As you may know, it’s forbidden for many Orthodox Jews to turn light switches on and off during the Sabbath, as that constitutes work equivalent to lighting a fire. Some resort to “shabbos goys“: non-Jews whom you can hire to do the dirty work for you.
Now, however, there’s an IndieGoGo project called KosherSwitch that purports to do away with all that, and yet also avoid using pre-set timing devices to turn lights on and off. After all, you can’t always predict when you want the lights on.
The question is this: is this for real? Well, a lot of people seem to think so, for as of noon today the project has been funded to the tune of $35,421. I myself found it dubious; but look at this video, which makes it impossible to decide if it’s a joke or for real. First, a bit of jargon that reader “freethinkingjew”, who sent the link, helpfully enclosed:
If you’re watching the video,Shabbos/Shabbat = the Sabbath (I know you know that, but some of your readers may not)
chilul Shabbos = violation of the rules of the Sabbath
grama = indirectly causing “work” to be done on the Sabbath
Well, how does it work? How can you turn a light on without performing an action on the Sabbath? The details on the IndieGogo page are, well, a bit hazy. . .
Like many inventions, KosherSwitch® technology employs simple concepts to provide indispensable benefits. Our technology is employs complete electro-mechanical isolation, and adds several layers of Halachic uncertainty, randomness, and delays, such that according to Jewish law, a user’s action is not considered to have caused a given reaction. Many Poskim & Orthodox rabbis have ruled that the KosherSwitch® is not even considered grama (indirect causation), involves nomelakha (forbidden/creative act), and is therefore permitted for consumer use.When “flicking” a KosherSwitch®, all we’re doing is moving a single, isolated, piece of plastic! More details are available on our website.
But you check the website, it appears that switching on the light moves a piece of plastic, but that doesn’t turn the light on directly, for there’s some probability that it won’t work. It’s all very deep and philosophical, which is expected when a bunch of wily but crazy Jews are trying to wiggle out of G*d’s strictures:
When you slide the on/off button, you’re moving an isolated piece of plastic. It is purely mechanical, and is not attached to anything electrical (eletro-mechanically isolated). This is done at a time when you see a green Status Light, which provides 100% assurance that the relevant components within the switch are inactive. Subsequently, after a random interval, the device will activate and determine the position of the plastic by flashing an internal light pulse. The attached light fixture will be triggered only after the switch overcomes two failure probability processes – one prior to this light pulse and one after it. Halachically, your action is simply the movement of an isolated piece of plastic with no implications of causation.
I’m sure there’s at least one reader who will work though the complicated explanation (much longer than the excerpt given above) and let me know if there’s anything to it. I’m particularly curious about how “causation” is avoided when, after all, moving the plastic is what turns the lights on, even if there’s some inherent probability it won’t.
Get on it, dear readers; look at the explanation and post below! If this is a Poe, it’s one of the best I’ve seen. Is it philosophically and theologically sound?
Looks like carrying that 40 pound kid would be a lot more work than flicking a switch.
That’s exactly the same thing I thought at first. There’s probably some convoluted explanation as to why that is allowed.
Well… the point isn’t to avoid “work” as we define it. The point is to avoid anything that was done in the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. The categories of “work” include things we’re unlikely to do–like threshing–but in true rabbinical fashion, they have been extended to modern life. Hence, if lighting a fire is forbidden, then flipping a normal light switch is also forbidden, because electricity “lights” a fire. Same with starting a car–though riding a bike is fine. Carrying a child is only fine if you’re at home, or close to home, unless there’s an eruv… Let’s not go there.
While it’s tempting to make fun of this stuff, I’m reminded that our own culture (even secular culture) has traditions that come about and people go to a great deal of trouble to carry them out: inviting relatives over and cooking a big meal on the third Thursday in November, putting up a tree in December, wearing a costume and begging for candy in October, hunting for eggs in spring, things like that. I’m sure to an Orthodox Jew, those things seem equally absurd.
The big difference is that we don’t think of those things as God-mandated, of course, and presumably we wouldn’t be ostracized from our communities if we decided not to bother with them. But I’m sure lots of families fight over them!
The closest thing to lighting a fire with electricity is the incandescent bulb which is on the way out. Is it OK to flip the switch if the light is not an incandescent bulb (i.e. fluorescent or LED lights)?
Part of the issue is also closing the circuit. I’m not well versed in all this–I’ve read up on in the past– but closing a circuit is like building or “finishing” something. And a lot of the “not working” thing means not fiddling with the natural world for one day a week. No cutting plants,no picking berries, no sawing wood, etc. Let nature be–rest, like God did on the 7th day rather than exerting your will on nature.
From that point of view, it sounds very new-agey, and I can see people getting into it as a way of showing solidarity with nature. Of course, ripping toilet paper is also a no-no for the super strict, so that only goes so far.
“now let’s see if we can use group pressure for some good”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgRoiTWkBHU (at 1’48’ but you need to watch from about 1’20” for context)
Ah, the irony.
