B&H Photo and Shabbat

[Melbourne]

I think that Melbourne is now (loosely) orthodox, with some ultra-orthodox and a little bit of (remaining) reform. And it’s common here to just let the business run as normal over the weekend, with the owners dis-engaged. Same if you own shares.

When I was younger, even if your business ran over the weekend, your credit card transactions wouldn’t go through until sometime Monday anyway, but I doubt if that is the case now.

Of course, if your business is a law firm. “business as normal” over the weekend can be “closed from Friday afternoon”.

[kaylasdad99]

@bump

I’m pretty sure religion is one of those things they can’t ask you about in job interviews, etc.

They can make small talk, though, can’t they? Like “Got any plans for September 11?”

(Which happens to be Rosh Hashanah.)

[bump]

@md-2000

The problem is, if you place an order on the website, it begins a transaction. I guess they could be nit-picky (??) as to exactly when such a transaction happens, but the safest way to look at it was any part of the transaction, including placing the order - but not processing payment or packing it - could still be considered “doing business”. In the same vein, isn’t that the essence of contract law, that a contract is made when your offer(website showing items for sale) is accepted, i.e. when someone places an order?

To me, there’s precious little logical difference between something coming in the mail on Saturday and someone sending an order via email or via an online platform on Saturday. As long as you don’t actually open the letter or do anything with the online order, they’re still sort of inchoate, and aren’t actually ‘real’ until you actually open that letter or view that order.

But that’s almost certainly a question for the rabbinical authorities to figure out, not some Christian guy in Texas.

[Spiderman]

@kaylasdad99

They can make small talk, though, can’t they? Like “Got any plans for September 11?”

(Which happens to be Rosh Hashanah.)

Rosh Hashanah, & all of the Jewish holidays, like Easter are on a Lunar calendar & vary their dates within a 3-4 week window every year. If you asked me about that date, in NYC (B&H store is in midtown Manhattan while the warehouse is a commutable distance away in NJ) especially in this, the 25th anniversary my answer today, almost two months before, would be the same as it is every year, going to shoot Tribute in Light.

[Hari_Seldon]

I was once visiting an orthodox (but not ultra) friend on a Saturday afternoon and the lights went on around 4PM. They were on an automatic timer. Make of that what you will.

And then there is the concept of the Shabbos-goy, a gentile hired to carry out tasks forbidden to believers. It all makes my head spin.

A colleague of mine native to Montreal told me that when McGill still had Saturday classes, Orthodox Jewish students would arrange their Saturday commute as follows. First they would tear off a bus ticket from the books they used to be sold in on Friday afternoon. Then they would go to a bus stop where others were waiting and wait for a bus. They were not allowed to have the bus stop just for them. They would deposit the ticket into the fare box. Why this is not paying money escapes me. They would get off at a stop where others were getting off. Going home would reverse this.

My non-Jewish DIL worked for a few years at a Jewish hospital in NYC. I forget its name (it has since closed) but it was between 1st and 2nd Ave., around 20th St. The first Saturday she was there, there was an elevator that ran constantly from ground to top floors and reverse and stopped at every floor in each direction. Someone eventually explained to her that it was a “Shabbos elevator”.

[md-2000]

Elevators in Jerusalem had a “Sabbath mode” and would stop at each floor up and down, so nobody had to do the work of pushing a button. Not sure what the hair-splitting rule would be for capacitative sensors, where there’s no push involved.

But that’s almost certainly a question for the rabbinical authorities to figure out,

[Dewey_Finn]

My mother had surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and I remember seeing an elevator with a Sabbath mode.

[Jackmannii]

@Hari_Seldon

It all makes my head spin.

The religious practices of orthodox and fundamentalist sects generally have that effect.

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

Or as they call it, a “goyisher kop.”

[Marvin_the_Martian]

@md-2000

Elevators in Jerusalem had a “Sabbath mode” and would stop at each floor up and down, so nobody had to do the work of pushing a button

Hotel I stayed at in Tel Aviv also had a Shabbat elevator.

My only trip to Israel. I had recently been read the riot act in a kosher deli in Rochester, NY for ordering a pastrami and Swiss sandwich, so I was terrified of making another similar faux pas. To my relief the first restaurant I had dinner at had shrimp wrapped in bacon in a cream sauce on the menu, which seems like a treif triple play. I stopped worrying.

[md-2000]

Also I gather that when the sun goes down on Saturday it’s party time for some in Jerusalem. The taxi dropped us near our hotel and we had to walk past a very loud bar. The whole bar was singing Always Look on the Bright SIde of Life.

[Hari_Seldon]

Here’s a story my Israeli friend (the one with the light on a timer) told me. Sometimes a hospital will run out of blood in the middle of an emergency operation on a Saturday morning and will put out a call for donors. They often find young Haredi who just love, love, love to go tearing down to the hospital in an ambulance on a Sabbath to save a life (which is more than permitted; it is an obligation). The only problem is that then they are stuck at the hospital until sundown before they are allowed to be driven home.