Does Jewish Law Prohibit Wiping Your Butt On The Sabbath?

[cmkeller]

To answer the OP directly: no, it’s not forbidden to wipe one’s behind on Sabbath.

To answer the others:

Martini Enfield:

Not being Jewish, I have to say I find some of their religious laws to be mind-boggling.

I understand the idea is to honour God by obeying them, rather than trying to make any sense out of them, but these prohibitions against switching on lights, opening fridge doors, or using a lift because they qualify as “work” just seem… well, insane, to be honest.

OK, the Sabbath is supposed to be a Day Of Rest- but don’t lots of people enjoy “resting” by watching TV/DVDs, playing on the Computer/Xbox/PS2, going out for a picnic, and so on? As I understand it, these activities are prohibited by Orthodox Judaism from being undertaken on the Sabbath.

What activites are permitted on the Jewish Sabbath?

As someone mentioned, “rest” on Sabbath doesn’t mean “relaxation.” It means “cessation of physical creative activity.” How is “creative activity” defined? The Torah mentions the prohibition in the context of the creation of the Tabernacle in the desert, so the Rabbis derive that any type of work that was necessary for the creation of the Tabernacle is forbidden on the Sabbath. Thirty-nine categories of work were identified by the Rabbis as prohibited by the Torah. Despite the fact that many objects exist today that the Rabbis could not possibly have anticipated, the essences of these categories of “work” are well-defined, and it can be determined whether new inventions make use of any of those forbidden categories. Light bulbs, pressing the buttons on elevators (though not specifically riding on them without taking any action), TVs, Computers and PlayStations all involve creating sparks of electricity, which falls within the halachic definition of fire, which is forbidden to create or maintain.

What activites are permitted? Plenty. For one thing, you mentioned a picnic…you can certainly have a picnic, as long as you’re within a halachically-valid private domain (note, this does not relate to ownership of the land, but to certain properties of a defined area). Take a walk. Read. Play board games without recording scores in writing. Bring the kids to a playground. Pray. Learn Torah, or other intellectually stimulating subjects. Are we so addicted to our electronic entertainments that we now feel incapable of resting without them?

And yes, have sex as well. Although it can lead to creation, it does not NECESSARILY lead to creation, and more importantly, it is not one of the categories of labor that was required for Tabernacle construction.

chappachula:

If you tear a peice of paper, you’ver destroyed something, so religious Jewish families keep a box of kleenex in the bathroom instead of tearing sheets of toilet paper.

Destroying something is Rabbinically forbidden, but tearing a piece of toilet paper from a roll is worse…it is tearing something to size, which is a creative act.

The Chao Goes Mu:

There are always ways around the laws. My oven has a Sabbath setting so that it will pop on at an alloted time and shut off at a set time so as to get around the whole “cooking” on the Sabbath thing. See, you’re not cooking, the oven is, all you have to do is take the food out.

That’s a gross oversimplification. One would not be allowed to put raw food in an oven in order for it to cook on the Sabbath, automatically timed or otherwise. This would only allow re-heating of already-cooked food, or further cooking of food that is already somewhat edible, and even within those actions, there are limits to what you’re allowed to do.

Mangetout:

While we’re here, can anyone tell me whether it is permissible under Jewish law/interpretations thereof, to place a proxy bid on an eBay item scheduled to end on the sabbath?

If you’re talking about a regular proxy bid, I think that would be fine…if another bidder causes your bid to be raised, that’s not your action, and it wasn’t even an action you indirectly caused, as you didn’t know for sure that someone else would be bidding. If you’re taking about using one of those automatic “snipe” engines that places a bid at the last minute and that happens to be on the Sabbath, I don’t think that’s allowed.

panache and Johanna - re:sex, see above.

[The_Chao_Goes_Mu]

I ask this in all seriousness. In the movie, The Big Lebowski, Walter (John Goodman) said he didn’t roll (bowl) on the Sabbath. (He had converted to Judaism)

Is bowling allowed under Rabbinical Law?