This still befuddles me, as the whole point is to rest, isn’t it, rather than to make things more inconvenient? The other holiday things you mentioned are supposed to be fun for the most part, but can become a burdensome production with a whole lot of work involved.
> as the whole point is to rest, isn’t it, rather than to make things more inconvenient?
The point isn’t “rest” in the conventional sense. The point is to avoid proscribed actions, which God forbade for inscrutable reasons.
Oh, I must have misunderstood the video with Bill Maher then (see comment #4)…. I thought the whole idea was to rest on the Sabbath because that’s what god did after creating the earth.
Well, anyway you slice it, it’s all dumber than a box of rocks.
Don’t be too contemptuous: it may be the origin of our current weekend. Jews were the only people I know of who mandated a weekly day of rest in the ancient world.
Anyone know if I’m wrong? I’ve casually looked to see if other cultures had a weekly day off, but never found one.
Like I said, all the contrivances and contortions to fulfill some divine dictate are just plain dumb.
My sources tell me that the Minoans probably invented the day off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization
More on the Minioans. Very interesting culture and perhaps the first ‘leisure’ society.
http://www.aegee.upatras.gr/su2003/memories/history.pdf
*Minoans*
I like the idea of “Minioans”. Like Minoans but smaller.
Not as small as Micronesians.
But still much, much larger than attorneys.
b&
Good one!
Yeah, but there’s one major difference–the avoiding work custom involves trying to cheat what these people apparently believe are the laws of god. The rest are just holiday traditions.
There is a long and hallowed tradition of exploiting loopholes in halacha (Jewish religious law). Some make the argument that,
1. given that the laws were set down by God,and
2. God doesn’t make mistakes,
3. It must be that God intentionally included the loopholes for us to exploit, and so using them is not circumventing His will.
As for how well the argument works, YMMV.
The difference in the cultural practices you mentioned is that they involve the “doing” of EXTRA things over and above normal activities, not the “not-doing” of certain actions.
That was intended as a reply to Lesli’s comment; I don’t know what happened.
Not that it matters, but Thanksgiving (in the US) is the fourth Thursday in November.
Well, if the kid was on fire it wouldn’t be kosher.
Good grief Charlie Brown
Really about all I can come up with!
I’m sure that the second this thing came out God got out a pencil and piece of paper to work out the thermodynamic equations so he’d know if he should be pissed off or not.
😀
Likely to be not-fake, 100% guaranteed to be hilariously ridiculous. I think this is a similar scheme to the telephone you saw in the movie Religulous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVpCNKp9PD0
starts at 1:19.
The people who buy these things have never designed a circuit and don’t understand logical equivalence. Inhibiting and inhibitor is the same thing as activating something. The only thing these. Things do is make simple circuits more complicated, and thus more expensive to produce.
That’s pretty much what I thought. They’re still completing or breaking the circuit, there’re just some extra steps added to the process so they’re not doing it directly. It’s letter of the law vs spirit of the law imo.
It’s a law that harms no one, so I’m happy to ignore the ridiculousness.
Jerry recently posted an example of how such laws are not perfectly harmless.
This mention of ‘inhibiting’ being okay reminds me of something I read about the Inquisition – that the Inquisitors were forbidden to shed blood but they figured it was okay to burn people to death instead.
Same twisted loophole-seeking logic though (in this case) with more innocuous results.
How directly is directly? The switch is already less direct than it might be. How many steps in the Rub Goldberg machine are required to transform a non-kosher flicking into a kosher one?
(He asks, with a sinking feeling that some rabbi already has an answer.)
Poe’s law says it is impossible to determine whether this is real or fake.
But the critical question I have is this… Is it permissible for an observant Jew to ask an atheist cultural Jew to perform the duties of a shabbos goy?
Probably since any Jew that observant wouldn’t consider atheist Jews or even Reform Jews to be for realz Jews.
Yes, they would. Even if the atheist jew doesn’t consider himslef to be one. According to Jewish law, if your mother was Jewish, so are you, and unless you convert to another religion you are Jewish, like it or not.
For that reason, to answer the original question, a Jew, no matter what his beliefs are, cannot be “Sabbos goy”.
That hasn’t been the experience of some of my Reform Jew friends.
Even if you convert to another religion, according to Jewish law, your still Jewish.
You can check out, in other words, but you can never leave.
b&
While many of the ultra-Orthodox unfortunately have a condescending attitude towards those religiously to the left of themselves, in a legal sense they are obliged to consider anyone with a Jewish mother to be Jewish. Given that having another Jew perform a forbidden action of the Sabbath is itself a violation of the Sabbath, having a non-religious Jew act as a Shabbos goy is pointless.
OMG you just gave me the perfect trick. Let the very observant assume you’re not a Jew, do the light switch turning on thing then proclaim, “Ha you’re in trouble now for I’m technically a Jew”
BTW if it turns out there is a God, I plan on using this same defence to get on God’s good side.
No end of crazy!
Pulling the wool over the eyes of an all everything god…wow…just wow…
What a passel of fanfaronade this video is.
One’s time and funds spent in coming up with “labor – saving” contrivances are not any more important than this mothermuck ?!
