I have been wondering about something I heard recently. A group of us were talking with a jewish co-worker and the topic of the sabbath came up. He told us about how orthodox Jews were not supposed to handle money on the sabbath and that some ultra-orthodox Jews don’t use electricity or modern conveniences such as cars or credit cards. I thought that this sounded a bit unrealistic in the 21st century and that you really needed these conveniences. Someone then said something about areas where Jews were exempt from the rules of the sabbath. For the life of me I can’t remeber what he called this perimeter. Did I dream this or are there certain areas that are cordoned off in Jewish areas by wires that run along telephone or electricity lines? I just re-read what I have written and this does sound a little crazy. Is there anything to this? Thanks for your help.
I am not Jewish but I hang around more than my fair share, The term you are looking for is: Eruv
I can say from experience that this concept is hard for non-Jews to grasp. It isn’t mean to be a cheat or a loophole exactly. You sound like you don’t know much about Jewish practices so keep that idea in your head as you hear about them. I have had many conversations about things Jewish and some of it doesn’t map well to other ways of thinking.
You seem to minimize the number of Jews that go without electricity and other conveniences during the Sabbath. I have known a bunch of them and many weren’t even Orthodox. It isn’t that uncommon in some of the cities when Jews are concentrated. Some appliances even have a special Sabbath setting so that they can turn on or off automatically during the Sabbath.
And you might think about being a little more specific with your thread title.
Of course it is. Jews have a rich, 5000-year history of ridiculously convoluted semantic arguments which are used to justify proscribed behavior. This is why we make such good lawyers.
Thank you Shagnasty. That is just what I was talking about.
Yeah, I thought this was going to be about weird things to yell when you’re standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon. :dubious:
According to SDMB tradition, you should have asked this question yesterday night, 
Just as a point of clarification, the eruv only allows the carrying of objects, which would otherwise be forbidden. Other Sabbath laws are not relaxed within the eruv.
friedo’s right - there loads of cheating going on. IANAJ, but from threads on this board I gather: The ‘perimeter’ as I understand it is just a bit of string or something so you can say that your yard or whatever is actually ‘inside’, which means you’re allowed to mow the lawn since it’s not ‘outside work’.
There’s also the bits about electricity, where you go out of your way to define flipping a switch as ‘work’, and then have to go equally far the other way to get around it so you can actually get stuff done. IIRC, there are features (especially on ovens), where there’s a random delay of about x minutes after you press the button before the device turns on, (a total loophole if there was one). Alternately you can hire someone to press buttons for you, which is ok if they’re not Jewish.
The Conservative movement presently has a split opinion on whether the use of electricity on Shabbat falls under the same definition of labor as the use of fire on Shabbat.
AFAIK, mowing the lawn is labor, and is not to be done on Shabbat. The inside/eruv/outside issue is about carrying necessary items in the public domain (such as a tallit or umbrella to shul).
This past weekend I raised the question of whether simple non-powered machines were permitted or prohibited on Shabbat. (In particular, ball bearings, specifically in roller skates.)
Currency and coins are not to be handled on Shabbat because money is part of conducting business and trade; credit cards are another implementation of money. The point of Shabbat is to take a complete break from labor and business.
Lighting/extinguishing a fire is the best-recognized form of labor that is prohibited on Shabbat. Automobiles use the internal combustion engine, which lights a fire every time an engine cylinder fires. Therefore (by syllogism) automobiles may not be used on Shabbat. QED.
I think I want to ask some questions myself, but I’m not exactly sure what…
Back in high-school my best friend was Jewish… other than the time he tried to be the one typing our project report on the evening of some fast (O.M.G hunt-and-peck never went so slow) the holidays and stuff made as much sense as anything else to me.
OTOH some Judaism seems to involve an over-abundance of sticking to the letter of the law, rather than the spirit. I mean, if you have to ask if rollerskates count as labour… it reminds me of when I was a kid; you’d poke your brother until he’d yell “Nanoda’s touching me make him stop!”, whereupon your parents would degree “Don’t touch your brother!”. You might then poke him with a stick saying “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you!”, well, that usually didn’t fly with the higher authorities.