[Blanche]

@Feces Of Death

Who makes up this shit? There was no Scrabble, kleenex, or pens when the Bible was written. Now I admit I have not read the entire old testament, maybe I missed the chapter that dealt with rules on board games?

I think the reasoning behind it is that they want to make absolutely sure not to break the laws given to them. God said not to work on the Sabbath, and I’m sure that most Orthodox Jews don’t believe that every prohibited action is in fact one of the things God was talking about, but they can’t be sure, so they use the broadest interpretation of the law they can. If God showed up and said “Oh, I just meant don’t work for food or money, it’s OK to carry stuff around for personal use and write down your Scrabble score”, they’d adjust. Since he hasn’t offered any further clarification, they have to play it safe.

[Martini_Enfield]

@cmkeller

Light bulbs, pressing the buttons on elevators (though not specifically riding on them without taking any action), TVs, Computers and PlayStations all involve creating sparks of electricity, which falls within the halachic definition of fire, which is forbidden to create or maintain.

From what I’ve read in this thread and on Wikipedia, wouldn’t turning off a light/computer/radio that had accidentally been left on also fall into the category of forbidden activities, since it involves extinguishing a fire that’s not about to cause injury or burn down the building?

What activites are permitted? Plenty. For one thing, you mentioned a picnic…you can certainly have a picnic, as long as you’re within a halachically-valid private domain (note, this does not relate to ownership of the land, but to certain properties of a defined area). Take a walk. Read. Play board games without recording scores in writing. Bring the kids to a playground. Pray. Learn Torah, or other intellectually stimulating subjects.

Fair enough- I was under the impression that you weren’t allowed to carry anything outside the eruv, so having a picnic (which would involve carrying a hamper and either preparing food or opening the fridge to get pre-prepared food) seemed like it would be on the forbidden list, too.

Are we so addicted to our electronic entertainments that we now feel incapable of resting without them?

You’re not the first person to make this point- certainly, I was just using them as an example of the way a “typical” person in a 1st world country might relax.

Interesting question: Would “Monopoly” be an acceptable board game to be played on the Sabbath?

[LemonPledge]

I keep imagining Jews going to heaven and explaining how faithful they have been in not turning on light switches, not keeping score for Scrabble on the Sabbath and so on. God says, “What? Why’d you do that? That’s crazy. You really thought I cared if you flipped a light switch on Saturday??”

[elmwood]

@Johanna

When I lived in Ohio, I remember reading in the news about an automatic pedestrian walk light installed on Lee Rd. in Cleveland Heights in the neighborhood of a couple synagogues. It changed to “Walk” without anyone pressing a button, and was installed specifically for the Sabbath.

In Cleveland Heights, the police patrol the area around Taylor Road heavily on Shabbat. The area has a large population of extremely observant Haredi Jews, many of which won’t even pick up the telephone if there is an emergency. If the eruv is broken, nobody can carry anything outside of their houses, including their house keys, so they leave their houses unlocked.

One thing that you’ll see in front of houses in the Taylor Road area, but not other predominantly Jewish areas in Cleveland, are tons of plastic chairs. Drive down one of the streets on Shabbat, and you’ll see a lot of socializing among adults, and play among kids.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

@LemonPledge

… God says, “What? Why’d you do that? That’s crazy. You really thought I cared if you flipped a light switch on Saturday??”

That’s a typically Christian response, assuming that ritual and deeds don’t matter, that God only cares about what your believe.

First, how do you know what God cares about? For Jews, we know what God cares about because we believe He told us, through the Torah (first five books of the Bible) and as interpreted by rabbinic authorities.

And second, what do you mean by “care”? We learn that God cares about the falling of a sparrow; most people, however, probably don’t. We assume (derived from biblical texts) that God has a sense of proportion: minor sabbath violation is not as significant an offense as murder, say.

But I’d turn your challenge back on you. When you’re taken to court, do you think the judge would dismiss your case because a parking ticket is minor, compared to the murder, larceny, and theft cases on his docket? An offense is still an offense, but certainly some offenses are worse than others.