Yes, the 40 – pound kiddo – carriage to !anywhere! is far more actual ‘work’ than, well, … … surely this frickin’ flickin’ foofaraw is not real.
No end O’nutzO is right.
Blue
Fanfaronade. I haz learned a new word. Thank you.
Were I the type of god who made up those bullshit laws in the first place, I’d declare the action of moving that lever to be work and smite the poor bastards doubly hard for trying to be cute.
b&
Unless the light can come on when the switch is “off” then no amount of randomness here matters. You flip the switch with the intention of the light coming on because you want it on. You did the work, now the light is capable of coming on at some point.
Or, you could just say, “fuck it” and use light switches like normal people. I’m pretty sure the all powerful creator of the universe has more important things to worry about.
> I’m pretty sure the all powerful creator of the universe has more important things to worry about.
Like, say, starving kids? Clearly He’s NOT worried about that. He needs something to occupy His time, no?
Dry satire, and well done.
Well, they’ve made $34K on the satire, and they have to come through with a product according to IndieGoGo!
Why don’t they just use motion switches on the lights, and walking into a room would turn them on? Does that violate the “indirect” clause any more than hiring someone to do it for you?
There was a court case in England two or three years ago where a couple sued their building management for installing such switches. They claimed they were forced to break the Sabbath every time they came in range. Unfortunately I never saw what came of it.
I saw the newspaper article and tried searching to find the outcome of the court case, but I couldn’t find it. Must be in court records somewhere.
Why not just before the Sabbath, turn all lights on and leave them on until the damn thing is over. It will cost a little on your power bill, but probably much cheaper than the silly gadget.
If that’s too easy, how about owing a cat and place a lamp disguised as an expensive vase on the edge of a table triggered by an inertia switch.
Or just a simple timer switch?
There was a case recently where seven children died in a fire apparently caused by a hot plate that was kept on to keep food warm during Sabbath. Keeping electrical appliances on especially when you are not allowed to flip the switch to turn things off in a pinch can be dangerous.
Yes, I remember the incident. A sad byproduct of foolish behavior.
That what most people do – they leave the lights on in some rooms and off in others, and that the way it stays for the whole day. This switch suppose to spare you the inconveniences that come out of it.
So they’re not barking mad after all.
😎
I was thinking the same thing. I suppose the problem is that a conventional motion – activated light would directly cause the lights to go on (so it is forbidden as it is grama). But one could include a feature like the above switch, where motion activates a random process so that the lights eventually come on by an indirect event.
If hiring a shabbos goy is indirect, then surely this would be too.
I can see how this could work to circumvent the silliness of the sabbath rules. You alter the state of the system such that a random event then causes the desired effect. But it seriously seems like silly hair-splitting. But then that’s the whole point of the whole kosher thing, isn’t it? (Should kosher be capitalized?)
I guess intention doesn’t play into the proscription?
If the switch really has no implications of causation then the lights controlled by this switch should go on and off irregardless of whether you slide the on/off button.
Regardless. “-less” already does the job of negation, so no need for the “ir”.
So I could have said irregard ?
And while we are at it, what’s with the flammable/inflammable thing ?
flammable and inflammable are synonyms: they mean the same, and can be used interchangeably.
‘Flammable’ is slightly preferred though.
OK, now explain tolerant and intolerant.
The in- in intolerant is for negation. The one in inflammable is the same as the one in inflamation.
Curiously, both are Latin. Greek would have been preferable because it has en- and un- for the two senses. Yet again the Church is the source of ambiguity.
You could say “irregardful” and it would be well-formed but non-standard, because we already have “regardless”.
“Irregardless” seems to be formed by analogy with “irrespective”, but heedless of the negation already on the end of “regardless”. In fact the two negations cancel each other out and “irregardless” should mean “regardful”.
Yeah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless
I usually have to strike a match a couple of times before it lights– does the Talmud have anything about how high the probability of failure needs to be?
Ha, good one!
If I were the Judean God, I would definitely consider using this switch an obvious attempt at cheating.
If you have to revert to cheating, I can think of far more subtle ways to do it:
Many praying Jews bob their heads while praying (shucklen, I think it’s called).
Simply install a few infra-red sensing switches that can control various devices/lights, and simply pray (and bob your head) where it would conveniently trigger a certain switch.
If a light comes on by a minor side effect of your praying, without expanding any additional energy that said prayer movements, then that surely should be allowed, shouldn’t it?
That’s brilliant. 😀
.. and illuminating.
Oh, do Jews ever clap when they pray? You know what I’m thinking, right?
Clap on, clap off commercial.
“If a light comes on by a minor side effect of your praying, without expanding any additional energy that said prayer movements, then that surely should be allowed, shouldn’t it?”
There is a precedent. The ninth candle of a Menorah is called a Shamash (“helper”). It is used to light other others, and if anyone does work by the light of the Menorah, that is the one whose light is deemed to be used, so that the light of the others is not sullied by work.
*light the others
It often appears that ‘deeming’ is such a handy method of elevating humbug to the extraordinary.
