The other half seem like an affront to God by interpreting his rules literally and then trying to skirt them on technicalities.
What if you push the button really slowly, so that it's a thermodynamically an adiabatic process? As you release the button equally slowly, it does an equal amount of work on you. The process has been thermodynamically reversed, so all is cool! (The irreversible state change in the button-driven machine, arguably, increased entropy, though, ouch. Maybe not!)
In general no. Non-Jews are not required to keep the Shabbat, but Jews can not ask them to do things for them.
There are two exceptions, one is in the case of urgency that is not life threatening (for example a cold baby in a house with the heat off). (If it was life threatening than you just do it yourself.)
The second is you can hint to the non-Jews. For example say: It's so dark in here. Then the non-Jew is doing it for himself and not for you, and it's permitted. However doing this is discouraged except when it's important.
It depends on your interpretation of rabbinic law. In most cases the answer would be no (since you're still causing the effect by your actions), but some frum families used to employ a shabbos goy [0] to light candles, do shopping, cook, etc. Any action is permissible if it was going to happen anyway, but you get into degrees of technicality of the definition of "what was going to happen anyway".
I have never observed correlation between the intended floor and the actual lift travel and floor you end up on so I'd suggest that all lifts probably operate in a similar manor. Either that or its just malicious embedded systems engineers :)
This app[0] made the rounds last year and caused a bit of a stir: it keeps your android phone's battery at a constant state, prevents the screen from turning off, and flips the screen orientation, all of which from a disconnected interpretation of halacha should be permissible. Problem is, any touch to the screen completes a circuit (one of the prohibited categories of work) so the whole thing is a bit ridiculous anyway.
AFAIK, capactive touch screens are permisable from a Jewish law standpoint. For example [1] which is a phone for use on shabbat and uses capactive buttons to avoid closing a circuit.
It really depends on your definition of the 39 melakhot. Even the idea of "closing a circuit" being the same thing as "starting or tending a fire" is a modern invention, so some people abide and others don't.
In my opinion if you're closing a circuit you're closing a circuit, and capitative screens count. Others go so far as to disable thermostats since a person's very presence in a room affects the temperature by a few degrees and could trip the circuit. Depends how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go I guess.
The sabbath mode on my oven:
1) oven light is disabled when you open the door
2) when you press the start button, the oven starts after a random period of time
After a bit of searching in the user's manual, he discovered (a) that the stove had a Sabboth mode (b) the "error code" was actually SAbb rendered on the 7 segment display, and (c) he had not set the day of the week on the stove so it thought Thursday was the Sabboth.
He turned off Sabboth mode and was happy. His wife less so because she no longer had a reason to go out for supper every Thursday.