It also reminds me of jobs I’ve been in, where people fulfull ancient task requirment lists as they’re written out, without ever knowing or questioning exactly why things are that way, what the end purpose is, or if they’re even necessary anymore.
Perhaps that’s what religeon is and I just don’t get it. Perhaps this post doesn’t even have a question in it.
In addition to the spiritual side, traditional Judaism has a strong element of being a legal code, Nanoda. A rule like “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy” is pretty ambiguous: what does “keep it holy” mean? Refrain from work? What exactly is “work”? So, over the centuries, definitions were agreed upon so that there would be common understanding of what was permitted and what was prohibited. And, like any legal code, people do try to find ways around it, the same as you’d try to find ways around the tax laws.
The definition of “work” (from which one restains on the Sabbath) is complicated, and is basically derived from the biblical account of work done in building the temple. For example, making fire is forbidden, but using a fire that’s already made is permitted. Writing and using money is prohibited. These traditional rules have to be reinterpreted in today’s society: is computer typing the same as writing? is electricity the same as “fire”? and so on. Different branches of Judaism may have different answers to these modern situations.
Basically, people who follow the traditional rules spend the sabbath day relaxing, in study, prayer, mediation, playing with children, visiting and enjoying family. No shopping, no home repairs, no chores. They don’t find the computer or TV “necessary” (to quote to OP) for a day. It’s a day of celebration and joy, delight.
For one rule (prohibition against carrying things on sabbath), one is permitted to carry within the house. Otherwise, the prohibition would make life impossible. Similarly, rabbis rules that carrying within the yard was permitted, as long as the yard were fenced in. That led to the eruv, an artificial “fence” to allow people to carry things walking to synagogue, etc.
CK:
But only for light or mild heat - not for changing the state of something else (e.g., cooking, melting or softening metal or wax, or destroying something by newly placing it in the fire).
There was a great post once where one of our Dopers (was it Zev?) explained that it’s not work* per se*, but Creative and Destructive acts (acts like those YHVH performed in Genesis) which are forbidden. And that therefore making a fire, turning on an oven, sewing a skirt, carving wood for fun - all of these are acts of creation and forbidden on the Sabbath whether you consider them “work” or “recreation”. Taking out the trash, turning out a light, scrubbing your sink, breaking tiles for mosaics - all of these are act of destruction, and so are forbidden. That made it all make a lot more sense to me. The question then becomes: is roller skating an act of creation or destruction? If so, it is forbidden.
WhyNot, only acts of creation are Biblically forbidden. Acts of a purely destructive nature that are similar to certain creative acts are forbidden by Rabbinic decree.
For example, cutting a piece of paper into a specific shape is an act of creation and is Biblically forbidden. Cutting a piece of paper to random shreds is not Biblically forbidden, but the Rabbis forbade it so people won’t come to do the cutting that is actually forbidden by the Bible.
One thing that really amuses me is Shabat lifts in hotels
They go up and down, stopping at every floor, so nobody has to press a button.
Ah, thank you for the clarification! I can see that - IANARabbi, but it’s easy to see why a person randomly cutting a piece of paper could inadvertently “create” an interesting shape which she then notices looks a lot like a [fill in the blank], human imagination being what it is. So has she “created” something? Best to put the scissors down until tomorrow, just in case!
I can’t speak for anyone else, and I’m Reform anyway, but my Hebrew school teacher specifically laid out a case for certain housecleaning tasks like taking out the trash, cleaning up after meals, and so forth because there are sanitation risks in not doing so. Obviously, heavy cleaning like vacuuming, dusting, and that sort of thing could wait until Sunday, but if not doing something could result in someone getting sick, it was okay.
Robin
Really? What “sanitation risks” are there in taking out the trash Friday and Sunday mornings? If you have such hazardous waste in your kitchen garbage, maybe there’s a bigger problem at hand?
But good larger point, which is that the interpretations and details of all this are left up to local community leaders to argue over and decide.
If you live in a small apartment, for example, where even a day’s worth of garbage is enough to stink up the joint, or if you have pets that may scatter the trash, or if you know there is the risk of insects or vermin being attracted to the garbage.
Obviously, two and three do speak of problems bigger than a one-day supply of trash, but not having trash in the house minimizes the problem.
Robin