It bemuses me the extensive weaseling they go through to circumvent God’s bizarre minutia. Do they really think God is fooled by these shell games?
From their perspective, they are not fooling God, but following his law to the letter. In a distorted way, it’s actually a modern idea.
one of the few benefits of taking scripture literally – loopholes galore.
As usual with Jews, it’s no so simple. For example, they had no trouble saying that the Torah law of eye for an eye actually requires compensation.
Generally speaking, (sometimes wildly) non-literal interpretation of the scriptures has been legitimate in Judaism for over 2,000 years.
The mental gymnastics involved in this are phenomenal.
Any g*d worth his salt would have less concern over a light switch than all the other things that are wrong in this world.
Why couldn’t he/she/it just magic an updated version – Bible 2.0 – saying what is OK in the 21st century?
I agree. God has more than 100 billion galaxies to watch over, yet His chief concern is about a mammel on Earth flicking a lightswitch.
“.. more than 100 billion galaxies”
And that’s only in THIS Universe!
(And then only the visual part of it)
But yeah … that DARNED lightswitch! (And eating surf’n turf .. and wearing cotton and linen at the same time, and OH MY GOSH, homosexual sex .. let’s do another flood here, and start over … AGAIN)
God promised in Genesis 9:11 (I shit you not) that he will never flood the world again. So all these clerics telling the world that God sends floods to punish sinful behaviour are guilty of blasphemy and heresy.
Well, we all know the punishment for those crimes, don’t we? Hint: it’s not a flood.
Whiny protest songs from the 60s?
I am not defending this idea (or any other religious idea), but I will try to explain the halachaic reasoning.
I guess that for many of us (me included), it makes sense that the spirit of the religious law should be more important for religious people than its letter. However, in the Jewish religious tradition, the idea that if a certain can can be permitted by a very formalist interpretation of the letter of the law, then it’s allowed. The Hebrew law has been very legalistic since very early in its development. For a religious Jew, the “kosher switch” is not essentially different from finding a loophole in the tax laws.
This reportedly annoyed Jesus, and certainly Paul: 2 Cor 3:6 “For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
This has troubled many Jews, including some of the most prominent rabbis.
I am far from an expert, and as I have already said elsewhere, non-literal interpretation is very common in Judaism. I cannot tell what’s the rule for choosing one interpretation or the other, or if there is any at all.
Well, if there is such a rule, one might employ a shabbos goy to get around it! 😉
This is the the 21st century. There are still gooney birds that worry about a centuries old prohibition of an ignorant desert tribe?
Compared to this Congress sounds sane.
Answer to question: Yes.
Response to statement: No.
I was about to ask the smart-ass question if tearing off a sheet of toilet paper on Sabbath was allowed …
But I noticed that’s something that has been taken care of already …
http://www.kosherimage.com/sbt.html
(So, apparently, then, the answer is ‘no’. But then using the toilet paper is no problem?)
Jacob — are you implying that [perforated] toilet paper rolls were installed in the Temple? Or is the analogy to cleaning mortar trowels?
Inquiring minds…
The problem is that tearing along a perforation is considered the same as cutting, and cloth was cut to make the curtains for the Temple…
The light they really need is the light of rationality.
Isn’t it blasphemous to try to outsmart God? No fire on the Sabbath = no fire on the Sabbath.
The common explanation for the ban of electricity is Shabbat is actually not fire. but building. The argument is that closing the electric circuit is “building” (in the halachaic sense).
Also, the law is not “no fire”. It’s OK to enjoy fire that you don’t light.
That misses the point Dutchie was making.
Something just occurred to me.
A Shabbas goy is just fine, right?
Well, where in the Torah (etc.) does it say that said goy must be flesh and blood?
Whip up some voice-controlled interfaces to your electronics and let Siri be your Shabbas goy. Better yet, since she’s a soulless hunk of rock, an actual golem, you’re not leading her astray from any divine commandments.
I can haz kickstarter nao?
b&
Yeah I was thinking this could easily be done with an IFTTT recipe and some WEMO lights and an app. Easy peasy! in fact, I bet you can find an existing recipe and if there isn’t one, I dare you to make one and call it “virtual shabbas goy”.
Dear sweet Jesus tittyfucking Christ on a pogo stick.
I was just joking…but it already fucking exists!
http://www.belkin.com/us/F7C030-Belkin/p/P-F7C030;jsessionid=D9130EE324D0677373701AA37C8B830E/
“Popular WEMO Insight Switch recipes….”
Very first one is, “Siri, lights please.”
I mean…who the fuck wants to connect a light switch to the fucking Internet!?
Stop the world…I want to get off….
b&
I have a couple of the WEMO plugs to turn the lights on and off at certain times (replaced other timers and switches). I also have a Hue light in the kitchen. Haven’t set up an IFTTT recipe though. But you could use it to use your cellphone to turn on lines when you are in proximity I’m sure.
I’ve replaced all of the light bulbs in my house with led bulbs. Many of them are controllable via WiFi. Kind of cool, but for the life of me I can’t figure out a use case that makes any sense for actually doing it. (Beyond “just playing with it”.)