One result of the Jewish concepts of laws is that no one can claim they are sin-free. Everyone, however pious, is bound to have some minor infractions. The idea is to promote the notion of humility.

I think the time that your little story would apply would be if God said to someone, “Why were you more concerned about flipping light switches than about giving charity?”

[aldiboronti]

God, I love the Jews!

Which other people could come up with such intricate prohibitions, and then produce, in the manner of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, such ingenious solutions?

[cmkeller]

Martini Enfield:

From what I’ve read in this thread and on Wikipedia, wouldn’t turning off a light/computer/radio that had accidentally been left on also fall into the category of forbidden activities, since it involves extinguishing a fire that’s not about to cause injury or burn down the building?

Yes, you are correct: extinguishing fire is forbidden as well.

Fair enough- I was under the impression that you weren’t allowed to carry anything outside the eruv, so having a picnic (which would involve carrying a hamper and either preparing food or opening the fridge to get pre-prepared food) seemed like it would be on the forbidden list, too.

Well, this is still true…the point of an Eruv is to create a “private domain,” which was a stipulation I mentioned in my post. However, if an eruv does surround a neighborhood that includes parks/picnic areas, or if you have a fenced-in back yard to picnic in, then it’s fine to carry the food out there. Opening the fridge is only forbidden if the light will be made to go on or off. So most of us Sabbath-observing Jews unscrew the bulb or tape down the button so that the light is off all Sabbath. Much picnic food can be prepared on Sabbath…sandwiches, tuna salad, veggie salad, a watermelon to slice…

Interesting question: Would “Monopoly” be an acceptable board game to be played on the Sabbath?

It’s certainly not forbidden by Jewish law. I suppose there might be some overly-pious types who will eschew anything that resembles a weekday activity (and there’s certainly Scriptural support for doing so), but most Sabbath-observing Jews, including my own family and friends, play Monopoly on Sabbath.

Feces of Death:

Who makes up this shit? There was no Scrabble, kleenex, or pens when the Bible was written. Now I admit I have not read the entire old testament, maybe I missed the chapter that dealt with rules on board games?

There may not have been Scrabble, but remember that it’s not Scrabble itself that is forbidden, but the writing down of scores.

There certainly were pens in Biblical times…sure they weren’t ball-points, but writing with a quill or reed is the same creative act.

And there may not have been Kleenex, but there were certainly forms of paper…papyrus and parchment, for example. Scraps of linen as well.

[cmkeller]

BTW, your username is quite a juxtapoistion with a post that begins “Who makes up this shit”.

[Green_Cymbeline]

Wow, this is some of the silliest stuff I have ever heard. And people thought Scientology was strange…

[Chronos]

A clarification, for Scrabble specifically: Even if you don’t record the scores, isn’t playing Scrabble, in itself, a sort of “writing”? And if making words with the tiles is not in the prohibited category of “writing”, could one not similarly keep score using a system of tiles?

[The_Scrivener]

A few years ago, an Orthodox (or perhaps Conservative)'s house in, IIRC, Brooklyn, caught fire because the gas stove was still on when Sabbath commenced, and nobody dared turn it off. (I wonder why they couldn’t ask a gentile person to come and turn the gas off.) The heat built up over the Sabbath night and day to a point where the wood cabinets over the stove caught fire. IIRC, nobody was injured and the whole house didn’t burn down, but there was extensive damage to the kitchen.

How do such Jews weigh the potentially catastrophic outcome in such a case vs. the burden of committing a Sabbath infraction – especially when the catastrophe might jeopardize the lives of others (in this case, any neighbors)? You’d think there’d be some sort of “mea culpa” ritual, ablution, prayer, charitable deed or somesuch offering absolution to those who have deliberately committed a Sabbath infraction, but regret it.

[mnemosyne]

@What Exit?

Her Grandmother had 2 sets of dishes, one for Dairy and one for meat. To further the isolation, they had 2 separate sinks.
Oh, I never asked about the Op. Strange how that topic never came up.

