I mean this with all respect, but isn’t “rules lawyering” considered to be a feature of Judaism and not a bug? I had it explained to me once that, since no one can completely understand the mind of G*d, we should continue to examine, discuss, and even argue to get closer to the true meaning of the words.
At least that’s what I understood the idea was. Not being Jewish, I’m sure there’s a lot of cultural context that flew right past me.
Essentially, yes. Figuring out precisely what the laws mean, and how to interpret them correctly brings one closer to G-d. People who worry about “rules lawyering” are missing the point of the exercise.
It absolutely is, but not because of a lack of understanding. There are many stories which feature people arguing with God and winning.
The Jewish relationship with God is contractual in nature, and God is a signatory as much as he is a deity. There’s one story where a bunch of rabbis are arguing about some specific matter of law. One rabbi performs of miracles to prove the righteousness of his point, until God himself finally gets frustrated and shouts from the heavens: “oy, will you listen to him already? He’s right!”
At this point another rabbi basically tells God to mind his own business because the Torah (the contract) is no longer in heaven, and therefore God (as a heavenly creature and not an earthly one) doesn’t have standing to just declare the winner of the debate like that. And God laughs! He admits defeat and he’s happy to have been defeated.
I think that story is the genesis (heh) of my favorite joke - it basically goes the same way. A group of rabbis always overrules one member, who finally gets frustrated and performs miracles until God booms: “he’s right!” The other rabbis sit silently for a moment, then one shrugs and says, “Okay, now it’s 4-2.”
That’s not what it seems to do. It takes the spark part and isolated it from the user making it. Again lawyering. Sit down is allowed, then the cart starts moving on it’s own. Throttle up (throttle down is always allowed according to the link) doesn’t do the conventional thing but the sabbith module then will send the voltage to the motor, not the user. Turning apparently also has some special mode.
This is actually something I still don’t completely understand. Not the the shabbos elevator itself , but having them in hospitals. Every hospital I’ve seen one in was located in such a way that there would be few visitors walking to the hospital and I assume that people observant enough to need Sabbath elevators would not be willing to travel to the hospital by car or bus.
Take out your nice compartmented box of chokes, emulsion tubes , fuel jets and air jets and pray for guidance.
Dennis
I’m not practicing and not up on details of the rules in any specific branch of Judaism, but I can think of at least three reasons why the situation might come up:
They might have arrived before sunset and intend to stay the entire 24 hours in the hospital, but might still want to travel between different floors in the hospital during that time.
Or they might have travelled on the Sabbath because they were considering it as an emergency exception (general understanding is that any rule can be broken in order to save a life and this may well be extended to any significant health issues), but might not want to keep breaking the rules any more than the minimum necessary.
Or they might have walked further than you expect people to walk to hospitals. What’s considered “walking distance” varies greatly; though admittedly many cities are set up so as to make walking difficult.
I dated a guy who kept mostly kosher - he was willing to date a non-Jewish woman, but kept dietarily kosher. I was also sort of a neighborhood shabbos goy - if someone needed groceries - like they had forgotten to pick up eggs or the milk soured and they needed replacement, someone might show up and casually converse like 'Well, I was originally going to make kugel, but I found out the milk went off [or someone had not replaced the eggs they used, whatever] which is just sort of conversationally hinting that it would be lovely if someone were to go to the store to pick up something … without outright asking. We might have to discuss and ‘compare recipes’ to figure out exactly what they needed and how much =) but the money would end up being paid back the next day. I found i amusing, but whatever gets one through their weekend =)
I do know that if someone maliciously gives a Jew a filch of bacon and eating it would mean the difference between living and dying, in general it is OK to go ahead and eat whatever. I do know that I am not religious enough to martyr myself by starving myself [or refusing to toss incense on an offering alter for some random Roman god, or refusing to step on a bible/crucifix] I figure as long as I am alive, I can repent and atone, but if I am dead that is all she wrote.
Rule #1 is that you can break any rule to save a life. An Israeli told me about the Cheder (religious school) boys who would go an ambulance to a hospital to give blood on Shabbos (or Shabbat, if you insist) but then could not go home until sundown because going home was not an emergency.
Perhaps Jewish patients are using the elevators.