I use it for turning on the lights at dusk in the living room. It’s hard to reach those lights plus if no one is home, it gives the impression that someone is. They also turn themselves out at a certain time.
The nice thing with the kitchen one is I can control it from my phone so if you are sitting at a table, you have a remote control to dim the light to whatever setting you want (they have various like “reading”, “full”, etc.)
Those are both “playing with it” applications, IMO. At least they would be for me since dimmer switches and light timers are dirt cheap in comparison.
Originally I had these hooked up to wifi and it ran a program to calculate dawn. There was bad RFI from some of the stuff though so these are much better.
I’d pay $1 just to see the kickstarter page for this. And you’ve written the key bit of copy already.
Too late already, alas….
b&
your Honor, I am not guilty of striking Mr Jones. I flung my fist in his direction, but the fact that not all struck him proves I’m not guilty, just the randomness of the universe.
(it seems to me if you’re flipping the switch in the hope the light will come on, you’ve already committed the sin)
I’d say considering to BUY such a switch, is already borderline sinful.
So, from what I read .. it’s NOT.
Since ‘intention’ doesn’t play a role in all this.
The scene in the video where the man asks the woman n the street to come up to his bedroom and turn off the lights is the single greatest thing ever committed to film.
Yeah .. WHAT a pick-up line!
Real or fake? I don’t know and don’t care.
This is just another case of people putting their head right up their buttsroad just to get around some religious rules. It is pure stupidity.
You nailed it. Of course there is causality, which is what ‘causation’ tries to capture in pre-science terms.
Favorite lines from the video: “It’s the 21st century. There’s got to be a better way.”
Speaking of a ‘Shabbas goy’ ..
Who opens the door for the Shabbas goy?
Or do the have a Shabbas goy for that too?
It’s shabbos goys all the way down!
+1 😉
Nice.
But if you’re asking it seriously – like people already noted here, there are specific tasks that are not permitted on the Sabbath. This is not directly related to the amount of work.
Opening doors is fine.
No, you may not use anyone who is identified as a Jew, however godless (this would include me and Jerry) as a Shabbes goy. I’m not sure about someone who has converted to another religion.
No, this switch is not kosher, because you have the intent to make the light come on.
No, it is not ok to use a motion sensor (and I have every sympathy with the couple who were trapped in their home when the building manager installed one in the hallway)
No, this is not the silliest of these rules. Try this one: orthodox newlyweds may not consummate their marriage on the Sabbath, since the consummation finalises the marriage agreement, which is a contract, and finalising a contract is work.
And no, perhaps uniquely among people here, I do not find this absurd. Orthodox Jews seek to ritualise their lives as part of their relationship with God; and as ways of relating to God goes, this is among the most harmless.
Thank for shedding some light on it.
I’m curious:
As for your last remark: what don’t you find absurd?
– The fact that Orthodox Jew seek to ritualize their lives, or,
– The fact that they’re looking for silly loopholes like the kosher lightswitch to escape the nuisances this ‘seeking to ritualize’ brings with it?
(Nobody, I think, considered all this harmful .. that was never an issue)
For them, it’s not silly to look for loopholes. Their intention is to follow to law of the Torrah, to the letter. The “spirit of the law” is not a factor.
I fully understand that for ‘them’ nothing is silly about or. Or absurd.
But I wondered what Mr. Braterman was referring to when he mentioned he didn’t think it absurd either: Following the rules, or trying to sneakily subvert them.
Theologically conservative practicing Jews would say God made the loophole on purpose; theologically liberal ones would say that it’s all part of the process of living according to the tradition.
“.. God made the loophole on purpose”
Ah, I see now .. just like he buried all those fossils in sediments on purpose …
Paul, the rule in Jewish law is that intention doesn’t matter. The few cases where it does are the exception.
Golan, you may be right – I’m rusty on all this, and possibly confusing awareness with intention. And the motion lights example supports you.
I can probably rephrase in the light of your criticism: if you use this switch you are aware that within a reasonably short time and as the direct result of the causal chain you initiated the light will come on. So it’s not like opening a refrigerator door (the orthodox will have removed the bulb before the Sabbath) which will in some genuinely floppy way sooner or later affect the motor coming on by way of the overall temperature.
If the orthodox won’t even open the refrigerator door despite the precaution I specified, I was less orthodox in 1954 than I thought I was.
…thus potentially requiring the person to do even more caloric work than a normal light switch would require. Instead of one flip, you now have to occasionally do two! Or even three!
***
Have the orthodox Jews considered the clapper? What if you’re thinking about some Talmudic verse and it just fills you with the urge to praise God through slapping your hands together…and at the same time, you wish you had more light?
“Work”, as defined some 2,000 years ago for Sabbath purposes, is a completely different concept from work as normally understood, or, a much more recent concept, work as defined in physics. So it is poor logic to hold these up as standards. And FWIW, all this light switch stuff arises, not from the prohibition of “work”, but from the prohibition of starting a fire, and the grotesque Rabbinical ruling that electric current is fire. (I think Jerry is cear on this; not all comments are.)