That explains the two sinks that I saw in an apartment in Outremont last month! My husband and I were apartment hunting, and we visited a quite lovely place, in the centre of a Hasidic neighbourhood in Montreal. The kitchen was very nice, but it had the “oddity” of having two sinks on separate ends of the counters (well, it was a u-shaped counter, and there was a sink on one arm and one on the centre part). I commented on it, because I thought it would be useful, to make things easier to cook and clean but it never even occured to me that there was another reason for it. The gentleman showing us the place just nodded, and in hindsight I don’t believe he was offended at all - it was quite obvious that we weren’t Jewish and so couldn’t really have been expected to know some of their traditions and beliefs.

We opted for another apartment on the Plateau instead, which we’d already visited and fell in love with. That neighbourhood was very nice, but we didn’t feel like we’d fit in, and everything was at a different pace of life than what we were looking for. It would be a great area to raise a family, though!

[silenus]

At the time the fire broke out, the “protection of life” clause kicked in. Until then, no. IIRC.

[cmkeller]

Chronos:

A clarification, for Scrabble specifically: Even if you don’t record the scores, isn’t playing Scrabble, in itself, a sort of “writing”? And if making words with the tiles is not in the prohibited category of “writing”, could one not similarly keep score using a system of tiles?

If the tiles were somehow fixed in place, that would be an issue. (In fact, some Rabbis say that while Scrabble on a standard flat board is permissible, the Deluxe Edition, in which each square has raised borders to hold the tile,is not allowed.) And by the same token, a scorekeeping system with non-fixed number tiles would be OK. (many Orthodox Jews will use books for scorekeeping…they’ll turn the book to the page of the score they currently have)

Scrivener:

A few years ago, an Orthodox (or perhaps Conservative)'s house in, IIRC, Brooklyn, caught fire because the gas stove was still on when Sabbath commenced, and nobody dared turn it off. (I wonder why they couldn’t ask a gentile person to come and turn the gas off.)

They might not have thought it was so dangerous. Definitely if something represents a potential danger to life, there is halachic permission to violate the Sabbath.

[Captain_Amazing]

@cmkeller

It’s certainly not forbidden by Jewish law. I suppose there might be some overly-pious types who will eschew anything that resembles a weekday activity (and there’s certainly Scriptural support for doing so), but most Sabbath-observing Jews, including my own family and friends, play Monopoly on Sabbath.

Although it’s not forbidden, because you’re not really buying or selling, some people, like Rabbi Scheinberg, have said it shouldn’t be played because it’s like buying and selling.

[Excalibre]

@LemonPledge

I keep imagining Jews going to heaven and explaining how faithful they have been in not turning on light switches, not keeping score for Scrabble on the Sabbath and so on. God says, “What? Why’d you do that? That’s crazy. You really thought I cared if you flipped a light switch on Saturday??”

I always wonder why so many people feel the need to inform others about the way to practice their religions.

[Punoqllads]

@The Scrivener

How do such Jews weigh the potentially catastrophic outcome in such a case vs. the burden of committing a Sabbath infraction – especially when the catastrophe might jeopardize the lives of others (in this case, any neighbors)? You’d think there’d be some sort of “mea culpa” ritual, ablution, prayer, charitable deed or somesuch offering absolution to those who have deliberately committed a Sabbath infraction, but regret it.

Well, almost all restrictions of Jewish life are not only permitted, but required to be broken if necessary to save someone’s life. There are two exceptions: the restriction against murder and the restriction against praying to another god are still not permitted. It’s possible that they thought that there was no concern about the fire spreading, but to my understanding of Jewish law, they were permitted, if not required, to have extinguished the fire.

[sciurophobic]

@nyctea scandiaca

Wow, this is some of the silliest stuff I have ever heard. And people thought Scientology was strange…

No, silly is carving the commandment in a big piece of rock, placing it in front of a courthouse, and thinking that will solve society’s ills.