Amigo, the company that makes most of those motorized scooters with baskets for Walmart and other stores has two recent innovations. Yeah, I use them as the old knees won’t make it around the store anymore. In fact I love them. Everybody should have one!
#1: The new models have collision avoidance systems that stop the cart if obstacles are near. Alas, this clever sounding option nearly cripples the carts. The standard aisles in stores are narrow enough that you can barely get around a corner without the cart stopping as it senses the opposing corner.
Drive past a free standing display in an aisle - stop. Don’t ever pull down a dead end aisle although it will allow you to creep backwards. I was turning a corner the other day when an approaching guy stops just past the corner. Stop. He beckons me to move forward and I explain, “I can’t!”
I need to talk to the manager to see if they are adjustable.
#2. Their personal electric carts are now available as Kosher (?) Here is the statement from the Amigo website:
"The Shabbat Controller: Orthodox Jewish Law states that one cannot perform work on the Shabbat. This also is to include the use of electricity. The use of electricity is prohibited because it serves the same function as fire or some of the other prohibitions, or because it is technically considered to be “fire”. The partnership of the Zomet Institute and Amigo Mobility now enables the handicapped to be able go to the Synagogue on the Shabbat. Each Shabbat Amigo is inspected by a representative of the Zomet Institute, labeled and shipped out certified by Zomet. "
But it does not explain how it is considered Shabbat. What do they do, just bless the damn thing and declare it OK? Do they run on compressed air? Doesn’t sound like it would fly with Walter Sobchak.
And here I was thinking it was like elevators in Shabbat mode that stop at every floor so you just step in when the doors open - the grocery store scooters could just roll up and down each aisle like Doombuggies at the Haunted Mansion, but slowly enough that you can reach out and grab stuff from the shelves.
There has been a lot of rules lawyering related to Shabbat over the years, and interesting constructs like the “magic schlepping circle” or eruv, that converts the neighborhood into a private domain that allows one to leave home on Shabbat and be able to take their house keys or reading glasses.
Wait, wait - I thought carrying money was forbidden on the Sabbath? So how could one go shopping…? And no carrying stuff, either, so how can you get those groceries home…?
Seems to be you’ll have to rules-lawyer more than just the electric cart.
Or is the intent for, say, put-putting down to the synagogue and back and not shopping?
Also, I must protest - the OP was not posted after sundown on Friday, and therefore is not in compliance with long-standing custom on this forum of posting questions about Jewish practice on the Jewish sabbath leading to 24 hours of gentile speculation before actual answers could be obtained.
I mean, also even a lot of more traditional Judaism (outside outright Orthodoxy maybe in some cases) is very pragmatic and has a Rule 0 that basically states “if you literally need this to live/survive then go ahead”. I feel like scooters for the disabled fall under this but some people want the “kosher” ones to feel like they’re not compromising or can’t “properly” observe their religion because of circumstance.
At least according to some opinion (remember: two Jews, three opinions) the rule banning the use of electricity is the result of the fact that when you close (or open) a circuit, there will be a momentary spark and that is considered a fire. So if you could figure a way to close or open a circuit without making a spark, you are good. It sounds like they may have done that.
As for eruvim, my daughter lives in Brooklyn and I noticed a very high wire along Flatbush Ave. and inferred it was an eruv. When I asked my orthodox friend about it he told me that it was an eruv and that there was an organization putting them up in Brooklyn and another one tearing them down (because you cannot fool god).
When my DIL, who is not Jewish, was working in a Jewish hospital, the first time she experienced a shabbos elevator she was really astonished until someone explained it to her.
My last story involves something someone told me when I first came to Montreal. If you know the city you know that the Jewish ghetto was a couple miles up Park Ave from the McGill campus. Once upon a time McGill had Saturday classes. So the Jewish students had a choice. They could walk both ways (not impossible, but unpleasant in the middle of winter) or figure how to use the Park Ave bus. Here is what they did. They would wait at a stop where other people were waiting (they would not be having the bus stop just for them) and get on. They would have bus tickets previously torn off the strip and use them. Are they money? That’s an opinion. Spending money is forbidden, but they aren’t money exactly are they. Tearing a ticket off a strip is work and that is forbidden. Attending classes is perfectly kosher on the other hand. That is not work; that is pleasure. I’ll go along with that.
There’s this religion, called Judaism. It’s based on something called “the Bibble”, and is a religion. Being a religion, it has rules In this case, LOTS of rules, and I gather that many of them are of the startlingly inconvenient variety.
Differing wildly from the average Christian, the Jews appear to actually think that they need to obey these rules as though there was some sort of god watching. However some of the rules are, as noted, startlingly inconvenient, so, being human, some of the practitioners try to find ways to make their lives not suck as much while still not technically breaking those startlingly inconvenient rules.
That’s what’s going on here. Apparently things like operating electrical equipment are illegal (despite electrical equipment definitely not existing when the rules were written), so tricks are being used to avoid running up against that startlingly inconvenient rule when it comes to these scooters.
No, you’re politely asking somebody else to spend their own money on your behalf. There is an understanding that you’ll pay them back later, but neither the agreement nor the payback are happening at proscribed times.
I dunno if asking somebody else to buy you something breaks the rules, mind you. I’m in the peanut gallery here.
Our family may have been Jewish back eight generations in Switzerland. No one’s sure what happened, or how they showed up without a religion in the New World, but my guess is someone said “Okay, enough’s enough. All this rule-mongering is getting ridiculous. We’re Swiss, and not only is this “fooling G_D”, it’s worse… it’s inefficient!”
Thanks, Greatx8Grandpa Fridolin, now I can scooter into shoppers’ ankles whenever I want!