We should criticise religion for what they are; it devalues that criticism to mock them for what they are not.
I largely agree, but again, fire is not the common argument for disallowing the use of electricity. I am not sure where this idea even comes from.
Roald Hoffmann writes of his dismay at talking with a group of orthodox students about the nature of electricity, and discovering that ll they were really interested in was the extent to which it did, or did not, resemble fire.
Is electricity work, or only fire? In the latter case, the orthodox will use it on festivals that don’t coincide with the Sabbath. Id rather trust your knowledge than my memory on that one.
Turning electricity on and off is commonly considered work (בונה). But this is immaterial for the discussion HERE.
People here find it hard to accept that the Jewish law is, for religious Jews, a law, in the same sense that a law is a law in other legal systems. When you understand this, doing whatever is convenient so long as it does not violate the letter of the law isn’t silly or fooling anyone.
🙂
That should have been 🙁
I clearly remember now people publicly lighting up outside the Synagogue straight after Festival prayers, who wold never dream of smoking on the Sabbath. But the stricter interpretation, as always, masguerades as the more authentic, and electricity moves from “fire” to “constructive activity, i.e. work”
We have also seen the emergence of creationism in Orthodox Judaism. And the highly respected but now long retired headmistress of one Jewish school in North London has become an un-person, because she wore a trouser suit.
Does this ratchet effect apply to all religions?
HEHE
Yeah, I am also familiar with this lighting on the synagogue stairs things. The excuse is that “delivering fire” (I am not sure if it’s a good translation) is allowed in yamim tovim. Thing is, everybody knows that the first person used matches or a lighter.
Then let me ask you this .. what is the consequence for an Orthodox Jew when he ‘breaks’ the Sabbath?
In principle, some violations warrant death punishment.
None, really. If you’re part of an Ultra Orthodox sect, they’d probably ask you to leave the community if you did it all the time.
The death penalty comes from Mosaic law, but even when there was a Sanhedrin to enforce it, the practice was to warn and warn and warn… A court that sentenced someone to death once in 40 years was considered blood thirsty.
I don’t find it hard to accept that its a law (for them). I find it hard to understand how anyone could come to a rationally based conclusion that the regular light switch and the stochastic one are in different categories. In the second allowed case, a circuit closing causes the electricity to turn on, not your hand directly. In contrast, in the first forbidden case, a circuit closing causes the electricity to turn on, not your hand directly.
If you want a process that (a) creates an air gap between your hand and the circuit, (b) includes a few intermediary physical processes, and (c) is stochastic in nature and doesn’t always work, then just get a ball and a bat and use the bat to hit the ball into the light switch.
What if I wear a wool sweater and sparks fly everywhere when I take it off on a Friday night?
If its about not starting the flow of electricity, then buy a variable light switch and just turn it up/down, never clicking it into ‘off’ mode. Then you’re just increasing or decreasing a pre-existing flow. And guess what – if your central air or heating is on, then opening the door does exactly the same thing (increases a pre-existing flow). If you open a pre-heated oven, you increase the flow of electricity.
As for criticizing religions for what they are: coming up with a completely different concept of work than what is normally understood in the first place is worthy of criticism. Coming up with a definition that somehow says flipping a normal switch is lighting a fire but flipping a switch that works stochastically is not is worthy of criticism. I can certainly level a very cogent criticism at the religion for (a) the rules themselves, (b) the internal inconsistencies of rules they have come up with, (c) the legalism with which they approach supposed commands from God, and (d) the opaque, unpredictable, and seemingly irrational methodology they use to come up with these rules.
Are those legit criticisms?
I suspect this is 100% sincere. About 15 years ago I visited a religious kibbutz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavi), and they had a similar contraption on their cow milking equipment – cows gotta get milked after all, even on Shabbat.
My memory isn’t perfect, but I recall that it was some kind of button or lever hooked up to various pulleys and such that eventually turned on the milking equipment after an indeterminate (read: unpredictable) amount of time – somewhere on the order of a couple minutes.
I asked them how it was permissible, since it was clear that there was SOME causality there. I was basically told that there was enough indirection and uncertainty that the human operator wasn’t really “causing” the machine to turn on.
Somewhere in here I’m sure there’s a joke about free will and the electricity deciding it should turn itself on.
Do you suppose this contraption could be repurposed to give a little relief to the poor blue-balls chossen who (per a comment up-thread) is prohibited from consummating his marriage on Shabbat?
Cows had to be milked on the Sabbath long before DeLaval came up with the pneumatic milking machine. And I’m quite sure there were Orthodox dairymen who simply got ‘er done. By hand.
As others have pointed out, if the loophole is considered no less acceptable than the old-fashioned way of doing it, might as well, right?
It is sort of like the compatibilist definition of free will. Everything is deterministic but if there are several layers of redirection and it looks like the machine decided to start itself then, hey! the machine did it on account of it’s own free will.
Ugh!
*its own free will.
