Wasn’t this a minor plot point in The Big Lebowski?
Walter discovers that they have a league bowling game on the Sabbath, which he cannot participate in (“I don’t roll on Shabbat!”), and later on The Dude calls Walter resulting in an exchange to the effect that the only reason Walter has even picked up the phone on the Sabbath is because it’s obviously a life-threatening emergency (as The Dude knows not to call him on the Sabbath), and a bit later on about how he really, really shouldn’t be driving on the Sabbath either- again, unless it’s a life-threatening emergency.
The conversation then turns into an interesting discussion on whether Walter should consider himself Polish Catholic, since he only converted to Judaism to keep his now ex-wife happy… whilst Walter makes a very good counter-point to the effect that Religion is not like a library card, ie you don’t “give it back” just because your life circumstances have changed and the reason you got it in the first place is now moot.
Okay, I can see that. And, I assume the current action against Hezbollah in Lebanon is also permissible under this religion because, supposedly, this is a matter of self defence - but what about the killing of non-combatant civillians as collateral damage. Is that permissible on the Sabbath?
It is worth asking what the percentage of Orthodox Jews is in the population of the Israeli Military Forces.
Being a resident of Israel does not make you an Orthodox Jew. Being a Jew in Israel may or may not make you so highly observant that you adhere to every single Shabbat Law being discussed here.
The set is truly in the Hebrew language. The tiles are consonants, of course, with the exceptions of vav as o, as oo, and the yod as i.
When we play, we often keep on hand a transliterating dictionary, a prayer book, and a Haggadah, so we can figure out what the heck the words mean. Once I built on my knowledge of nizaher (will be remembered) and nikatev (will be written) to play the word nitaher (will be cleansed). It’s pretty tricky.
Well, obviously collateral damage is not intentional.
More to the point, I imagine that the army would be required to act the same way of Sabbath as it would on a weekday, since if it were known that on a given day, the army tiptoes more gingerly around civilians, it would seriously endanger the lives of the soldiers in action.
Cartooniverse:
It is very true that the percentage of soldiers in the Israeli Army (or general population) that are Orthodox is not necessarily high. However, the Status Quo Agreement that Ben-Gurion signed with the Orthodox Rabbinate of Palestine to get their support for independence does specify that the apparatus of the state will consider the Jewish Sabbath to be the national weekly day of rest (this does not mean that Sabbath observance is written into law, it just means that since government employees will need a day off per week anyway, it should align with Sabbath) and as such, if there were not legitimate reasons to violate Sabbath for self-defense purposes, I imagine the Israeli Army would feel bound to respect that.
Scuba_Ben:
The yod does not make the actual “i” sound. The vowel actually attaches to the letter preceding the yod; the yod just sort of extends it.
If that is the case, then when Israel is not quite so actively at war as it is sadly these days, what happens as far as the regular national defense? Your first answer( to mamboman) and your answer to me are seem to be in conflict. A day off per week that happens to coincide with the Sabbath cannot include any Army personnel, as per your answer to mamboman. Therefore, the military does not get a day off. Not that they should, guarding one’s national borders especially when your nation is the size of what, New Jersey? is a 24-hour a day gig.
How can the Army feel bound to respect that ruling on the political side of things when the truth is that they never get a day off ? They cannot afford one- as remarked upon earlier, the Israeli Military doesn’t even take Yom Kippur off, right?
The US Army doesn’t get Christmas off either. So? Although the entire damn army doesn’t get any one holiday off, overall each individual service man (in time of peace) gets plenty of days off and leave.
As per my first answer, the Army operates as normal on Sabbath because it is a necessity for preserving life. I was merely making the point that the “life preserving” rationalization is necessary even though most Israeli soldiers are not Sabbath-observant, because the government “officially” is. But that rationalization is there, and therefore the Army operates as normal on Sabbath.
(This isn’t a Zombie Thread yet, right? Just a little peaked?)
IANAOJ, but I was sitting with my daughter in the NICU last year when an Orthodox family had a little boy with a heart problem. He was admitted on a Wednesday for two days for observation. By Friday, it looked like he was stabalized, but he was scheduled for surgery the following Monday, and the hospital really wanted to keep him until admitted until then. His parents moved hell and high water to get him home before the Sabbath. They got out of there about 20 minutes before sundown on Friday.
I asked his mother, “what if he needed an operation tonight?” and she said that if it was life-threatening, he could have it, but if it was at all possible to put it off until after the Sabbath, they would have to do that.
I also asked her about the liquid used to keep his IV line open (made from pigs’ intestines), and she said that again, as it was life-saving, it was fine. On the other hand, when I sell herbal supplements to the Orthodox Jewish community, I make them in vegetarian capsules, which are kosher. Herbal supplements which are not life-saving, but only health-saving, must be kosher.
As for the sex/creation question, from a purely technical standpoint, the act of sex on the Sabbath will not lead to the creation of life on the Sabbath, even if one considers conception the start of life. It takes at least a day or two - usually four - for the sperm to swim up the uterus and out to the fallopian tubes where it fertilizes the egg. If you have sex on a Friday night, you won’t concieve until Monday or Tuesday. So again, technically, it might be best to ban sex on Tuesday nights, but of course no one does that! I’m sure that all this medical detail wasn’t known to Ye Olde Rabbis, but it is certainly true that sex on the Sabbath won’t lead to creation on the Sabbath.