Noted at the bottom that this is properly filed under lunacy. And sure, it’s lunacy, but the depressing thing is that people actually cling to this stuff. And that, in the 21st century, is reason for despair.
The device, and its premise, are hilarious. What seems to be going on to me is a bunch of people trying to confuse themselves enough so that they can reasonably convince themselves that their actions are kosher.
I checked out the website and the patent (not much to it). These people seem to be under the mistaken impression that actions are only causal if they are deterministic. Using the logic of their allegedly kosher device, you can cook up some interesting scenarios. For example, I could roll a few dice and check whether they all come up 3 or higher. If they do, then I will punch the next guy I see on the street in the head. But I didn’t cause that guy to be punched! It was random! The 3’s made it happen!
Absurd. Furthermore, they can just keep reactivating the kosher switch as many times as they need to until it turns the light on or off, as they so desire. So in fact they end up effectively obliterating the random component. Given enough tries, the switch will always generate a passable sequence of random numbers. To extend the punching analogy, that’s like I decide I really don’t like this guy coming down the street, so I’m just going to roll these dice enough times until they all come up 3 or higher. Then punch. Not my fault! It was the 3’s!
Couldn’t we make the simplifying assumption of a coin toss? Heads the stranger gets clocked, tails he doesn’t?
And aren’t dice and coins still “deterministic”? There aren’t any quantum effects (or “chance fairies,” for that matter) guiding them in flight. Their results are stochastic only because the factors determining their outcome are in sufficiently tight balance (assuming an honest coin and dice) that they are unpredictable, except statistically. (I think the distinction may be between pseudo-randomness and randomness, as occurs in radioactive decay — although it’s quite possible I’m operating under a misapprehension here.)
Yes you’re right that we could rephrase things in terms of tossing a coin.
I’m using the term “deterministic” in the probabilistic sense; i.e. deterministic = non-random. The result of flipping a coin is unpredictable, even statistically. We can accurately model, and measure, its uncertainty however.
How so? I can model a coin toss statistically very accurately and very easily: 50/50 — and the more tosses, the closer it’s going to settle, as a percentage of all tosses, on exactly 50% heads and 50% tails.
Anyway, that’s the way I’m setting the gambling line. And if you want to bet into it, and you’re willing to put up the standard vigorish of wagering $11 to win $10, I’ll take your action all day long, all night long, too.
The same type of accurate statistical modeling can be done readily for rolling a pair of dice — though obviously not 50/50. It’s more like a slightly skewed bell curve, with “snake eyes” (1 – 1) under one thin tail and “boxcars” (6 – 6) under the other. Lucky 7 (which can be made 6 different ways) sits under the peak of the bell’s dome.
Better yet, if you want stochastic AND reliable, you can have both!
Rig up an on switch that removes a shield between a radioactive source and detector. When enough decays happen, the circuit turns on. Now you’ve got yourself a circuit that is quantum mechanically indeterminate (you can’t get better than that!), and yet if you’ve got a sensitive detector you can probably get a consistent response time on the order of milliseconds, just the same as a regular on switch.
Ta da! Do I get some sort of orthodox medal for that?
Rube Goldberg would be so proud.
I don’t think that this is a joke. But if it is the Shabbat elevator certainly isn’t.
30 seconds into watching it, my head was in my hands and I lamented “religion is so stupid!”
Now that I’ve watched the whole thing, it’s really really really stupid! As if somehow a omnipotent omniscient deity is going to be fooled by randomly pulsating lights. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!
I thought of a brilliant way to “sidestep” all of these Sabbath problems: never convert to Judaism!
I think the “no bacon” thing is a bigger problem tbh.
Can’t understand why they cannot use the clapper? What would Edison think of this?
The Amish have some of the same problems. They get other people to drive them around, do things they cannot do. It’s all crazy and just proves the absurdity of attempting to live by or believe anything that’s over 2000 years old. Even worse when most all of it was made up.
I love this quote at around the 0:45 mark: “It’s the 21st century, there’s got to be a better way”.
Why yes, there IS a better way! Just stop being a superstitious moron, and flick damn the switch.
Also, gotta love the concept that the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe cares about you flicking a light switch when your location on the Earth is rotated at certain angles relative to the Sun. Even better, assuming God does care about such a bizarre thing, you can bamboozle him tricks involving light pulses and a random number generator!? Staggering.
So…if there was a bomb that used this as its initiation device… these people think they wouldn’t be responsible if they blew someone up using it? Even on the Sabbath? So I can kill someone or many someone’s with this and take myself seriously in court when I say “I wasn’t even involved. The device is totally unrelated to the outcome.”
And what about actually talking over the phone? nevermind making a connection. You’re transmitting with every vibration of the air. Might as well make a fire and use smoke signals from it. They’re going straight to fire town with either method!
All of this inanity makes sense to me: Religion is downright stupid, and it takes stupid to get around stupid. They’re trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.
Would that all that ingenuity go towards finding clean alternative sources of energy!
I don’t know if I’m Jewish or not, however I am interested in setting up my own perfect “Schrödinger” home. My question is this, can I install these devices throughout my entire house and have all my appliances “on”, and yet “off” at the same time? Or, should I just get a cat?
Anytime the question is, “Should I get a cat?” the answer is a resounding, “YES!”
If you want to randomly automate your home appliances, go for it — but, either way, most definitely get the cat!
b&
The biggest piece of dumbarsery about this switch is the problem arises because people forget to flick a switch in the first place. Yet the product requires you to flick a switch to flick it onto kosher mode. So what if you forget to do that? Is it kosher to flick the switch that changes the operation of another switch? Quick, to the holy book!
Count to five—er, three
When they think of that, they’ll add a 7-day timer.
This doesn’t seem any sillier to me than another related idea I’ve read about — that a piece of string can be used to extend the boundaries of demarcated region in which their child may be taken out in a stroller on the Sabbath… It’s like they’re deliberately winking at their all-seeing Yahweh, who they must expect will then forgive their cheekiness if they can display enough cleverness to balance out doing something they believe would otherwise piss Him off.
Another possible idea:
What about an electronic system of lights that predicts your need for it on the Sabbath based on your use of lights on the other 6 days? That way, you are doing no work on the Sabbath – the system merely acts in accordance with your behaviours. If your lights go off at night around a particular time, the system will learn that and switch off the lights for you at that time off night. You don’t even have to lift a finger.
Ah, but your use of lights on the Sabbath would probably not be the same as your use on the other six nights, and bad weather or some other contingency might mean you want lights at a different time from usual. They have already mentioned how this is better than automatic timers, of which your idea is a refinement.
The New Zealand firm of Fisher and Paykel put out a dishwasher with two drawers, apparently so you could store clean dishes in one drawer after you’d washed them while you put dirty ones in the other. They were surprised to find a significant Jewish market, because meat and dairy tableware have to be kept separate. Yet as soon as I saw it, I said “Kosher washer!”
“They have already mentioned how this is better than automatic timers, of which your idea is a refinement.”
Yeah, but it’s quite the refinement. Not perfect, of course, though you could program it to be “smart” in the sense that it would take into account weather, seasons, and terrorists. But it sure would beat having to set timers.
Some of my pals (who don’t follow any of the rules of their various sects anyway) just say flicking the switch isn’t like lighting a fire unless you have some sort of fault which burns your house down – after all the fire (if any) is either continuously lit at the plant or automatically controlled with no Jewish intervention. For each lame stricture (which is most) they like to come up with equally silly but very funny arguments against; I miss those guys.
They should continue to live in the dark, benighted as they are in the darkness of religious bollocks.
How can any body with any kind of brain believe this kind of stuff?
It is just as bad as thinking you can hear Satan snickering.
How much time and effort and resources are wasted on all this superstitious nonsense.
Good grief!
I can see how it’s supposed to work. You move the switch but it has no effect at that time. Randomly, later, the switch may ‘read’ the position of the piece of plastic and decide whether to switch accordingly.
I’m sure it works but it is, of course, all BS.
Incidentally, to an engineer, shifting the piece of plastic is undoubtedly ‘work’ whereas, for example, tapping a capacitive contact such as is sometimes used for lift buttons or touch screens would involve virtually no work at all. But obviously the Orthodox definition of ‘work’ does not correspond to anyone else’s.
To be fair, their terminology is older than ours. Add to this a translation (there are at least two relevant Hebrew words which translate to English “work”) and you get a mess.
“Halachically, your action is simply the movement of an isolated piece of plastic with no implications of causation.”
Of course there’s bloody causation, as soon as the switch reads the position of the bit of plastic where you put it.
To claim there isn’t is a bit like letting off a blast of machine-gun fire in the general direction of someone you don’t like then claiming ‘not guilty’ because no specific individual round was aimed at him and they might all have missed.
All sorts of ironic quotes in that video.
“Anyone who’s observant experiences frustrations with electricity…”
Manifestly
and “I sat in the dark and thought “It’s the twenty-first century…”
All sorts of sarcastic cracks spring to mind.
Oh, and all they’ve really done is succeeded in making an ordinary light switch more unreliable.
What happens if one forgets to move the Normal-Shabbat selector to ‘Shabbat’ position before the Shabbat starts?
And, never mind the logic of whether using this thing avoids causality, how about this (and I think it’s a fatal flaw): It uses two randomising circuits, one to control emitting of a light pulse, one to control detection of it. BUT are these truly random? We know from cryptography how difficult it is to generate a truly random number. I suspect these ‘randomising’ circuits are merely pseudo-random and therefore not truly random at all and so the logic of the whole thing breaks down.
I haven’t read all the comments, so i apologize if this has already been said but isn’t the point of these things (whatever forms they take) an attempt to “Fool god”? They must think he’s REALLY stupid if they expect “Him” to fall for it.
The orthodox Jewish community does from time to time give displays of these mental acrobatics, usually to the bemusement of their secular neighbours, but occasionally to their annoyance. I was reminded of this 2009 report. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/5550497/Jewish-couple-sue-neighbours-over-automatic-light.html
What did I say before?! This is just plain stupid.